Wonkbook: This is what it looks like when the Republican budget strategy falls apart 1AUG13

THE repiglican / tea-bagger obstructionist remind me of Egypt's muslim brotherhood. Full of deceptive rhetoric, once in office they are unable to govern, leaving their constituents no better off, and generally worse off than they were before. The only ones to profit from their election are the rich and powerful. This from the Washington Post is on the total failure of the repiglicans and tea-baggers to move their fanatical regressive agenda through Congress. The question is how long those who were duped into electing them are going to tolerate their unproductive antics in Congress? 
Question of the day: Who said this?
“Thus I believe that the House has made its choice: sequestration -- and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts -- must be brought to an end."
Nancy Pelosi? Steny Hoyer? Chris Van Hollen?
Wrong. That was Hal Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who leads the House Appropriations Committee, after the aptly named THUD bill failed on the House floor (notice how I didn’t say it “landed with a thud”, or something similar? You can thank me later.)
“THUD,” in this case, stood for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. It’s the bill to fund those parts of the government through the next year. The cuts needed to be deep to hit the Ryan budget’s target. Too deep, as it turned out. The bill was pulled off the floor as support collapsed around it.
This is what it looks like when the Republican budget strategy collapses.
THUD’s fall comes days after House Republicans were supposed to release the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, which required cuts 19 percent beneath sequestration’s levels. The bill didn’t materialize.
It comes after House Republicans passed defense and veteran’s appropriations at higher levels than sequestration permitted — necessitating deeper cuts elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republicans are breaking with Mitch McConnell to back appropriations bills that reach pre-sequestration levels — bills that House Republicans have already dismissed.
Budget politics have an odd rhythm. The budget proposal comes early in the year, and its cuts are vague. It mostly just sets broad targets for different categories of spending. The appropriations bills come later in the year, and that’s where cuts need to get specific.
Republicans endorsed the vague outlines of Ryan’s budget early in the year. But now they’re realizing they can’t pass the documents that make those cuts specific — they’re simply too deep. But they can’t back out of the Ryan budget, either. The result is a mess — although one that may make at least a few Republicans, including Hal Rogers, more eager for a face-saving budget deal in the fall.