THE CBO KEEPS SPOILING THE GOP'S FUN.... The first wave of the Republicans' anti-health-care crusade proved to be a reckless waste of time. Knowing the outcome in advance, the House approved a bill to bring back the old, dysfunctional, budget-busting system and strip millions of families of their benefits, only to see the Senate defeat the same bill.

We saw the second wave yesterday, though it's likely to meet an identical fate.

The House voted Friday to block funding for the health care law in several ways -- starting the countdown to the defunding clash with Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama.

As expected, lawmakers approved Rep. Denny Rehberg's amendment to the continuing resolution, which bars all payments to "any employee, officer, contractor, or grantee of any department or agency" to implement the law.

The Montana Republican's amendment is aimed at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Labor Department.

The final vote was 239 to 187. Three Democrats broke ranks and voted with the GOP majority, while two Republicans voted against the measure.

The point of the effort isn't subtle -- if there's no funding to implement the law, American families can't enjoy the new protections and benefits. Republicans couldn't repeal the reforms, so they're trying to gut them from within. The Rehberg measure was accompanied by three other amendments: (1) blocking enforcement of the individual mandate; (2) denying funding for health insurance exchanges, apparently because giving consumers more choices is communism; and (3) freeing insurance companies from having to spend so much on patient care.

Honestly, I wonder sometimes if congressional Republicans just don't like Americans very much.

In any case, the measures, the latest in a series of efforts for the GOP to avoid trying to create jobs, will die in the Senate, but will nevertheless be part of the Republican case as to why they're inclined to shut down the government.

And at nearly the exact same time as the Republican votes to destroy the Affordable Care Act, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office delivered a revised estimate on what repealing the Affordable Care Act would do to the federal budget: the federal budget deficit would go up $210 billion in the first decade, and roughly $813 billion in the second decade.

So to review, House Republicans are making brutal spending cuts to domestic and foreign priorities, ostensibly because they're worried about the deficit, while at the same time trying to destroy a health care law that lowers the deficit.

I don't imagine GOP leaders were pleased with the CBO's inconvenient timing, but since Republicans have decided independent cost analyses of their priorities no longer count, and the objective referee needs to be discredited, the latest score will probably be swept under the rug.

'SOCIAL ENGINEERING' MAKES A COMEBACK.... We don't hear it too much anymore, but for many years, the scourge of "social engineering" was a favorite Republican talking point.

In 1993, for example, then-Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) condemned the Clinton White House in a Washington Post op-ed, accusing the Democratic administration of trying to interfere with "the traditional family." Hyde called this "exotic social engineering." In 2000, Dick Cheney said the Gore/Lieberman tax-cut plan "would serve as a form of social engineering."

And in an apparent attempt to give the talking point a new boost, here was Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on ABC's "Good Morning America" the other day:

"The tax code is used by government as social engineering. I spent years [as an attorney] in the United States federal tax court seeing the difficult burden of the tax code in people's lives and I think the federal government should really stop social engineering."

The context for this, oddly enough, was part of Bachmann's argument to eliminate the tax deduction for families that buy breast pumps and related supplies. Why Bachmann finds this offensive is a mystery.

But putting these details aside, it's worth appreciating the fact that the tax code engages in "social engineering" all the time, and always has.

As Jay Newton-Small explained, "I have to wonder what other pieces of 'social engineering' of the tax code Bachmann opposes. The mortgage interest deduction that subsidizes home ownership? The dependent care credit that helps working parents pay for child care? Or the exclusion for combat soldiers, which gives soldiers putting themselves in harm's way a break on income tax? What about the suspension of the marriage penalty or the child credit?"

Bachmann may not see any of these provisions as "social engineering," but that's only because she's easily confused.

In the abstract, the right is offended by the idea of using the power of the state to alter how people can and will behave. It's supposed to be anathema for anyone who values "limited" government.

But the reason the talking point started fading away in the first place is that Republicans in recent years have grown to love "social engineering," and not just in the tax code. We're talking about a party that wants to use the law to shape marriages, dictate private citizens' reproductive decisions, and embraces concepts like the faith-based initiative, fatherhood initiative, and abstinence-only programs.

If Bachman is serious about "stopping social engineering," she not only has a lot of work to do, she will have to combat proposals from her own party.

HOW NOT TO CONNECT WITH MINORITY COMMUNITIES.... When Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) wasn't rejecting job-creating transportation funds, he was meeting with African-American state lawmakers, trying to demonstrate his ability to connect. It didn't go well.

Gov. Rick Scott welcomed black legislators to lunch Tuesday at the Governor's Mansion, but his choice of words left some feeling more alienated than ever.

In discussing his own humble origins, Scott implied that all black lawmakers grew up poor.

"I grew up probably in the same situation as you guys," Scott said to the group of 20 Democrats. "I started school in public housing. My dad had a sixth-grade education."

And to think, all Rick Scott had to do was go on to defraud taxpayers for several years and commit a variety of felonies, and look at the man he is today.

But the point, of course, is the racial angle. Lex Luthor Gov. Scott spoke to 20 black lawmakers, and without knowing anything about their backgrounds, simply assumed that they came from low-income backgrounds with uneducated parents. Why? Because of the color of their skin.

Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, said she was offended by the remark, but did not protest at the time because she said it was more important to have a productive dialogue with the new governor.

Afterward, she said, "He assumed that everyone [in the room] was poor and that can only be because you're black."

This reminds me a lot of the time, a couple of years ago, when then-RNC Chairman Michael Steele was on CNN with Chuck D from Public Enemy, and Steele was trying to relate to the rapper. "What struck me about hip-hop as a genre, as music, as whatever you want to call it, a culture, was the fact that you have guys like yourself who come out of the projects, come off the street. Myself, I grew up on Eighth Street in DC. That's a whole different world from where I am right now," Steele said at the time.

Chuck D replied, "I grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island. It's not the projects."

Here's a tip for Republicans: don't make racial assumptions. It tends to go poorly.

And in the larger context, Kevin Donohoe raised a good point the other day: between Maine's Paul LePage, Ohio's John Kasich, and Mississippi's Haley Barbour, this really hasn't been a good year for Republican governors and race.

IT'S ONLY NATIONAL SECURITY.... Much of the recent budget discussion has been focused on House Republicans' intention to make deep, job-killing cuts to domestic discretionary spending. The list of targets has become rather familiar: education, job training, health care, environmental protections, etc.

What's received less attention is the fact that the GOP has decided to include a great deal of international funds as part of "domestic" cuts.

Earlier in the week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to explain what a mistake this is.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Monday that Republican-proposed cuts in foreign aid to be considered by the House this week would harm the nation's security interests and standing across the globe.

In a letter to the House Appropriations Committee and in a visit to Capitol Hill for a private meeting with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Mrs. Clinton sounded the alarm about reductions that she said amounted to a 16 percent decrease for the State Department from current spending and a 41 percent cut in money available for humanitarian programs.

"Cuts of this magnitude will be devastating to our national security, will render us unable to respond to unanticipated disasters and will damage our leadership around the world," Mrs. Clinton said in a letter to Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Later in the week, Pentagon chief Bob Gates told the Senate that Clinton is right.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a Senate committee Thursday that everything the United States has accomplished in Iraq is potentially at risk if the State Department does not get the money it has requested to fund its work there as U.S. forces exit this year. [...]

He said it is "a critically urgent concern" that a planned $5.2 billion allocation for fiscal 2012 be approved, so that the State Department can carry on the training of Iraqi police and other programs once handled by the Pentagon.

He pointed out that because current funding is limited by the continuing resolution for fiscal 2011, which allots funds at 2010 levels, the State Department "can't spend the money to get ready right now. . . . There are facilities to be built. There are people to be hired. And they can't do any of that. And so we're going to run out of time in terms of being able to get this accomplished."

The situation, Gates said, reminded him of the 1980s, when "we spent billions to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and we couldn't get a million dollars to build schools in Afghanistan in 1989 and 1990," and eventually the Taliban took over.

If the State Department does not get the needed funds, he added, "the same thing is going to happen in Iraq."

How did House Republicans respond to the pleas? By slashing the State Department budget anyway. The party that claims the high ground on national security simply doesn't care anymore.

Also note, the same package also included major cuts to the National Nuclear Security Administration's counter-proliferation programs, "the sole purpose of which is to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on loose nuclear weapons and materials," and eliminated the money Senate Republicans fought for to maintain the nation's nuclear stockpile.

The angle to the budget fight has gone largely overlooked, because of the GOP's brutal cuts to domestic priorities, but Republicans blew off warnings and made sweeping budget cuts that undermine U.S. national security interests.

When the anti-spending crusade makes us less safe, it's gone too far.

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is a faith-based angle on developments in Wisconsin -- high-profile faith-communities are rallying behind state workers in their dispute with Gov. Scott Walker (R) and his union-busting crusade.

When Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki lent his voice to this week's legislative debate over collective bargaining by public employees, he was drawing on more than 100 years of Catholic social teaching, which has endorsed the role of labor unions in creating a just economy and society.

Listecki's letter Wednesday to the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee invoked a century of papal encyclicals, from Pope Leo XIII in 1891 through Benedict XVI in 2009, that have upheld the rights of workers to organize and bargain with management.

"The goal of Catholic social teaching is the fundamental dignity of the human person. And the right to unionize is the concrete means by which workers can demand those things we consider as fundamental human rights -- the right to a living wage, to safe working conditions," said Father Bryan Massingale, a social ethicist and professor of theology at Marquette University.

It's not just the Archdiocese that opposes Walker's anti-labor efforts. Bishop Linda Lee of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church and Rabbi Jonathan Biatch have both used faith-based rationales in urging Walker to reverse course , while the Washington-based advocacy group Catholics United issued a statement yesterday urging Wisconsin Republicans to "suspend (their) attacks on public workers."

What's more, Faith in Public Life hosted a press conference yesterday with Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish clergy from Illinois and Wisconsin, stressing the faith community's "commitment to workers' rights as a moral issue, offered their support to protecting Wisconsin public employees' collective bargaining rights, and extended invitations of sanctuary and hospitality to lawmakers."

If Democratic lawmakers sought sanctuary in a Wisconsin house of worship, it remains to be seen whether Republican officials would dispatch law enforcement to force them back the Capitol.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Over 80 faith leaders from Long Island -- including Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus -- have urged Long Island Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) to drop his upcoming congressional hearings into the alleged "radicalization" of the American Muslim community. (thanks to D.J. for the tip)

* The religious right argued that a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would drive Christian chaplains out of the U.S. military. The claims have proven baseless.

* Referencing data from the Public Religion Research Institute, Adam Serwer explained the other day, " The problem isn't that Fox News viewers hear a lot of negative things about Islam, it's they hear a lot of false things about Islam."

* And on a related note, Glenn Beck told his minions this week that Islam is tied to the Antichrist described in the New Testament, and featured a bizarre guest who's argued that Satan will use Islam "to fulfill the prophesies of the Bible."

AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING ON CNN.... About a week ago, CNN announced some new additions to the network's team of political analysts, including a Tea Party leader and conservative radio talk show host Dana Loesch. The latter was an especially odd choice -- Loesch has referred to CNN as "the biggest bunch of idiot blockheads," "state-run media," home to "tinfoil hats," and has accused the network of having a "blatant disregard for objectivity."

Naturally, then, CNN hired her, and is now paying Loesch for her insights.

But who knows, maybe she'll surprise us. Perhaps CNN has an eye for talent that I'm not aware of, and Loesch will prove to be a thoughtful cable-news pundit. Anything's possible.

As it turns out, Loesch's first appearance was just the other day, and in her first segment as a CNN contributor, she talked to John King about one of the right's ridiculous new obsessions: breastfeeding. Here's what Loesch told the national television audience:

"Look, I am all for breastfeeding. I myself breastfed my children 'til they were well passed a year. And I think it's fantastic the advocacy for that. I'm a very vocal supporter of it.

"But at the same time, from a conservative perspective, I have to question what the White House is doing because breast pumps actually fall under medical devices, which as you know, under the health care law, those devices are going to be hit with a massive excise tax. So, don't make something tax deductible that you are taxing. Just don't tax it."

That would be a perfectly sound observation, if it were it in any way grounded in fact. Regrettably, it's not -- the Affordable Care Act exempts medical devices that are "generally purchased by the general public at retail for individual use" from any excise taxes.

In other words, after having prepped for her first CNN appearance, Loesch proceeded to tell the network's audience the exact opposite of the truth. Loesch argued that the administration would make it more expensive to purchase pumps, when in reality, the administration has concluded that breast pumps and related supplies are tax-deductible, making it easier for families to afford the equipment.

Host John King made no effort to let viewers know that the claim is wrong, and two days later, I can't find any evidence that the network has aired a correction.

Tune in to CNN, where far-right voices who hate CNN will tell you things that aren't true.

A GOOD DEAL SCOTT WALKER IS CERTAIN TO REFUSE.... Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) insists his union-busting plan is simply about the budget. He created a fiscal mess for himself, and now he wants to improve the budget on the backs of public employees.

If Walker were sincere about this -- he's not, but if he were -- the governor should gladly embrace an offer like this one.

The head of the largest state workers union said Friday that his group is willing to give in to Gov. Scott Walker's demand for concessions on their benefits if the governor gives up his bid to repeal nearly all bargaining rights for public worker unions.

Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, which represents some 23,000 blue-collar state workers, said his group would agree to pay more of their pension contributions and health insurance benefits.

"We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state's budget into balance, but we will not be denied our God-given right to join a real union...we will not -- I repeat we will not -- be denied our rights to collectively bargain," Beil said in a statement.

As Jamelle Bouie noted, "If Walker were acting in good faith, then this would be a win-win situation: Workers keep their right to collectively bargain, and the governor can close the budget shortfall."

But as is painfully clear, Walker's goals go well beyond improving the budget shortfall that he created, and acting in good faith is the furthest thing from his mind. The conservative governor could strike a deal immediately and get all the cuts he wants from state employees. The problem of course, is that he's also demanding superfluous union-busting measure, not to improve the budget, but just because he feels like it. Taking away workers' collective bargaining rights won't save Wisconsin money, but it will crush labor, which is the point of the endeavor.

Indeed, it's worth emphasizing that these public-sector workers are ready to accept less pay, but the governor refuses to even talk to them.

Also note, before Democrats handed Walker a budget surplus he immediately eliminated, the former Democratic majority faced an even bigger budget shortfall a couple of years.

They managed to close it, and get the budget back on track, without crushing unions. Imagine that.

HOUSE APPROVES BRUTAL BUDGET CUTS.... It was only a matter of time.

The House early Saturday approved a huge package of spending cuts, slashing more than $60 billion from domestic programs, foreign aid, and even some military projects, as the new Republican majority made good on its pledge to turn the grassroots fervor of the November elections into legislative action to shrink the size and scope of government.

The vote, of 235 to 189, was a victory for the large, boisterous class of fiscally conservative Republican freshmen that is fiercely determined to change the ways of Washington and that forced party leaders to pursue far bigger cuts than originally planned. It set the stage for a standoff with Senate Democrats and the White House that each side has warned could lead to a shutdown of the federal government early next month.

Looking over the roll call, the drastic cuts received zero Democratic votes, and even Blue Dogs didn't break ranks. Three Republicans -- Walter Jones (N.C.), Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), and John Campbell (Calif.) -- voted with the Dems in opposition, but two of three opposed the measure because they said it wasn't quite brutal enough. (Nine House members -- seven Democrats and two Republicans -- did not vote, but they obviously wouldn't have affected the outcome.)

The gavel came down around 4:30 a.m., making this one of those rare Friday-night/Saturday-morning votes.

The package, which is intended to finance the federal government though the end of the fiscal year, now heads to the Senate, where it stands absolutely no chance whatsoever of passing. Indeed, House Republicans knew this before the vote, and didn't care -- this isn't about governing; it's about right-wing lawmakers pounding their chests in order to impress their reactionary base. House leaders could have worked with Senate leaders on a spending compromise, but Republicans chose not to bother.

As we talked about yesterday, it's hard to overstate how brutal these cuts really are. Overnight, 235 House Republicans voted to slash education, job training, environmental protections, food safety, community health centers, nuclear security, energy efficiency programs, scientific research, FEMA, Planned Parenthood, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Social Security Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control, among other things.

The projected job losses from these cuts, we learned this week, could total 1 million American workers, all of whom would be forced into unemployment, on purpose, because Republicans think it'd be good for the economy.

As the House GOP sees it, we can't afford these expenditures because of the deficit they helped create. We can, however, afford massive tax breaks for people who don't need them, which cost a lot more, and which Republicans didn't even try to pay for.

The GOP proposal, in other words, is the sort of budget a caucus might put together if it was really angry with Americans, as if we'd done something to offend them. (Maybe, if we apologize, they'll stop trying to hurt so many people?)

Oddly enough, perhaps no one is happier with the vote than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- this one measure will be exploited for hundreds of hours of campaign ads, questioning the misguided principles of vulnerable Republican incumbents who were misguided enough to vote for this monstrosity.

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Firing on civilians in Bahrain: "Government forces opened fire on hundreds of mourners marching toward Pearl Square on Friday, sending people running away in panic amid the boom of concussion grenades. But even as the people fled, at least one helicopter sprayed fire on them and a witness reported seeing mourners crumpling to the ground."

* Libya: "Thousands gathered Friday for a fourth day of demonstrations in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, in an unprecedented challenge to the mercurial 41-year reign of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi."

* Yemen: "Anti-government protesters clashed with loyalists of President Ali Abdullah Saleh on the streets of the capital for the eighth straight day Friday, hurling insults and chunks of concrete at one another. But the loyalists - along with Yemeni security forces, who fired shots in the air - managed to swiftly disperse the crowds."

* Egypt: "On foot and in battered taxis, tired minivans and lurching buses, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians streamed toward Tahrir Square on Friday, reaffirming their victory over the country's old repressive government and their determination to build a new free one."

* Good for the White House: "The Obama administration rescinded most of a federal regulation Friday designed to protect health workers who refuse to provide care they find objectionable on personal or religious grounds. The Health and Human Services Department eliminated nearly the entire rule put into effect by the administration of President George W. Bush during his final days in office that was widely interpreted as allowing such workers to opt out of a broad range of medical services, such as providing the emergency contraceptive Plan B, treating gay men and lesbians and prescribing birth control to single women."

* Senate, with broad bipartisan support, easily passed an aviation reauthorization bill last night. The final vote was 87 to 8.

* Net neutrality: "House Republicans on Thursday moved to block the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing new rules that prohibit broadband providers from interfering with Internet traffic on their networks."

* It sounds like Mark Ekstrum has some explaining to do: "A veteran firefighter refused to respond to last month's deadly shooting spree that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wounded because he had different political views than his colleagues and 'did not want to be part of it,' according to internal city memos."

* I'll assume impeachment is the next step: "The chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee fires off a letter to Nancy-Ann DeParle, asking for every document related to health care negotiations -- all of them."

* Why history may be repeating itself in Wisconsin.

* Next year's CPAC hopes to drive out participants who may respect gay people. Contemporary conservatism spirals downward, just a little more.

* This story out of Pennsylvania really is stunning: "A former juvenile court judge was convicted Friday of racketeering in a case that accused him of sending youth offenders to for-profit detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in illicit payments from the builder and owner of the lockups."

* Even some conservatives think Texas officials created a ridiculous state education curriculum.

* A worthwhile timeline: Two years of economic recovery.

* And Matt Yglesias reflects on Mike Huckabee's attitudes towards Israel: "I have no particular view on whether or not Abraham was a real historical person, but trying to view present-day political disputes as mere extensions of events that occurred thousands of years in the past isn't going to have a happy ending."

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

WISCONSIN, AS ONLY GLENN BECK CAN SEE IT.... There's obviously an intense, ongoing dispute in Wisconsin, with Republican Gov. Scott Walker (R) trying to gut state public-employee unions. But you may not appreciate the connection to this week's events to the larger campaign to destroy civilization.

Don't worry, Glenn Beck can provide the context for you. (Ryan J. Reilly posted the video.)

Here's the deranged media personality on Fox News yesterday, connecting the labor issues in Madison to a global conspiracy that only he can see.

"[T]he world is on fire, and there are three groups of people -- three groups of people. They want a new world order.

"One -- this is your choice -- one: one world government. This is Open Society, this is United Nations -- whatever you want to call it -- one world government. They have lots of money and lots of power, and they have NGOs, non-governmental organizations. They're getting that done. They're organized.

"This one: this is the caliphate if you're in Iran or Turkey. This one is the United Islamic Nations. This is the one the Muslim Brotherhood is going for now, but it all looked like this -- it's a new world order. And they have -- they are organized, too. They have the religion and the mosques and apparently, help from Google as well, at least in Europe or -- I mean, I'm sorry, in Egypt.

"And then you have this one, workers union, or they call it state capitalism. Really what it is it's just good old-fashioned communism. They have unions and community organizing."

Apparently those who want to maintain their collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin fall into this third category.

"Unions are marching and protesting budget cuts close to $3 billion to close that hole. The unions claim that the cuts will affect teachers. But it's not the everyday teacher that this story is really all about. It's about the people looking to create chaos on the backs of the worker when the world's focus is on Egypt."

I do wonder what the weather is like in Beck's reality.

HOUSE GOP VOTES TO BLOCK ALL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDING.... In case the rest of the House Republicans' agenda targeting women's health was too subtle, Rep. Mike Pence's (R-Ind.) bill to block all federal funding for Planned Parenthood was approved today.

The 240-185 vote on Friday is a victory for anti-abortion forces led by Indiana GOP Rep. Mike Pence. He says taxpayer money should not go to groups that provide or promote abortion.

Democrats say Planned Parenthood provides contraception and other valuable family planning services, and that cutting off the money will make it hard for women to get such basic help.

Planned Parenthood provides services in hundreds of clinics around the country. Pence aides say the group reported receiving $363 million in federal money in its latest report.

The roll call hasn't been posted, but according to multiple accounts, seven Republicans broke ranks and opposed Pence's measure, while 10 conservative Dems voted with the GOP majority.

As a practical matter, Pence's bill isn't going anywhere, and he knows it. The measure won't be approved in the Senate, and even if it somehow made it through the upper chamber, it'd get a presidential veto. Voters like these aren't intended to be part of a governing agenda; they're intended to score points and please right-wing constituencies. Republicans are wasting time to make themselves feel better.

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement, "It is difficult to understand why people who say they are opposed to abortion would do so much to undermine the family planning and contraception that helps prevent the need for it."

Don't go bothering them with logic, Cecile, they have a culture war to wage.

I'd also note that the debate on this, which began yesterday, took some emotional twists and turns, including Rep. Jackie Speier (D) of California, acknowledging her own abortion, while condemning a GOP colleague who was trivializing women's decision-making. Greg Sargent has the video.

Update: By the way, Pence and others who supported today's bill may want to take a moment to look up the meaning of "bill of attainder."

IT'S THAT BAD.... There's a fair amount of discussion on the House Republican plan to cut spending for the remainder of the fiscal year, but folks may not fully appreciate the scope of how ridiculous their proposal is. Some may have heard that GOP officials are using some smoke and mirrors to exaggerate the size of their spending cuts, which may lead to some relief -- if the cuts aren't as bad, maybe the damage won't be as great.

Let's dismiss that kind of optimism right now, shall we?

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published a lengthy, wonky analysis yesterday of the Republicans' proposed cuts -- it really is worth reading -- and today offers a summary of some of the top-line provisions. Among other things, the proposal would:

* Cut Head Start, which provides at-risk children up to age 5 with education, health, nutrition, and other services, by an amount equivalent to the cost of serving 157,000 children.

* Cut Pell Grants, which help students afford college, by nearly 25 percent, affecting all 9 million students who receive them.

* Cut, by more than half, Workforce Investment Act funding to provide job training, job search, and other employment assistance for low-income adults and workers whose jobs have been eliminated.

* Cut, by more than half, two funds that help communities pay for sewage and wastewater treatment and for upgrading facilities that ensure safe drinking water.

* Cut funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 22 percent, for the Food and Drug Administration by 10 percent, and for the Food Safety Inspection Service by 9 percent.

All of this, of course, comes against an important backdrop -- in December, the same GOP leaders demanding these cuts were also demanding massive tax breaks they didn't even try to pay for. They're arguing now that the cuts are absolutely unavoidable because of the deficit, which happens to be the deficit they created and made much worse a couple of months ago.

And really, that's just some of the higher-profile problems with the plan. It doesn't even get to devastating cuts to food safety, energy efficiency programs, environmental protections, NASA, scientific research, FEMA, and Centers for Disease Control. The associated job losses, as we learned this week, could total 1 million.

I can keep going with this, but there were two other specific areas that are worth paying particular attention to. Jon Chait noted yesterday the effects of proposed cuts to community health centers -- which Republicans used to like -- that would leave "around 3 million people without a regular source of affordable health care."

And then there are the cuts to, of all things, nuclear security and counter-proliferation programs, which Senate Republicans fought just last year to increase, and which many experts believe would do serious harm to U.S. national security.

The Republican proposal, in other words, is the sort of budget a caucus might put together if it was really angry with Americans, as if we'd done something to offend them.

And best of all, as far as GOP leaders are concerned, unless Democrats go along all with this, they'll shut down the government.

I can only wonder how many midterm voters appreciated the fact that this mess is what the electorate chose to create.

THE NATURE OF THE DISPUTE IN WISCONSIN.... To hear Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) tell it, he really doesn't have much of a choice. The state's facing a budget shortfall, and crushing public-sector labor unions will save the state's finances.

It's important to realize how very wrong this is. Indeed, what's been largely lost in this week's debate is that Walker inherited a pretty good fiscal situation from his Democratic predecessor -- Wisconsin was on track to end the fiscal year with an extra $120 million in state coffers.

So why launch a union-busting crusade? Ezra Klein explained the situation nicely:

...The governor signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues. The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit. As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

But even that's not the full story here. Public employees aren't being asked to make a one-time payment into the state's coffers. Rather, Walker is proposing to sharply curtail their right to bargain collectively. A cyclical downturn that isn't their fault, plus an unexpected reversal in Wisconsin's budget picture that wasn't their doing, is being used to permanently end their ability to sit across the table from their employer and negotiate what their health insurance should look like.

That's how you keep a crisis from going to waste: You take a complicated problem that requires the apparent need for bold action and use it to achieve a longtime ideological objective. In this case, permanently weakening public-employee unions, a group much-loathed by Republicans in general and by the Republican legislators who have to battle them in elections in particular.

Much of the debate has been about some of the larger issues, and they're well worth exploring. But the specifics of this dispute make all the difference -- a far-right governor inherited sound state finances, made them worse on purpose, and now demands public employees fix his problem. While he's at it, Walker hopes to engage in superfluous union-busting, not to improve the budget, but just because he feels like it.

In the meantime, state unions are ready to negotiate, and are even prepared to accept less pay, but the governor refuses to even talk to them.

Whether one is sympathetic to labor or not is almost beside the point. Walker's antics are demonstrably irresponsible and impossible to defend.

This local editorial out of Madison drives the point home nicely:

There is no question that these are tough times, and they may require tough choices. But Gov. Scott Walker is not making tough choices. He is making political choices, and they are designed not to balance budgets but to improve his political position and that of his party. [...]

The facts are not debatable. Because of the painful choices made by the previous Legislature, Wisconsin is in better shape fiscally than most states.

Wisconsin has lower unemployment than most states. Wisconsin has better prospects for maintaining great schools, great public services and a great quality of life than most states, even in turbulent economic times.

Unfortunately, Walker has a political agenda that relies on the fantasy that Wisconsin is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

Walker is not interested in balanced budgets, efficient government or meaningful job creation. Walker is interested in gaming the system to benefit his political allies and campaign contributors.

To fall for this cynical charade is to ignore reality.

THEY MAY ACTUALLY BE 'A BUNCH OF YAHOOS'.... A month before the midterm elections, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said, "I don't think the country needs or wants a shutdown." He added that when it comes to pursuing their agenda, Republicans "have to be careful" or they'll be "seen as a bunch of yahoos."

As of today, the likelihood of these yahoos shutting down the government just two months after taking office seems pretty high.

House Speaker John Boehner's "read my lips" threat yesterday increased the odds of a shutdown exponentially, and a high-ranking aide to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Democratic chiefs of staff today that a shutdown is more likely than not.

Similarly, I traded emails yesterday with a Capitol Hill staffer with whom I speak regularly, and I think the aide's perspective is worth passing along. (I'm republishing the staffer's note with permission.)

I'm of a firm belief the government will shut down after March 4th because the House and Senate won't be able to come to a conclusion on a CR [continuing resolution]. So it isn't a question of "if" in my mind, it is a question of "how long."

It's becoming clearer and clearer everyday that Republicans in the House have no connection to reality and are willing to burn it all down. Staff have sat dumbfounded over the last few days watching the floor, which no media is reporting on, to see how disconnected Republicans are from basic math. Their CR would do practically nothing to address the debt, but it will stunt any economic recovery (which they will blame on Obama).

What I don't hear people talking about is that so many members of the House are millionaires and don't seem to care how this will affect people. I don't know how they can look their staffs in the eye, who will be royally screwed by this.

The wild card is President Obama. As we discussed last year, he has yet to prove he has a spine. I fear he will cave and give in on most if not all of the Republican demands. In that case our last defense would be a small set of Dem Senators who have yet to lose their minds. But we will see.

It's hard to say how the White House and Senate Democrats are prepared to respond to the House GOP's demands, because at this point, House Republicans aren't even talking to Democrats. It's tempting to think, with just 14 days left to avoid a shutdown, there'd be some kind of negotiations underway. By all appearances, that's not the case -- the House GOP leadership is working on its job-killing plan; it's off all next week; and discussions are effectively non-existent.

In the meantime, Boehner told Fox News the other day, "There's been no talk about shutting the government down on our side," despite all kinds of talk about shutting the government down on his side.

I'd say the odds of a shutdown -- at least one, starting midnight on March 4 -- are about 70%.

'I'VE NOT OBSERVED THAT'.... The Washington Post had a lengthy profile piece on Sen. John Thune yesterday, taking a closer look at the possible presidential candidate. The piece was filled with quotes from those who work with the South Dakota Republican, some whom seem more impressed with Thune than others.

Thune chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee, the No. 4 leadership position, and presides over the GOP senators' private lunches every Tuesday. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the most senior Republican senator, said Thune plays his role "with grace and diplomacy." But when asked whether he has shown leadership on a specific policy issue, Lugar said: "I've not observed that."

Ouch. Lugar's quote is awfully close to an insult. Asked whether Thune's shown leadership in an any area, Lugar could have said, "Sure, time and again, Thune's shown great leadership on a variety of issues." Instead, he said, "I've not observed that."

It's a reminder that no one, not even Thune's allies, can think of any meaningful work he's done on anything.

"He's kind of an enigma," said a former senior GOP leadership aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share observations candidly. "When you hear senators or chiefs [of staff] talking about Thune, it's always with a little bit of puzzlement. Is he an empty suit? Or does he really have his eye on the ball? Nobody's really sure. They just keep watching him."

Remember, Thune has been in the Senate for more than six years. Folks who work with him in the closely-knit Senate, especially Republicans, have had a chance to get to know him, and they're still not sure if he's anything more than an empty suit.

It's why I consider Thune the Republican version of John Edwards -- he hasn't tackled any noteworthy policy initiatives, he's failed to distinguished himself as an expert in any area, and his most notable accomplishment appears to be an ability to impress people with his handsomeness.

If I'm Thune, I take Lugar's quote as a helpful suggestion: you're not quite ready for prime-time.