We don't have to sit by as they all tell Paul Ryan "nice job" without endorsing, as they all stay quiet on libya until afterwards, etc.
Finally, the 2012ers have to take a position - let's start narrowing down this field so a Christie can jump in...
GREENVILLE, S.C. – The Republican presidential hopefuls have quickly split in their reactions to the budget compromise that averted a government shutdown, with sentiment ranging from "disappointment" to "a good first step."
"This is a good first step," Newt Gingrich said at a county GOP convention here Saturday. "This is a building block."
At the same convention, Haley Barbour framed the budget compromise as an important incremental step toward tackling the federal deficit.
“This is a loaf we’ve got to be willing to eat one slice at a time,” Barbour said.
But tea party favorites Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul went the other way.“The deal that was reached tonight is a disappointment for me and for millions of Americans who expected $100 billion in cuts, who wanted to make sure their tax dollars stopped flowing to the nation’s largest abortion provider, and who wanted us to defund ObamaCare," Bachmann said in a statement."
Paul voted against the short-term resolution that will give negotiators time to hash out the larger deal.
“As I have said before," he said in a statement, "there is not much of a difference between a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $1.6 trillion deficit – both will lead us to a debt crisis that we may not recover from.”
Barbour acknowledged the lack of zeal conservatives had for a budget compromise.
“Compromises don’t usually get people to stand up in their chair and do flips regardless of what the compromise is about,” he said. “I thought Boehner did very wisely, he took this is as far he could go, he made real savings, real cuts.”
Gingrich had a solution for those who didn't like how the budget battle ended Friday night.
“My answer to people who’d like a better deal is: Good, lets beat the 23 Democratic senators that are up and beat Obama and we’ll get a lot better deal.”
Rick Santorum, who was also attending GOP conventions in South Carolina, didn’t mention compromise in either of his two speeches, but instead focused on Obama's signature health care law.
“I think we should be fighting over principle not money," Santorum said. "When you’re fighting over a billion dollars her and billion dollars there it can get lost to folks. My feeling is we should be fighting over Obamacare - that’s really the most salient issue in the country right now.”
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52859.html#ixzz1J3Ipgpnq
