Rethugs At The Gate

As the Fiscal 2012 Federal budget battles begin to unfold, Congressional Rethuglicans are up to their old tricks: propose taking a meat ax to the 15 percent of the budget that's discretionary, and play smoke-and-mirrors games with the rest. And whatever you do, don't think of closing tax loopholes or increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

While the 2012 battle is beginning, the Government is currently running on a continuing resolution for Fiscal 2011, and the Rethugs are determined to bludgeon programs for health, the environment and working Americans. To wit:

"Republican amendments, if fully enacted, would:

– Eliminate the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Special Envoy for Climate Change, the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, the NOAA Climate Service, the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E, National Science Foundation K-12 funding

– Block US funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Global Environment Facility

– Suspend enforcement of fisheries laws and construction and conservation acquisition programs of the National Parks and Department of the Interior

– Block rules for toxic cement plant pollution, hazardous coal ash, industrial boiler pollution, water quality, climate change pollution, climate change adaptation, energy-efficient lighting, mountaintop removal, atrazine, and water conservation"

Rewarding polluters, undercutting environmental science, and other Rethug goals are only the start. In coming weeks, watch the right-wing social agenda heat up: everything from denying a woman her reproductive rights to bogus anti-Muslim "Sharia law" legislation to give their reactionary base red meat. In many ways, they're a worse group than came in to office in 1994, led by Poot Gingrich. Their reactionary proposals won't end up winning many new friends -- or voters -- in 2012.