From Politico:
OBAMA WINS
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN and JONATHAN ALLEN | 10/16/13 10:55 PM EDT
In the end, President Barack Obama got exactly what he said he wanted — a debt-limit increase, an extension of the federal government’s funding, and no overly binding strings attached — and he did it by keeping faith with his unusual watchwords: No negotiation.
Experience had taught Republicans, and even Democrats, that he would wilt.
Obama had agreed to austere spending limitations and big tax cuts in past budget showdowns. And Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert joked earlier this month that the president needed a transplant of vital pieces of male anatomy to take a strong stand on the debt limit and federal spending this time around.
But Obama stood his ground, beating back GOP efforts to extract concessions such as major changes to his health care law.
Over the summer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met with Obama, and the two men agreed to split up responsibility for the fall talks, according to senior administration officials. Reid would negotiate with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on federal funding and Obama would handle the debt limit.
The president reassured Reid that he meant what he had said about not negotiating back on New Year’s Day when the previous debt ceiling deal was reached. “While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed,” Obama said at the time.
The intransigence speaks to a lesson Obama learned first during a similar fight in the summer of 2011, and again at the end of 2012, that negotiating with House Republicans who saw the creditworthiness and economic health of the nation as leverage points is a no-win proposition. Even if he could strike a deal with House Speaker John Boehner, there was never a guarantee that Boehner could pass it on the House floor, which meant endless rounds of goalpost-moving.
But as much as the fresh approach, Obama benefited from a shift from offense — where he had once vainly hoped to strike a grand bargain of Tax Code and entitlement reforms — to defense. What’s different this time, senior administration officials said, is that the playing field for Democrats was smaller. Obama was just playing for the status quo.
The strategy was simple, but the plan for executing it wasn’t.
To start with, staking out a no-negotiating position doesn’t sound good to voters. The Washington establishment always craves big displays of bipartisanship, and the White House feared they would get hammered by the pundit class.
As the shutdown entered its second week with no sign of resolution, one White House aide acknowledged the no-negotiating stance didn’t hit the ear well and the strategy had its doubters.
“Dysfunction is bad for everyone,” the aide said last week. “But the president has a larger principle at stake here. We understand going through this process we will be taking hits too but we think it’s worth it at the end if we are able to take this weapon of default off the table.”
The idea of lifting the debt ceiling polls poorly, too. It sounds like Congress is extending its borrowing authority to spend more money, not that it’s about having the power to pay for things already purchased.
And the White House had to keep a close eye on the Senate, which likes to form gangs and try to solve problems, although their rate of success isn’t spectacular.
Democrats both inside and outside the White House worried that the strategy wouldn’t work. The president and senior administration officials spent time allaying fears expressed by the business community, which wondered why Obama wouldn’t just give up something – anything – to avert a potential global economic calamity.
Obama’s response: If I give them something this time, they’ll back in a few weeks or months asking for more.
At one point, the president re-framed his rhetoric, emphasizing that he was happy to talk with congressional Republicans on any issue so long as they first voted to open the government and raise the debt ceiling. It was a softer tone, but the bottom line remained the same.
Not just any agreement would do.
Obama was intrigued and surprised last Thursday when Boehner offered to replace two years worth of sequester cuts.
But when Republican leaders came back with the details, it was off the mark. The pay-fors wouldn’t pass muster with House Democrats. Plus, House Republicans wanted at least two additional sweeteners: a pause in new federal regulations and a provision allowing employers not to offer insurance policies that cover contraception under Obamacare if they have religious or moral objections.
White House officials rushed Friday to squash an emerging bipartisan deal crafted by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) because they viewed it as a worse than proposals from Boehner.
It would have locked in next year’s even-deeper government spending levels and suspended the medical device tax, a key funding stream for Obamacare that’s unpopular with both parties.
White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors called Reid, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The president didn’t want Democrats anywhere near that deal, and the Senate leaders, in turn, warned the rank and file to hold back and avoid committing to the deal. The president reiterated his concerns in a Saturday meeting with Democratic leaders, and they made clear that they couldn’t accept the proposal.
When McConnell made a public statement about an emerging bipartisan deal, rank-and-file Democrats began to pull away.
Even when Reid and McConnell began negotiating a debt-limit deal that would have given organized labor — a key constituency in Reid’s 2016 re-election race — the sweetener of a delay in the Affordable Care Act’s reinsurance fee in exchange for a more stringent verification of income levels for health-exchange consumers, the White House viewed it as a one-for-one sidebar, according to one of the senior administration officials.
In the end, Obama got the policy he wanted, including a framework for more budget negotiations. He spoke cautiously Wednesday night, after the Senate passed the bill but before the House took it up, so as not to upset the lawmakers who still had to vote. There are no winners in crisis governance, Obama and his aides have said.
The real lesson, he said, is that Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to negotiate on tough matters without the threat of total economic collapse.
“So hopefully that’s a lesson that will be internalized, not just by me but also by Democrats and Republicans, not only the leaders but also the rank and file,” he said.
Indeed, Obama still hopes for change.
“Hopefully, next time, it won’t be in the 11th hour,” Obama said Wednesday night from the White House briefing room. “One of the things that I said throughout this process is we’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis. And my hope and expectation is everybody has learned that there is no reason why we can’t work on the issues at hand, why we can’t disagree between the parties while still being agreeable, and make sure that we’re not inflicting harm on the American people when we do have disagreements.”
As he left the podium Wednesday night, CNN’s Brianna Keilar shouted after Obama.
“Mr. President, isn’t this going to happen all over again in a few months?” Keiler asked.
The president stopped, turned to face a briefing room only half-filled with reporters at the late hour, and made sure his one-word response was heard loud and clear: “No.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/1...#ixzz2hxfirUb0
- Guest040616
- 10-17-2013, 01:36 AM
- Guest040616
- 10-17-2013, 01:42 AM
HOUSE GOP EXTRACTS NO CONCESSIONS
By: Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
October 16, 2013 11:33 PM EDT
If these last two weeks have proven anything, it’s that House Republicans haven’t yet mastered the art of using their majority.
Many House Republicans believe they’ve gained next to nothing from a two-week government shutdown and near debt default.
At the beginning of October, Republicans decided against funding the government to try to force Democrats to change Obamacare. Sixteen days later, it remains fully funded, and President Barack Obama is expected sign a debt ceiling increase and extension of government funding without giving up a single thing.
The data points are overwhelming. The party is wildly unpredictable, as was evident during this national roller-coaster ride. Even top figures in the House Republican universe can’t completely figure out what their 232-member conference thinks at any given moment. Outside groups still proved they hold outsized sway on Capitol Hill.
Despite tossing and turning for weeks, Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ended up extracting exactly no concessions from the Obama administration in the final deal that was heading for a vote Wednesday evening. Almost every time their leadership came up with a plan to redirect the debate, it was knocked down.
Despite a party-wide pledge to rebrand after the 2012 elections, House Republicans spent more than two weeks in a wrestling match while Democrats held firm. As the Obamacare rollout proved disastrous for much of this month, much of the media and nation’s focus remained on a shuttered government and loud protests on the National Mall.
Democrats now say they’ve successfully put Republican majority at stake in 2014, as the GOP’s numbers are in the cellar.
“Is there short-term damage? Yes,”Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said. “Is there long-term damage? We’ll see.”
Talk to House Republicans, and almost everyone agrees: the Senate-brokered deal to lift the debt ceiling and reopen government marks a big fat loss for them. Asked flatly if his party is using their majority, Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said flatly, “no, we’re not.”
“You have to show courage,” he said. “We got 232 votes. Reid has 54. We’ve got the majority and the House is where all the spending bills are supposed to originate.”
It wasn’t all bad news for House Republicans. At many moments during this debate, they appeared unified in strategy and in tactics.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) urged them Wednesday afternoon to keep the fight up, and focus on what holds the party together, not what tears it apart. Boehner, Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) appear to have emerged from this fight with a massive well of internal capital. They fought a fight they didn’t pick, and saw it to its conclusion. Despite a pummeling in public polls, there appears to be no coup attempts brewing against any members of the leadership. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who many people believe to be influential conservatives, are publicly backing Boehner.
The conventional wisdom is that Republicans learned from this fight, and won’t put their party through this again. But many of their members say the lesson they learned is President Barack Obama is not willing to negotiate, and repealing the Obamacare is a fantasy — for now. The majority of them are gearing up for another fight in a few weeks. Government funding runs dry again Jan. 15, the debt ceiling will be reached Feb. 7 and a budget conference has to report findings by Dec. 13.
“The lesson that we learned is our constituents are behind us,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said. “They’re very supportive of what we’re doing.”
Fleming added, “The politicians up here who have been holding strong are people who are nearest to the people. More recently elected, not part of the media, glass-bubble echo chamber, and I think that the Republican Party has evolved into two groups: the old time establishment — highly-paid consultants who say that this is the way things are, and the way things should be, and they are not nearly in touch with our evolving constituency out there.”
Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) said these last two weeks “showed me we’re strongest when we’re unified.”
So what do Republicans get out of this fight? Lower spending levels dictated by the sequester, they say, and not a whole lot else.
The debt ceiling will be raised with no spending cuts — a complete reversal of Boehner’s 2011 promise to match a borrowing limit increase with reforms or cuts equal or greater to the amount of the hike. The government is funded with Obamacare fully funded.
“We did have sequestration — and it’s still the law of the land,” Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said. “There is a mechanism in town for cutting the budget that has survived. Secondly, we’ve made it abundantly clear we don’t support Obamacare.”
In some corners — that is, among allies of top Republican leaders like Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy — anger is growing with conservatives inside and outside the Capitol.
Asked who won in these two weeks, Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) said “the people that managed to raise a lot of money off this.”
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) said that there are many Republicans who “are less likely to go along with the fringe elements of our caucus.” Dent, who publicly pushed Republicans to end this battle last week, said he hopes: “Everybody has learned a lesson.”
“The lesson being to enact must-pass pieces of legislation, we’re going to need bipartisan coalitions in the House to get anything done on these major bills,” Dent said. “That has been the case all year, that is gonna be the case tonight, and it’s gonna be the case going forward. You might as well accept that reality and deal with it.”
The kicker? The budget conference committee that this bill created is expected to go nowhere. Major entitlement reforms look doubtful in the near future.
“I don’t think we can count on the president engaging on the entitlement reforms we hope for,” Brady said. “In the future, the next debt ceiling will be equally difficult. Which is unfortunate because we really need to get out of this cycle of crises.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/house-gop-extracts-no-concessions-government-shutdown-debt-ceiling-deal-98443.html?hp=t2_s
By: Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
October 16, 2013 11:33 PM EDT
If these last two weeks have proven anything, it’s that House Republicans haven’t yet mastered the art of using their majority.
Many House Republicans believe they’ve gained next to nothing from a two-week government shutdown and near debt default.
At the beginning of October, Republicans decided against funding the government to try to force Democrats to change Obamacare. Sixteen days later, it remains fully funded, and President Barack Obama is expected sign a debt ceiling increase and extension of government funding without giving up a single thing.
The data points are overwhelming. The party is wildly unpredictable, as was evident during this national roller-coaster ride. Even top figures in the House Republican universe can’t completely figure out what their 232-member conference thinks at any given moment. Outside groups still proved they hold outsized sway on Capitol Hill.
Despite tossing and turning for weeks, Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ended up extracting exactly no concessions from the Obama administration in the final deal that was heading for a vote Wednesday evening. Almost every time their leadership came up with a plan to redirect the debate, it was knocked down.
Despite a party-wide pledge to rebrand after the 2012 elections, House Republicans spent more than two weeks in a wrestling match while Democrats held firm. As the Obamacare rollout proved disastrous for much of this month, much of the media and nation’s focus remained on a shuttered government and loud protests on the National Mall.
Democrats now say they’ve successfully put Republican majority at stake in 2014, as the GOP’s numbers are in the cellar.
“Is there short-term damage? Yes,”Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said. “Is there long-term damage? We’ll see.”
Talk to House Republicans, and almost everyone agrees: the Senate-brokered deal to lift the debt ceiling and reopen government marks a big fat loss for them. Asked flatly if his party is using their majority, Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said flatly, “no, we’re not.”
“You have to show courage,” he said. “We got 232 votes. Reid has 54. We’ve got the majority and the House is where all the spending bills are supposed to originate.”
It wasn’t all bad news for House Republicans. At many moments during this debate, they appeared unified in strategy and in tactics.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) urged them Wednesday afternoon to keep the fight up, and focus on what holds the party together, not what tears it apart. Boehner, Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) appear to have emerged from this fight with a massive well of internal capital. They fought a fight they didn’t pick, and saw it to its conclusion. Despite a pummeling in public polls, there appears to be no coup attempts brewing against any members of the leadership. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who many people believe to be influential conservatives, are publicly backing Boehner.
The conventional wisdom is that Republicans learned from this fight, and won’t put their party through this again. But many of their members say the lesson they learned is President Barack Obama is not willing to negotiate, and repealing the Obamacare is a fantasy — for now. The majority of them are gearing up for another fight in a few weeks. Government funding runs dry again Jan. 15, the debt ceiling will be reached Feb. 7 and a budget conference has to report findings by Dec. 13.
“The lesson that we learned is our constituents are behind us,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said. “They’re very supportive of what we’re doing.”
Fleming added, “The politicians up here who have been holding strong are people who are nearest to the people. More recently elected, not part of the media, glass-bubble echo chamber, and I think that the Republican Party has evolved into two groups: the old time establishment — highly-paid consultants who say that this is the way things are, and the way things should be, and they are not nearly in touch with our evolving constituency out there.”
Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) said these last two weeks “showed me we’re strongest when we’re unified.”
So what do Republicans get out of this fight? Lower spending levels dictated by the sequester, they say, and not a whole lot else.
The debt ceiling will be raised with no spending cuts — a complete reversal of Boehner’s 2011 promise to match a borrowing limit increase with reforms or cuts equal or greater to the amount of the hike. The government is funded with Obamacare fully funded.
“We did have sequestration — and it’s still the law of the land,” Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said. “There is a mechanism in town for cutting the budget that has survived. Secondly, we’ve made it abundantly clear we don’t support Obamacare.”
In some corners — that is, among allies of top Republican leaders like Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy — anger is growing with conservatives inside and outside the Capitol.
Asked who won in these two weeks, Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) said “the people that managed to raise a lot of money off this.”
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) said that there are many Republicans who “are less likely to go along with the fringe elements of our caucus.” Dent, who publicly pushed Republicans to end this battle last week, said he hopes: “Everybody has learned a lesson.”
“The lesson being to enact must-pass pieces of legislation, we’re going to need bipartisan coalitions in the House to get anything done on these major bills,” Dent said. “That has been the case all year, that is gonna be the case tonight, and it’s gonna be the case going forward. You might as well accept that reality and deal with it.”
The kicker? The budget conference committee that this bill created is expected to go nowhere. Major entitlement reforms look doubtful in the near future.
“I don’t think we can count on the president engaging on the entitlement reforms we hope for,” Brady said. “In the future, the next debt ceiling will be equally difficult. Which is unfortunate because we really need to get out of this cycle of crises.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/house-gop-extracts-no-concessions-government-shutdown-debt-ceiling-deal-98443.html?hp=t2_s
- LexusLover
- 10-17-2013, 03:45 AM
See you in January.
- Jackie S
- 10-17-2013, 06:13 AM
I was watching MSNBC just now, and the the political reality is yes, The Democrats won, but just what did they win.
More of the same. It's politics as usual, with the majority in Washington agreeing that pandering to special interest and demagoguing issues is much more important than dealing with the debt and other major issues, such as why so many waivers and exemptions are being granted to those who do not want to participate in The ACA.
And guess what, we get to do it all over again in a few months, because the credit card that they were just issued will be maxed out in a short time.
In the mean time, the Republicans, mainly the Tea Party wing, will crank up the grass roots efforts even more, and they will gain even more seats in the House, and possibly even take the Senate.
In other words, the big question of " who won" really can't be answered until election night, 2014.
In the mean time.....clank, clank, clank, clank,clank............
More of the same. It's politics as usual, with the majority in Washington agreeing that pandering to special interest and demagoguing issues is much more important than dealing with the debt and other major issues, such as why so many waivers and exemptions are being granted to those who do not want to participate in The ACA.
And guess what, we get to do it all over again in a few months, because the credit card that they were just issued will be maxed out in a short time.
In the mean time, the Republicans, mainly the Tea Party wing, will crank up the grass roots efforts even more, and they will gain even more seats in the House, and possibly even take the Senate.
In other words, the big question of " who won" really can't be answered until election night, 2014.
In the mean time.....clank, clank, clank, clank,clank............
- Stan.Dupp
- 10-17-2013, 06:37 AM
I think that the over zealous brinkmanship by the Idiot Cruz and his tea-party cohorts have done so much damage to the Republican party, that seats will actually be lost in the upcoming Gubernatorial races. If the tea-party folks like Ted Cruz try to do this shit again in just 12 weeks or so right when election is around the corner they will lose even more seats. I don't think most of the Republicans are going to be so willing to allow this to happen.
But we will just have to see. The fact that you have the Houston Chronicle and others withdrawing their support of Cruz, is a pretty good sign folks in America have had enough.
What did the Republicans gain from this? Zero. Except of course their poll ratings falling faster than a heavy rock.
By the way Corey Booker won his seat, and it couldn't have helped him more with all this going on. The tea-partier he was running against lost big time. The news said folks showed up in droves pissed as hell about what has just happened and were demonstrating their dislike of the tea-party at the voting polls.
But we will just have to see. The fact that you have the Houston Chronicle and others withdrawing their support of Cruz, is a pretty good sign folks in America have had enough.
What did the Republicans gain from this? Zero. Except of course their poll ratings falling faster than a heavy rock.
By the way Corey Booker won his seat, and it couldn't have helped him more with all this going on. The tea-partier he was running against lost big time. The news said folks showed up in droves pissed as hell about what has just happened and were demonstrating their dislike of the tea-party at the voting polls.
- gnadfly
- 10-17-2013, 06:43 AM
clank, clank, clank, clank
Democrats: "Winning!"
clank, clank, clank, clank
Democrats: "Winning!"
clank, clank, clank, clank
- Stan.Dupp
- 10-17-2013, 06:46 AM
The only people who have been kicking the can down the road have been the Republicans, because they want to "use" the debt ceiling as leverage and hostage taking. It is not the Democrats who are kicking the can down the road. The Democrats have been trying to get this resolved.
So the Clank Clank Clank comes from the silver tipped toes of the tea-party Republicans.
So the Clank Clank Clank comes from the silver tipped toes of the tea-party Republicans.
- Guest040616
- 10-17-2013, 06:51 AM
- Stan.Dupp
- 10-17-2013, 06:58 AM
- Guest040616
- 10-17-2013, 07:08 AM
- gnadfly
- 10-17-2013, 07:18 AM
The only people who have been kicking the can down the road have been the Republicans, because they want to "use" the debt ceiling as leverage and hostage taking. It is not the Democrats who are kicking the can down the road. The Democrats have been trying to get this resolved.donk
So the Clank Clank Clank comes from the silver tipped toes of the tea-party Republicans. Originally Posted by Stan.Dupp
- Yssup Rider
- 10-17-2013, 08:26 AM
The same campaign machine that swept Obama into a second term -- in spite of his popularity ratings and unpopularity if the health reforms -- will be prepared to decimate the Tea Party crazies next November.
Before the D's were just happy to see the GOP shoot itself in the foot by succumbing to the screaming meemees. The head shot will come after the primaries.
Already a lot of top operatives are secretly helping Tea Party groups (or not so secretly) run the dumbest of the dumb...the least electable TP whackos possible. The notion that the TP's grassroots efforts are going to deliver them the majority in the Senate is utter lunacy.
Democrats will pick up seats in the mid terms. Maybe even enough to end this stupid shit.
Before the D's were just happy to see the GOP shoot itself in the foot by succumbing to the screaming meemees. The head shot will come after the primaries.
Already a lot of top operatives are secretly helping Tea Party groups (or not so secretly) run the dumbest of the dumb...the least electable TP whackos possible. The notion that the TP's grassroots efforts are going to deliver them the majority in the Senate is utter lunacy.
Democrats will pick up seats in the mid terms. Maybe even enough to end this stupid shit.
- Texas Contrarian
- 10-17-2013, 08:32 AM
The only people who have been kicking the can down the road have been the Republicans, because they want to "use" the debt ceiling as leverage and hostage taking. It is not the Democrats who are kicking the can down the road. The Democrats have been trying to get this resolved.Referring to all these "governing-by-crises" debt ceiling standoffs as "can-kicking" actually deflects attention from serious discussion of the real can-kicking -- that is, the obvious failure of either political party to do much of anything about putting the nation's fisc on a sustainable, long-term trajectory.
So the Clank Clank Clank comes from the silver tipped toes of the tea-party Republicans. Originally Posted by Stan.Dupp
With respect to sustainable policy, neither of our corrupt, dysfunctional parties has any intention of doing anything other than trying to win partisan political battles. Going beyond that would involve heavy lifting and tough decisions. In other words, actual leadership. Good luck finding any of that nowadays from anyone with the ability to move the political needle.
Ignore the distractions and sideshows. The real "clank, clank, clank" has been brought to you by politicians of both parties over a period of many years. (Especially the last dozen.)
- Whirlaway
- 10-17-2013, 08:34 AM
How old are you Stan Dope ?
- Jackie S
- 10-17-2013, 09:15 AM
Referring to all these "governing-by-crises" debt ceiling standoffs as "can-kicking" actually deflects attention from serious discussion of the real can-kicking -- that is, the obvious failure of either political party to do much of anything about putting the nation's fisc on a sustainable, long-term trajectory.How true.
With respect to sustainable policy, neither of our corrupt, dysfunctional parties has any intention of doing anything other than trying to win partisan political battles. Going beyond that would involve heavy lifting and tough decisions. In other words, actual leadership. Good luck finding any of that nowadays from anyone with the ability to move the political needle.
Ignore the distractions and sideshows. The real "clank, clank, clank" has been brought to you by politicians of both parties over a period of many years. (Especially the last dozen.) Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight
And we, the American Voter, are to blame. We are always for "getting rid of wasteful spending", until the "wasteful spending" they want to get rid of is going into your local community.
A good example is Texas and NASA. Texas is as red as it gets, and the majority is pretty darned conservative, both in social terms and fiscal terms.
But then there is NASA, sitting right down there in Clear Lake City, with, for all purposes, no mandate to do anything except spend billions of dollars on feel good programs in space that, when it's all said and done, could be accomplished right here on Earth.
And that whole moon thing, and Mars. The Moon is a big, lifeless rock that just happens to orbiting Earth. That is it. There ain't nothing there. And Mars. Who gives a shit. We can see just about anything worth seeing, and detecting anything worth detecting, with earthbound equipment. And guess what. There isn't anything there either. Mars was getting along fine for billions of years before we decided we just had to go there.
So, you would think conservative minded Texans
would say, "let's cut back on NASA". Yeh, make that as part of your political platform and see how high it flies.
The entire Country is permeated with feel good, pork loaded programs just like this. And they are expensive. For every "bridge to nowhere" that has the good ole boys and girls screaming, there are solutions to non existent problems in their own backyard, sucking the taxpayers dry.