Dems Crack Over Obama Budget

RUSH: Bulletin, Drive-Bys: Obama can do whatever he wants without one Republican vote. His problem is fissures popping up in his own party. You people in the Drive-Bys are astounding each and every day. This is from the Congressional Quarterly: ‘Democratic Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona have joined a quiet revolt in the House that could slow some of President Obama’s fast-moving priorities. The two are among 49 Democrats from congressional districts that backed Republican Sen. John McCain ‘s 2008 presidential race and whose support for the Democratic majority’s progressive agenda is increasingly not assured. A dozen of them were among 20 House Democrats who voted against the $410 billion discretionary fiscal 2009 spending package (HR 1105) on Feb. 25. Another group later forced House leaders to sideline a contentious bill (HR 1106) to allow bankruptcy judges to modify home loans.’ They have succeeded in that, by the way.

From the Politico: ‘Moderate Democrats Feel Sticker Shock.’ — Moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are starting to choke over the massive spending and tax increases in President Barack Obama’s budget plans and have begun plotting to increase their influence over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are.’ Turning out to be? He has always been much more liberal. They don’t know who the guy is. It’s not the Obama that they knew. There are other stories in this stack.

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RUSH: Here’s more from the stack I put together today of the dissension starting in the Democrat Party from the Politico: ‘Moderate Democrats Feel Sticker Shock.’ They’re beginning to get very worried over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are. ‘The anxiety that moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are feeling about Obama’s agenda is potentially significant. In the House, moderate Democrats have much less leverage to slow action on a majority that under Speaker Nancy Pelosi is eager to embrace the boldest and most expensive parts in the agenda.’ But in the Senate, where it takes 60 votes, if there are some defections — and there are, Russ Feingold wants the president to veto the budget bill, doesn’t like it. There are a lot of people upset about this.

Senator Martinez, this is from FoxNews.com, Senator Mel Martinez here in Florida working with Democrats to kill the omnibus spending bill. ‘Congress faces a tight Friday deadline by which the $410 billion omnibus spending bill must pass to fund the majority of government agencies now running on a temporary, stopgap spending measure. If it does not pass, the government would either have to shut down or another temporary measure would have to be hastily crafted.’ There won’t be a shutdown. This is what could possibly happen if they don’t come to an agreement. Martinez is a Republican. There are Democrats working with him.

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RUSH: If you’ve got Russ Feingold and if you’ve got moderate Democrats in the House — if you have a number of other Democrats in the Senate who are opposed to some of this and want Obama to veto it — couldn’t you say that they are interested in it failing? Couldn’t we say that? Couldn’t we say this accurately that now Democrats, some Democrats want some of this to fail? Now, why would that be? Why, do you think maybe they’re hearing from their constituents? You think? I think so, ladies and gentlemen. I think a number of you are calling your Congress critters, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, and you’re unloading on them — and then you dutifully hear the influence of your phone calls by hearing some of these people. ‘We can’t do this. This is overloaded with earmarks,’ and so forth. So I guess there are now some Democrats on Capitol Hill who want some of this to fail. Meaning (laughing) they’re coming over to my side on this.