Here we go again.  It’s that time of year when we get to see media elevated President Obama smack around the best the GOP can offer.  Mr. Mumbles and Sir Cry-a-Lot, again to be out maneuvered, out strategized and publicly ridiculed.

WASHINGTON – […] Obama also called upon lawmakers to craft a budget plan when they return. There are only a few legislative days left for them to do so – or the government could come to a screeching halt, as it did in 2014.
“Congress also hasn’t passed a budget,” Obama said. “They’ve had all year to do this.”

I’ve prompted the video to the budget part so you don’t have to suffer through the lead in:

The last time a federal budget was passed into law was September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 and it was signed by President Bush. President Obama has not had a single day in office with a federal budget, EVER.
The Executive Branch budget proposals are due by the first Monday in February.
After losing the Senate in ’14, President Obama finally put a budget in front of congress on time.
He usually blows off the rules.
However, as we noted in February, this 2016 proposal was a little disingenuous no?

…”The president’s budget features a six-year, $478 billion public works program for upgrading the nation’s infrastructure, including roads, railroads and ports”…. (link)

Didn’t congress spend $1,000,000,000,000.00 (trillion) on Obama’s “stimulus plan”, aka “shovel ready jobs”, aka “American Reinvestment and Recovery Act”, for public works in 2009/2010? And what exactly did we get out of that little expenditure?
Then there’s that little part (in the video above) about vetoing any budget that doesn’t have elimination of the “sequester cuts”.
Oh well, here we go again.  This is actually the time of year when my blood pressure has a tendency to rise toward exponential levels.   I repeat myself because everyone forgets history:
The Origin of The Sequester Cuts – Who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners? While simultaneously expanding the role of government dependency programs? The GOP (“Bush Tax Cuts”)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say.
Sorry, the reality is not what the GOP claim.
The “Bush Tax Cuts” removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But it’s worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts” were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision” which ended ten years later specifically because the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012, “the sequester cuts”. And as usual, the GOP were insufferably inept during this process.
♦ The GOP (BUSH) removed tax liability from the lower income levels; and the DEMs (President Obama) then came in and lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc).
This means lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates with the increased demand for tax spending within the welfare programs.
Who gets screwed?  WE DO !
PARADIGM SHIFT => Republicans focus on the “spending” without ever admitting they, not the Dem’s, lowered the revenue and set themselves up to be played within the increased need for spending, simultaneously.
The Republicans and Democrats created the economic and budgetary mess specifically because they didn’t let the (what was supposed to be temporary) tax rates sunset.
A conservative position would have been to leverage the sunset provision to get something fiscally responsible out of it, like a balanced budget, DUH. And if need be to walk away.
But why didn’t/wouldn’t this approach work?  Why didn’t the GOP even attempt to leverage the pending expiration of the tax rates for fiscal responsibility?
The answer therein cuts to the heart of the problem with the GOP.
Think about this carefully.
The absolute best representative face the GOP can come up with to advance common sense principles of fiscal prudence is Mitch McConnell and John Boehner?
Really? I mean, REALLY?

Neither McConnell or Boehner can present themselves to a modern engaged, pop culture driven electorate, and simultaneously articulate a single principle or standard for the party, without sounding like that doddering fool down the road with the signs on his law forbidding anyone to dare touch the grass (McConnell); -OR- The washed up, profoundly creepy middle-aged drunk guy at the end of the bar hitting on your 20-year-old daughter?
Harsh? No, try reality.  THAT is the face of the GOP.
THIS…… This is the face of the GOP? Mr. Mumbles and Sir Cry-a-lot?  Good grief, no wonder Democrats are always grinning.
And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of pushback? McConnell and Boehner are what you give us? SERIOUSLY?
Which leads to the next of your GOP talking points. You say:

“Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you want”

Fair enough. But considering we have been simply demanding common sense, ie. fiscal discipline, a F**KING BUDGET would be nice.
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO F**KING BUDGET!
That’s a strategy?
That’s your GOP strategy?  Essentially:  Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.