When you make a deal with someone – character matters.  If someone tells you “If you give me $20 today…I promise you I’ll cut your lawn next week.”…your ability to trust that person matters.  If someone tells you that and then doesn’t cut your lawn next week….and then tries to ask you to give them another $20 in advance – you’re going to say NO.  Remember last year when the Republican party created a fake controversy last year that forced our country to the brink on the debt ceiling?  Our country’s debt rating went from AAA to AA strictly because markets don’t have confidence in our political system any more not because we can’t afford it economically.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S WORD MEANS NOTHING.

As part of the agreement to pass the debt ceiling as Republicans have for the almost 100 years that it has existed…the deal was that Democrats and Republicans would agree to AUTOMATIC cuts if either side is unable to address the holes in the budget by $1.3 trillion over a 10 year period.  Well – Republicans are backing out of that now.  They decided to break with their promise and pass a $643 BILLION defense spending bill.  BILLION.  It’s hard to be a strong nation if you pay too much for a military that you can’t afford filled with all kinds of kick backs to donors.

Think Progress notes:

Last August, debt ceiling negotiations between House Republicans and Senate Democrats came to an end when President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act, a not-so-grand bargain that created a legislative super committee tasked with finding spending cuts to offset the debt ceiling increase. If the super committee failed, automatic cuts from the defense budget and discretionary spending levels would offset the cost.

The deal was an end to three tumultuous months of wrangling over the debt ceiling that brought the government to the brink of default and, thanks to the GOP’s intransigence on new tax revenues, led to the first credit downgrade in the nation’s history. House Republicans have repeatedly threatened to renege on the deal, and this morning, they made it official, adding an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that officially replaced spending cuts from the defense sequestration with cuts from the House reconciliation package.

But the Republican party is fine to pay for a missile defense shield.  REALLY!?  They won’t pass an extension on unemployment benefits for Americans but they’ll pay for a missile defense shield?  Iran and North Korea do NOT have ICBM capability.  China and Russia have way more nukes than a shield could handle and frankly…our threats aren’t from those countries if anyone needs a lesson on the history of 9/11.  The Hill reports:

Aside from the sheer size of the bill, the House version contains several policy provisions that are likely to face opposition in the Senate, not the least of which is the East Coast missile system. Republicans said the site is needed to counter rising threats from Iran and North Korea, but Democrats say the military does not want the East Coast missile shield and blasted its $100 million startup cost.

Daily Kos adds:

And there’s more, including a ban on “same-sex marriages and ‘marriage-like’ ceremonies on military bases.” Additionally, it includes “indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, including U.S. citizens, captured on U.S. soil,” despite a decision by a federal judge issued yesterday to block implementation of indefinite detention as included in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act.

And Republicans in the House have once again made the Soviet Union their mortal enemy.  And since the Soviet Union doesn’t actually exist…one must ask themselves just how much of an existential threat Russia is to the United States – the AP reports:

Conservative and tea party Republicans prevailed on a series of amendments Friday, even dealing a blow to the business community and GOP establishment on one measure. Reviving Cold War arguments, they rejected the notion that Senate ratification of an arms control treaty with Russia in December 2010 has long been settled and that the president has the authority to enforce the pact. Their words of warning about Russia echoed those of likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The House soundly backed amendments prohibiting the president from making unilateral reductions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal and imposing limits on the ability of the administration to cut the stockpile.

“The United States should not wander down the road toward nuclear disarmament because President Obama has pinned his hopes on a belief that other nations will blindly follow our lead,” said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., sponsor of one of the amendments.

Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming called the U.S.-Russia treaty that was ratified on a 71-26 Senate vote “a terrible deal for the United States.

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