McConnell: Senate to pass government funding into March

By Alexander Bolton - 12/19/10 12:44 PM ET

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Sunday he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have agreed to a short-term spending measure to keep the federal government operating into March 2011.

“We're going to pass a short-term continuing resolution over into March,” McConnell said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

A Senate Democratic aide, however, said a deal is not final and "there are still outstanding issues."

Government funding is due to expire at the end of Tuesday. The Senate is expected to pass the longer-term measure by unanimous consent before then. 

Reid attempted to pass a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that would have funded the government through the end of fiscal year 2011. But he had to pull the bill from the Senate floor after nine Republican senators who had pledged to vote for it yanked their support at the last moment, according to Democratic aides.

The House earlier this month passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2011.

Republicans wanted a shorter stop-gap spending measure to give Republicans an opportunity to cut federal spending when they take over the House in January.

On Thursday, McConnell proposed a one-page resolution funding the government through Feb. 18.

GOP budget leader: 'We're heading to Greece, we're heading to Ireland'

By Bridget Johnson - 12/19/10 12:10 PM ET

The incoming ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee warned Sunday that the U.S. is headed in the direction of states that have gone bust if Washington doesn't get its fiscal house in order.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the midterm election, in which Republicans took control of the House and reduced Democrats' majority in the Senate, showed that voters expected a change in direction.

"People see where we're headed," Sessions said. "We're heading to Greece. We're heading to Ireland. We're heading to California."

In May, the IMF and EU agreed to extend a $145 billion bailout package to Greece. In November, a $113 billion bailout package was extended to keep Ireland afloat.

"I think the House is going to submit a very lean, tight, tough budget," Sessions said. "And the Senate is going to have a real difficult time accommodating the challenges that we face."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said on the program that Democrats had led the way in balancing the budget in past years.

"When the president came in, he inherited this debt that had grown and grown and grown over the Bush years. When Bill Clinton left office -- the last time that we had a surplus, it was a Democratic president," Klobuchar said.

"So you have to look at the fact that Democrats have made some tough decisions in the past," she added. "They got us into a balanced budget. And we can make the tough decisions this time."

Sessions countered that Clinton claimed credit for balancing the budget, but "there was blood, politically, on the floor" as Congress made it happen.

"We have to start in the Senate," Sessions said. "Greece is having troubles, but they're going to be better for this. New Jersey is having protests and objections, but they're going to be better for the difficult choices they're making. 

"And we're not going to sink into the abyss if we reduce spending in America."

One could argue that Georgia has been under the Tea Party Influence for some time.

One could argue that Georgia has been under the Tea Party Influence for some time.

 In presidential races, Georgia has failed to give its electoral college votes to the Republican candidate only four times since 1964: in 1968, segregationist George Wallace won a plurality of Georgia's votes on the American Independent Party ticket; former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter won his home state by landslide margins in 1976 and 1980; and then-ArkansasGovernor Bill Clinton won a plurality of votes in 1992 against incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush and Independent Ross Perot. Republican George W. Bush won Georgia in 2000and 2004 with 54.67% and 57.97%, respectively, of the vote. However, in 2008, John McCain won the state by only 5 points, 52% to Democrat Barack Obama's 47%.

By 2007, conservative Republicans had become the dominant force in state politics, with Republicans holding the offices of governor and lieutenant governor and significant majorities in both houses of the state General Assembly. U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson are together considered to be one of the most conservative Senate delegations.[citation needed] Since 2005, Georgia's U.S. House delegation has been composed of 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats.

The Tea Party is a political movement in the United States that has sponsored locally- and nationally-coordinated protests since 2009.[1][2][3]Its platform is explicitly populist[4][5][6] and is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian.[7][8] It endorses reduced government spending,[9][10] lower taxes,[10] reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit,[9] and adherence to an originalist interpretation of theUnited States Constitution.[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

  It focuses on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and upholding a conservative view of the Constitution.

 As of 2010, the Tea Party Movement is not a national political party, does not officially run Congressional candidates, and its name has not appeared on any ballots, but it has so far endorsed Republican candidates.[14] The Tea Party movement has no central leadership but is composed of a loose affiliation of national and local groups that determine their own platforms and agendas. For this reason, the Tea Party movement is often cited as an example of grassroots political activity, although it has also been cited as an example of astroturfing.

 Several polls have been conducted on the demographics of the movement. Though the various polls sometimes turn up slightly different results, they tend to show that Tea Party supporters are mainly white and slightly more likely to be male, married, older than 45, more conservative than the general population, and likely to be more wealthy and have more education.[53][54][55][56][57]

One Gallup poll found that other than gender, income and politics, self-described Tea Party members were demographically similar to the population as a whole.[58]

When surveying supporters or participants of the Tea Party movement, polls have shown that they are significantly more likely to be registered Republican, have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party and an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party.[57][59] The Bloomberg Newspoll showed that 40% are 55 or older, 79% are white, 61% are men and 44% identify as "born-again" Christians,[60] compared to 23.4%,[61]75%,[62] 48.5%,[63] and 34%[64] for the general population, respectively.

 Many of the movement's members also hold conservative views on social issues such as illegal immigration.[70] However, political analyst Dick Morris has argued that in a "fundamental change" evangelical or social issues do not dominate the Republican activists in 2010, because "economic and fiscal issues prevail. The Tea Party has made the Republican Party safe for libertarians."[7]

Political analyst Dick Morris says there is no national leadership. "Those who conduct its affairs are mere coordinators of local groups where the real power lies. The entire affair is a grass roots-dominated movement." He notes that the teapartypatriots.org umbrella group, with more than 2,800 local affiliates, has only seven paid staff members, and a payroll of $50,000 a month.[7] The movement has been supported nationally by prominent individuals and organizations,[73][74] including:

• The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, a loose national coalition of several dozen local tea party groups;
• Tea Party Express, a national bus tour run by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, itself a conservative political action committee created by Sacramento-based Republican consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates;[75][76][77][78]
• Tea Party Nation, which sponsored the National Tea Party Convention that was criticized for its $549 ticket price[79][80][81][82] and because Sarah Palin was apparently paid $100,000 USD for her appearance;[83]
• Tea Party Patriots, an organization with more than 1,000 affiliated groups across the nation[84] that proclaims itself to be the "Official Home of the Tea Party Movement;[85] and
• The National Tea Party Federation, formed on April 8, 2010 by several leaders in the Tea Party movement to help spread its message and to respond to critics with a quick, unified response.[86]
• In July 2010, Representative Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, formed the House congressional Tea Party Caucus. This congressional caucus, which Bachmann chairs, will be devoted to the Tea Party's stated principles of "fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and limited government."[87] As of August 2, 2010, the caucus consisted of 49 Republican representatives. Jason Chaffetz and Melissa Clouthier accuse them of trying to hijack or co-opt the grass roots Tea Party Movement.[88]
• Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard has said: "There is no single Tea Party. The name is an umbrella that encompasses many different groups. Under this umbrella, you’ll find everyone from the woolly fringe to Ron Paul supporters, from Americans for Prosperity to religious conservatives, independents, and citizens who never have been active in politics before. The umbrella is gigantic."[157]