“Nothing Burger“:  Two pieces of bread slapped together with nothing in between. Usually eaten when you have nothing in the house except bread or are too lazy to spend 2 minutes making a decent sandwich.

                                           - definition in the The Urban Dictionary

This is utter laughable.  

Senator Gregg Judd (R-New Hampshire), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, claims the Democrats are not serious about cutting the deficit.  He first offered a plan co-sponsored by Democratic Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D – North Dakota), that would require Congress to establish a bi-partisan commission to study deficit reduction recommendations, and if a fixed number of its members could agree on specific budget cuts, Congress would then be compelled to vote on those measures before the 2010 mid-term elections this Fall. 

President Obama and the Democrats endorsed a similar deficit-reduction plan, but without the requirement of a mandatory vote in the Senate on the issue.  Senator Gregg then criticized the Democrats, calling their plan a “nothing burger“, insinuating that they were not serious about deficit reduction.  And the Republicans are?

Senator Gregg, you need a little lesson in transparency. 

First, there is serious doubt about whether you can even get the support of your own party on this issue – both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (D – Ohio) stated they will not back the plan because the Republicans are philosophically opposed to tax increases.  In other words, Republicans tacit acknowledge that deficit cutting would likely involve raising taxes, and they would rather let the country go bankrupt before they would make it pay its own way – now that is fiscal responsibility at its finest.

Second, that nasty little chart just below indicates that the real explosion in the government debt started in 1981 – after Ronald Reagan took office and the Neo-Conservative movement began.  The largest deficit increases (as a percentage of the previous deficit) occurred from 2003 to 2006, not ironically when President Bush and the Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress.  Moreover, that does not even account for the estimated $600 Billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we borrowed from China through 2007,  – projected to increase to $1.6 Trillion before Obama took office - and which was “kept off the books” by the Bush Administration, Enron style. 

Ouch!

Third, no Washington politician is ever going to be serious about fiscal responsibility, regardless of which party they belong to – it just does not make political sense if you are an incumbent running for re-election.  Besides, Senator Gregg, proposing mandatory deficit reduction is easy when you are being disingenuous about the political realities of the issue.

One final word on that lesson about transparency, Senator Gregg:  While serving as the Senate Republican’s lead negotiator and author of the TARP program (Wall Street bailouts) in the Fall of 2008, you recommended that Bank of America receive $45 Billion from the TARP funds – at a time when you owned millions of dollars in Bank of America stock.  After your Bank of America stock recovered rather nicely this past year, you are now proposing that the TARP fund be terminated so as to not create a “piggy bank” for politicians.

And you have the audacity to criticize the Democrats, Senator Gregg?