Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Tea Party Patriots on Budget Deal: Not Even Remotely Enough

Both Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Congressman Steve King (R-IA) joined 26 other House Republicans in voting against the short-term spending bill that averted the government shutdown and paves the way for the long-term deal.

In a statement today she said:

The deal of $38 billion in cuts announced early this morning between GOP Leadership and Harry Reid is a pittance compared to the $3.5 trillion+ we are on pace to spend this year alone. Since Republicans took the Majority, I have been vocal about what the American people sent us to Washington to accomplish. As I said in my last RedState post, we must fight over trillions in cuts, we must fight over defunding ObamaCare and we must fight over defunding Planned Parenthood.

I wanted the GOP to fight for more in this week’s negotiations. I wanted them to fight for significant spending cuts before this debt cripples our children and grandchildren like it is crippling our economy right now. I have demonstrated my commitment to these values by voting “no” on past continuing resolutions and I will continue to oppose any spending measure that fails to take up these crucial issues. And rest assured, I will continue to fight for them when the battleground shifts to the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget.

Congressman King said in a statement today said that this bill was a lost opportunity.

There is no question that the cuts offered in the forthcoming long-term CR are needed and are long overdue. We must get government spending under control and rein in our skyrocketing deficit. But, while $39 billion in cuts is better than the status quo, it’s a long way from where we need to be.

Today the American people were given a $39 billion cut in federal spending in exchange for continued funding for ObamaCare. For months I have said that the CR would be the key leverage point in the effort to stop the implementation of ObamaCare. I am disappointed that we have surrendered this leverage without taking a stand to shut off the funding for this unconstitutional law. We have now ceded a significant amount of ground on this issue, and I fear that we will find it difficult, if not impossible, to regain it any time soon.

More than $105 billion in automatic funding for ObamaCare is already on the books, and over $23 billion of this total is in the pipeline to be spent. Every day ObamaCare’s roots reach deeper and deeper. In November, the American people charged us with stopping ObamaCare in its tracks, and today we made it much harder to do so.

The Tea Party Patriots in a statement this morning called it a “hollow victory.”

As you know by now, Speaker Boehner has reached a deal with Senator Reid and President Obama to only cut $38.5 Billion of your tax dollars this fiscal year.  While the federal government "for the first time in history" is cutting $38,500,000,000 in spending in one fiscal year, in the past 7 days, the federal debt increased $54,100,000,000.  You have told us this is not good enough for you. 

You have told us you want Congress to stop this out of control spending. You wanted the Republicans to cut no less than $61 Billion. Since last night you’ve said to us that you are relieved to see that bills passing virtually overnight and certainly in less than 1 month’s time with completely out of control spending of hundreds of billions of dollars is over – for now. You are also saying that we expect and will continue to demand that the government get it’s outrageous out of control spending under control.  We hear you. We get it and we agree! It is not enough in cuts.  We have fought and will continue to fight for our values and to restore fiscal responsibility in our government.

They said it was just another example of politics as usual in Washington, D.C.  I agree.  Also, Robert Stacy McCain in his article this morning for The American Spectator said that this deal was no conservative victory.

My own midnight mood was disgruntled. It appears that Republican leaders used pro-lifers as a bargaining chip, making a show of standing firm on the defunding of Planned Parenthood, only to abandon that position at the last minute. The GOP thus made a winner of Chuck Schumer, who had vowed the Senate would "never, never, never" agree to cut the taxpayer subsidy to Planned Parenthood.

Basic rule of thumb: It’s not a conservative victory if Chuck Schumer has any reason to smile.

Beyond the GOP’s disappointing (but by no means unprecedented) abandonment of social conservatives, the amount that Boehner’s bargain would cut from the 2011 budget, about $39 billion, represents something less than 1/30th of this year’s deficit. So if this "historic" reduction of federal spending (to borrow Harry Reid’s expression) charts our future course, the United States might achieve a balanced budget by 2042.

This sober fiscal reality makes GOP triumphalists look a lot like Charlie Sheen boasting that his drug-fueled career meltdown was "winning."

I want to reiterate my position this was nothing even remotely close to a victory.  It demonstrated cowardice and has set us back, not moved us forward.  I expect more.