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Israel Aid Package Exempted From The Across The Board Cuts

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I knew, as soon as I heard that President Obama was proposing an across-the-board spending cut, that it would apply exclusively to domestic programs and not to any programs overseas.

That is not only because of the wars we are waging in Iraq or Afghanistan and certainly not because of humanitarian concern for poor Africans or Asians or even Haitians. It is because the biggest foreign aid recipient, by far, is Israel.

The fact is that historically all proposals for across-the-board cuts have carefully exempted the Israel aid package to ensure that that AIPAC will not lobby against them. The pattern is decades old. No matter who (except Ron Paul) proposes the sledgehammer cuts, he is careful to exempt Israel.

It's a pity too. If only the budget cuts included Israel. there would be a strong, intimidating, lobby to oppose them.

Personally, I do not favor cuts in the foreign aid package. America is notoriously stingy when it comes to helping the world's poor and we should be providing more aid, not less. USAID operates on a shoestring and always has. We are not the generous people we think we are, not by a long shot.

As for the Israel aid package, it is the locomotive that pulls the whole foreign aid package to enactment. If the Israel aid was a stand-alone bill, it would pass overwhelmingly (thanks to AIPAC) while aid to the rest of the world would be slashed to nothing.

So I'm not complaining about the Israel aid per se although I sure as heck would put strings on it (like making aid conditional on Israel not telling the United States to drop dead when we ask for something). .

Nonetheless, it is striking that thanks to the lobby, nobody dares suggest that Israelis suffer the budget cuts that Americans will suffer. It only makes one wish that working Americans (and the poor, and the sick. and kids) had a lobby half as overbearing as AIPAC.


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It's also ridiculous that we should have a freeze on domestic spending when it's our fanciful spending on foreign wars over the last decade that caused this mess. If we hadn't spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq we a) might not have needed to borrow from the foreign governments who helped inflate the real estate bubble by purchasing real estate securities on the secondary markets and b) might not be in the tenuous situation of having to borrow when we have massive deficits and debt.

I know Israel is your issue MJ but as far as I'm concerned, the government shouldn't dare cut spending for programs I like while continuing to give the Pentagon whatever it wants.

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The point here IMHO is to make lemonade out of the fact that a supine Congress will not pass any significant increases anyway, so President Obama might as well get in front of it. I don't agree with this strategy.

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How I wish that the Democratic party had half the smarts, the clout and the juice that AIPAC does. Just as the Transportation Security Administration could usefully learn how El Al handles aviation security, so might Obama, Pelosi and Reid learn from the people you despise.

By the way, Mr. Rosenberg, what is the view of your U.S. Reprsentative, Chris van Hollen, of tying ad to Israel to lifting the siege of Gaza? And have you asked your Senators, Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulsky how they feel about that? Oh, I forgot. You would but, as I'm sure you would say, they're all too intimidated by my friends and me to give you a straight answer.

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Chris Van Hollen called for ending the 2006 Lebanon war and was reprimanded by AIPAC and then taken to Israel to publicly recant.
He has not said a dissenting word since.
You are absolutely right. They say what they say because of your friends.
Be happy. You have a Congress in your pocket!

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I have to try once a year to get you to name one sitting Representative or Senator who has told you that you're right but is too afraid to say it publicly. Go ahead, make my day: give us a name.

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Why would I want to make your day. I doubt you even exist.
I also doubt you have ever talked to a legislator other than as part of an AIPAC delegation.
I'll tell you this. Not even Chuck Schumer shares your view of the Middle East. In fact, neither he nor Anthony Wiener (to name two) even care about the whole region. They care about this country and, on Israel, go along to get along.
Only six of the Jewish Members of Congress agree with AIPAC privately. Precisely six.

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Gee, I searched J Street's website, and for the life of me I can't find any sign that J Street agrees with you, Mr. Rosenberg, that U.S. aid to Israel should be tied to what it does about the thugs who rule Gaza. I guess Jeremy and his forlorn little band of feckless amateurs over there must be intimidated too.

It seems that only that notoriously sloppy academic, Stephen Walt, takes your side these days.

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Yeah, it's lonely, pal.

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It's pure Reaganism. He's selling Reaganism. He is marketing it. He's promoting it. He's working for the other team. I mean we might as well have elected Dick Cheney and filled the WH with neo-cons.

Human Services: BAD

Military: GOOD

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You must have been on Mars, bluebell, between 1981 and 1989. Ronald Reagan would never dream of a $1 billion dollar stimulus package, let alone a $787 billion one, followed by another $154 billion in the next two months. Ronald Reagan would not spend day after day trying to make health insurers cover 30 million people, albeit imperfectly. Ronald Reagan would never have signed the Lily Ledbetter Civil Rights Restoration Act into law--in fact, he tried to give tax exemptions to Bob Jones University which at the time was rigidly all white. Ronald Reagan thought trees caused pollution--and the clowns he named to run EPA and the Interior Department proved it.

Obama has made his share of mistakes. But people like you who compare him to Reagan and Dick Cheney need to tell us what planet you recently have been spending time on.

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Well in case you haven't noticed no healthcare bill has passed. Obama has just vowed to freeze health and human services and the rest of the social service agencies.

But aside from the practical impact of the cuts, he's SELLING THEIR MESSAGE.

Health: BAD

War: GOOD

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Did you ever see the West Wing where the whole State of the Union is poll tested in advance.

This is what the American people want. We should keep Obama and get a new American public. All these decades of crappy schools is paying off nicely for the right.

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Ronald Reagan sold soap. The people want what they are sold. Obama thinks it's easier to sell people the brand they already buy. Maybe it is for Obama. Doesn't do much for the sales of that progressive new product we were hoping to find on the shelves. Guess the progressive product went out of business.

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I often wonder if members of Congress are afraid for their family's lives, and if that is a major reason for their consent to the military spending that is destroying our country. It might be true about aid to Israel too, but I don't think so. I think that is just because it is an easy way to get campaign donations, and is popular with the majority of Americans.

Military stuff is another story entirely. I don't believe any rational person can support whatever we are doing in Afghanistan now, and especially what we did in Iraq. But, the cheerleading by the news media has the majority of Americans, again, supporting our military adventures, oblivious to the fact that those adventures make obscenely wealthy people out of a few, while slowly destroying the nation.

I say we trade populations, if we can find a rational one to obtain - even throw in the military to sweeten the deal.

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The irony there for me is that all the Republicans I know want to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan because of the waste of lives and money. It's the only thing we agree on! Well, even that's not quite true. I know Republicans who have more sympathy for the jobless than our carefully framed and messaged right of center Democratic politicians - maybe because I know Republicans who've lost their jobs and Republicans who know people who've lost their jobs. Maybe some of these politicians need to lose their jobs.

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This is a rehash of a previously planned initiative.
In fact, it's spending more than their previous plan!


Details here:
http://alexconant.com/?p=1599
"1) This isn’t news. In the budget proposal that President Obama submitted to Congress last year, his budget office already projected actual cuts and freezes in “non-defense” discretionary spending for the next three years. That’s in part because of the huge increase in that area of spending that the President requested (and received) for the current fiscal year. To be specific: FY2009 (President Bush’s last budget) had $589 billion in non-defense discretionary spending. That number jumped to $687 billion in FY2010 (Obama’s first budget), and then drops to $641 billion in FY2011, $622 billion in FY2012 and $625 billion in FY2013. So for the White House to now boast that it will freeze non-defense discretionary spending is hardly news. If anything, it’s backtracking on its earlier plans to actually cut that area of spending."

See page 8 of http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/summary.pdf

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The idea that aid to Israel drives the foreign budget, and overrides the importance of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq is Paranoid nonsense.

The common theme is Islamic Terrorism, fueled by oil money. Not Jews, not Judaism.

Middle Eastern oil began to fund the Muslim world in a big way at about the time that Israel was founded, confounding the analysis. But it's clear the Jihad started before the founding of Israel.

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Time to stop blaming "the lobby" for what Obama believes. The excuses you continue to make, so that he can still be the imaginary liberal which you totally made up in your mind, are getting ridiculous.

Read the interview with him again that you recommended here back in May 2008, but do it this time with your rose-colored glasses off: When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: “Look, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.

I'll go even further. You just love to rag on racism. Well, I think you should think about examining your own racism, how you seem to think a guy has to be a classic liberal down deep simply because of the color of his skin, and if he has black skin and doesn't go along with classic liberalism, he must be lying to others or himself or pandering to a constituency or a lobby.

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I searched J Street's website, and for the life of me I can't find any sign that J Street agrees with you, Mr. Rosenberg, that U.S. aid to Israel should be tied to what it does about the thugs who rule Gaza. I guess Jeremy and his forlorn little band of feckless amateurs over there must be intimidated too.
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The idea that aid to Israel drives the foreign budget, and overrides the importance of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq is Paranoid nonsense.

The common theme is Islamic Terrorism, fueled by oil money. Not Jews, not Judaism.

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