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Democrats and Republicans are up against the clock to agree on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year before the midnight deadline Friday night. The Republican-dominated House passed the 2011-2012 budget bill HR 1, and the Senate which has a slim Democratic majority, is now battling it out. Meanwhile, the GOPs new budget proposal for Fiscal year 2012-2013, dubbed the “Path to Prosperity,” was approved by House Budget Committee Republicans yesterday despite adamant opposition to it by Democrats and the White House. Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget and Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan is spearheading the no-holds-barred plan to slash social safety net programs, comparing America’s safety net to a “hammock that lulls people to lives of complacencies and dependencies.” Deep cuts and drastic reorganization are slated for the healthcare programs Medicare and Medicaid. The proposal aims to defund and repeal the Affordable Care Act. It also guts funding for federal student aid. The same budget will provide over $500 billion for national defense spending in 2012, and an additional $100 billion to supplement the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Democrats are refusing to accept the proposal and negotiations are reportedly rocky. Casting a shadow over Republicans is an immovable block of Tea Party supporters. After Speaker of the House John Boehner publicly said compromise with Democrats was better than a shutdown, some Tea Party supporters began planning for his removal. The pressure to toe an extreme party line seems to be working on Representative Paul Ryan, revealing a schism between two powerful members of Congress and within the Republican Party.

GUEST: Paul Waldman, senior correspondent for The American Prospect and author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
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