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Even though a win will require backing away from their “agenda.”
Senate Republicans will not include detailed plans to overhaul entitlement programs when they unveil their first budget in nearly a decade this week, according to GOP sources.
The decision would break from Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) House budgets from recent years, which Democrats used to pound Republican candidates in the 2012 and 2014 elections.
Democrats repeatedly accused Republicans of wanting to “end Medicare as we know it. In breaking with Ryan, Senate Republicans want to avoid giving their opponents the same ammunition — especially with a slim majority and in danger of losing their majority in 2016.
The GOP budget would balance in 10 years, according to GOP lawmakers familiar with the document, but it will only propose savings to be achieved in Medicare and Medicaid, without spelling out specific reforms as Ryan and House Republicans did in recent budgets.
The Senate GOP blueprint will not propose reforming Social Security, the political third rail that Ryan also avoided as former chairman of the House Budget Committee. …TheHill
Say bye-bye to Paul Ryan.
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Unfortunately for the Republicans (though a gift to America’s future) their overall approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level in history.
Andy Borowitz reports:
After a challenging week for the legislative body, the approval rating of the United States Congress has shrunk to a point where it is no longer detectable by the technology currently available, a leading pollster said on Friday.
Davis Logsdon, who heads the highly regarded Opinion Research Institute at the University of Minnesota, said that his polling unit has developed highly sensitive measurement technology in recent years to gauge Congress’s popularity as it fell into the single digits, but added that “as of this week, Congress is basically flatlining.”
“At the beginning of the week, you could still see a slight flicker of approval for Congress,” he said. “Then—bam!—the lights went out.” …NewYorker
Cross-posted from Prairie Weather
graphic via shutterstock.com