CHART: Democrats Have Already Negotiated & Compromised
Republicans continue to falsely claim that President Obama and Democrats won’t negotiate over the budget. That’s just not true.
In fact, Senate Democrats even tried once again this afternoon to launch a formal conference committee to hash out a budget through September of 2014, but Republicans blocked their request, as they have on 19 previous occasions since the Senate passed a budget over six months ago.
What is true is that Democrats refuse to negotiate over keeping the government open and paying the bills that Congress has already racked up. Those items should be non-negotiable. They are simply Congress’ job.
As soon as the GOP brings these latest manufactured crises to an end — as they could at literally any moment if they simply allow the House of Representatives to vote on a clean government funding bill and a bill that guarantees that Congress will not allow an unprecedented and catastrophic default on our obligations — Democrats are more than happy to negotiate on the actual budget.
In fact, they have done plenty of negotiating already. The clean bill to re-open the government is already a huge compromise and agrees to the sequester spending levels that Republicans demanded and promised to bring to a vote mere months ago.
Check out this chart that shows just how much Democrats have already compromised with Republicans:
This compromise bill was Speaker Boehner’s own idea and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) touted it as a major victory for House Republicans just last month, but now they refuse to even allow the House to vote on it. Worse, Republicans continue to threaten to unleash a “financial apocalypse” on the global economy as soon as next week unless the president and Democrats agree to their laundry list of Tea Party demands.
BOTTOM LINE: Unless Congress acts, we’ll face a global economic calamity next week. Americans across the country — including the family members of our troops killed in action — are already suffering because the GOP shut down the government in a failed effort to deny affordable health insurance to millions.
It’s time for these manufactured crises to end. Republicans just need to allow the House of Representatives to vote on a clean government funding bill and a bill that guarantees that Congress will pay our nation’s bills.