Thread: Conservative 'Blue Dog' Democrats Flex Muscles as Obama Stum

Conservative 'Blue Dog' Democrats Flex Muscles as Obama Stumbles

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:21 PM

WASHINGTON - Conservative and moderate Democrats are flexing their muscles on Capitol Hill, demanding significantly lower spending for domestic programs as well as automatic budget cuts if tax cuts and new programs would increase the deficit.

A group of 51 so-called "Blue Dog" House Democrats released their roster of budget demands Thursday, calling for cutting more than $40 billion from domestic programs funded by Congress each year.

At the same time, they said that President Barack Obama's controversial bill to fight global warming should not be permitted to advance under rules that shut off the right of Senate Republicans to filibuster the measure.

The Blue Dogs, a coalition of moderate and conservative Democrats, many of them from the South, control a critical bloc of votes needed to pass the congressional budget blueprint. It is the first legislative response to Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for next year.

Of greatest importance to the group is putting in place a legally binding "pay as you go" system governing new tax cuts and benefit programs such as Obama's health reform initiative.

Under such a regimen, legislation cutting taxes, establishing new benefit programs or making current programs more generous must be "paid for" with higher revenues or benefit cuts elsewhere. If the rule is broken, it would trigger across-the-board cuts in other benefit programs, with Social Security exempted.

Such a statutory pay-as-you-go system, or "paygo," was in place for years in the 1990s and early this decade, though the law was simply "switched off" when Congress passed President George W. Bush's 2001 tax-cut bill.

"We're trying to be constructive in a way that allows the president to get an acceptable budget," said Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., "but at the same time get paygo statutorily put in place."

While the group hasn't drawn any lines in the sand, some of their demands are likely to be met, especially regarding global warming. Opposition from the Blue Dogs likely ensures that Obama's controversial "cap-and-trade" plan to limit greenhouse gases won't advance in a fast-track budget bill that could avoid a GOP filibuster in the Senate.

Under cap-and-trade, the government would establish a market for carbon dioxide by selling credits to companies that emit greenhouse gases. The companies can then invest in technologies to reduce emissions to reach a certain target or buy credits from other companies that already have met their emission reduction goals. The cost of the credits would be passed on to consumers.

The demands by moderates to curb the growth of domestic agency budgets by limiting the increase for next year to inflation will face great resistance from senior lawmakers and the administration.

Obama sought a $51 billion, 9 percent increase for non-defense programs, a figure that's probably too high to pass, especially with Congressional Budget Office estimates on Friday expected to show that the worsening economy with produce significantly higher deficits than predicted by Obama's budget.

"I'm going to show that we've made many adjustments in the budget in light of CBO's re-estimates," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Administration allies such as House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., are pressing for budget increases well above those sought by moderates.

The looming battle over how much to devote to annual domestic agency budgets is important because unlike other elements of the congressional budget plan—they are often more symbolic than substantive—the annual caps on appropriations have real impact on programs.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/conser ... 94047.html

Hopefully, the 51 "Blue Dog" House Democrats and the Senate's new "Moderate Dems Working Group", consisting of 14 Democrats plus Joe Lieberman, will join forces with Republicans to resist the partisan dictatorship of Pelosi and Reid and succeed in promoting more balanced policies and agendas.


Moderate Dems Working Group


David Edwards and Joe Byrne
Published: Wednesday March 18, 2009


Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) proclaimed today on MSNBC's Morning Joe the beginning of a new group of conservative Democrats that could work to block Obama's budget priorities.

The group, which is composed of 14 Senate Democrats and Joe Lieberman(I-CT), are the same Senators who met two weeks ago to discuss how centrists can assert more leverage on the policy debates that are dominating Congress. The goal of Bayh's “Moderate Dems Working Groupâ€