Senate Dems to GOP: Drop the Riders

[n2doc]

By Siddhartha Mahanta
As lawmakers work to negotiate a grand bargain on the federal budget, top Senate Democrats hosted a conference call with reporters to insist that they won't let social issues derail a deal to keep the government—and the still-nascent economic recovery—going.

The watchword of the day is "rider," a term used to describe provisions tacked on to government funding bills that restrict how money can be spent. House Republicans wedged plenty of riders into their budget proposal, but some—including provisions to ban funding for Planned Parenthood and restrict the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases—are particularly galling to Democrats, who still control two-thirds of the government.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, also criticized the GOP's cuts to Title X funding, which supports contraception and other health services for low-income women, and cuts to the Head Start program, which funds education programs for low-income families. "This should be the kind of thing upon which reasonable people can agree—that this is not the right thing to do," Reid said. "It's certainly not something over which it's worth shutting down the government." Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) echoed Reid: "Please don’t let the ship of state crash over riders.... let's not shut down the government on a fight over some bumper sticker issue that may have been around for the last ten or twenty years."


...
"You can't balance this budget... on the backs of people who had nothing to do with the debt," Reid said. "They had nothing to do with making the debt what it is. And they shouldn't be the only answer to it."

article
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/senate-dems-gop-drop-riders

[Vincardog]

1. How about for every 1 $ of benefit cuts we see $2 in tax increases on the rich and their businesses?

[safeinOhio]

2. 5 cent tax on every share of

stock traded in this country should about do it.