Business As Usual In House Appropriations Process

Not pissed off enough at the GOP? I can fix that.

For a moment last October I had some hope that the incoming GOP House majority might really be getting it. Then Speaker in waiting Boehner proposed forcing each agency and department to justify its budget separately and not as part of one of the 13 gigantic appropriation bills. Boehner said it would make cutting spending easier.

As I wrote then

Not to be Mr. Wet Blanket but I think we're all a little worried that while getting the GOP back in power is necessary, it's also necessary to make sure they don't immediately go back to the GOP circa 2000-2006 on spending.

No one is going to confuse presumptive Speaker in waiting John Boehner with a tea party activist but it's good to see he recognizes that if the GOP gets a second chance so soon, they need to really change things.

It's a process and inside baseball thing but it might actually lead to some spending discipline.

Oh wait, I believed something a politician said during a campaign? My bad. I guess I should have known better and deserve to be smacked around. .

Boehner issued the plan in a speech on congressional reform last September, but the Appropriations Committee says it received no instructions from the leadership to follow through with it.

Bait and switch, it's as simple as that.

posted by DrewM. at 06:13 PM

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