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In yet another day in upside-down land at Fox "news" good old Mike Huckabee, just after going on a rant about the so-called "fiscal cliff" deal and how that irresponsible government spending was going to destroy our country, brought in wingnut Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) to heap praise on him for supporting a bill that freezes Congressional salaries and to pretend that he and his fellow obstructionist Republicans have actually been governing responsibly.

I guess Duffy finally decided that it wasn't too much of a "struggle" to get by on their $174K a year salary, since this is the same guy that was complaining about how much they were paid not that long ago as Nicole wrote about here: Break Out The Tiny Violins: WI Rep Eager To Cut State Employee Salaries Says "It's A Struggle" To Make It on $174K A Year.

Of course, Huckabee and Duffy's ideas about what constitutes wasteful spending is probably a little different than what most of the readers here would feel is wasteful. They were complaining about how we can't afford the unemployment insurance extension, stimulus spending to get us out of the recession and needing to do something about "entitlements," or in other words, all of our New Deal social safety net programs.

So more austerity for you Americans or your grand children are doomed! I'm not sure if it's humanly possible to have a much more substance free debate on the topics these two were talking about here, but I am sure if it's out there to be found, it will either be on Fox or right-wing radio somewhere.

We've got some of the most irresponsible hostage takers running one of the three branches of our government right now and this clown is going to paint them as though they've got one iota of concern about our economy, the welfare of our citizens other than the wealthiest among us or the real work of actually governing this country and negotiating with someone in good faith. They're ready to burn the place down if they don't get their way and the two of them are pretending like the only thing that would happen if they refuse to let the government pay its bills is a government shut down, when everyone knows the consequences would actually be much more dire.

Even John Boehner admitted that the failure to raise debt ceiling would mean "financial disaster" a couple of years ago on Fox during an interview with Chris Wallace, but the two of them conveniently decided to ignore that here.

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From this Sunday's This Week on ABC, The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel was the one voice of reason, pushing back against the idea that austerity and budget cuts are going to somehow solve our country's economic problems, or the notion that the debt and deficit should be our biggest concern.

VANDEN HEUVEL: I agree with Paul Gigot. Americans voted decisively for fair share taxes on the richest, for protecting Social Security and Medicare, but also for growth and investment. You cannot get growth and investment with the spending cuts as they are laid out in the grand bargain.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And certainly not the sequester.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Certainly not the sequester. So I think part of the problem we're having, George, is the fundamental assumptions overriding this entire discussion. Senator Murray said that we have a big debt and deficit problem -- no, we don't. We have a big public investment and jobs problem.

(CROSSTALK)

VANDEN HEUVEL: Last point. We're not Greece. Austerity, if you believe in evidence-based politics and economics, you look at what's going on in Europe, and austerity, which we may have American-style in this country if we proceed the way we are doing, has led to economic pain, has led to killing growth. Killing growth.

(CROSSTALK)

VANDEN HEUVEL: And debt and deficit.

Amen to that sister. This needs to be repeated as often as possible whenever we hear the fearmongering about falling off of the "fiscal cliff" and the real danger to our economy that austerity measures pose. As she pointed out, the deficit can be taken care of later, but we've got to get the unemployment numbers down first and Americans back to work.

Full transcript of the segment above below the fold.

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From this Sunday's Meet the Press, apparently someone has a bad case of amnesia when it comes to vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's voting record -- Bill Bennett: Iraq War-Supporting, Tax Cut-Defending Paul Ryan Will "Separate" Romney From Bush:

This morning's Meet the Press featured a panel discussion on moderator David Gregory's interview with Mitt Romney, and the discussion turned to whether Romney will be able to separate himself from the policies of George W. Bush, given their persistent unpopularity. The panelists were near unanimous in their agreement that Romney was being hampered by the Bush legacy; the only dissenter was Reagan education secretary Bill Bennett, who argued that "Bush did a lot of fine things," but Romney already has separated himself from Bush "by having Paul Ryan there. Paul Ryan was a critic of Bush spending and he's a critic of Obama spending."

I'm not sure how many times I'll have to write this, but I'll keep writing it for as long as I have to: Paul Ryan voted for every high-cost, deficit-exploding, debt-ballooning policy the Bush White House put in place. He voted for Bush's tax cuts on income and capital gains. He voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He voted for the unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit. He voted for TARP. That's a whole lot of spending (plus a whole lot of revenue reduction), and those policies tell almost the entire story of the current deficits and public debt.

Transcript via:

BENNETT: Let’s this become unanimous. Let me just say. I don’t think we throw out the whole Bush whole eight years. We won the war in Iraq. Bush did a lot of fine things. He can separate himself from Bush policy particularly in the last couple of years. And he’s already done so by having Paul Ryan there. Paul Ryan was a critic of Bush spending and he’s a critic of Obama spending. There’s a recent survey, I just want to note, and that is they asked people would you prefer a bigger government with more services or a bigger economy with more jobs? 75 to 15, bigger economy with more jobs. Conservatives have families, they believe in families, they work. And by the way this wrap that we lack compassion, you know, for people who are suffering. Why in every survey and every study, conservatives-- self-identified conservatives give more of their time, their money, their blood and their treasures to helping people than do liberals.

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Even though Sarah Palin still hasn't declared that she's going to enter the 2012 GOP primary race, that didn't stop Sean Hannity from giving her the opportunity to throw a few flames at President Obama when she showed up at the Iowa State Fair this weekend.

Apparently Palin is terribly upset with the level of government spending and our debt like the rest of them in her party and rather than assign blame where it belongs, which is with those Bush tax cuts, Republicans signing off on the Medicare Part D prescription drug giveaway that wasn't paid for, our illegal invasions of a couple of countries that were never a threat to us, and just the horrible state of our economy that is a result of conservative policies over the last thirty or forty years, who did Palin blame for our problems?

You guessed it. Liberals. I hate to break it to you Sarah, but “socialism” and wanting to take care of the least among us is not the problem with what's wrong with our society. A race to the bottom on wages, not doing anything about our horrid trade laws, corporate welfare, and allowing these too big to fail institutions on Wall Street and our banking system to continue without being broken up and regulated properly are our problems.

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From Sen. Bernie Sanders office -- Sanders Calls Budget Deal Robin Hood in Reverse:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will vote against a bill that cuts more than $38 billion from programs that help working families without calling for shared sacrifice by the wealthiest Americans.

Bush-era tax breaks for the very rich were extended and expanded last December – driving up the deficit. “Today, in order to reduce deficits that Republicans helped create, they now are slashing programs of enormous importance to working families, the elderly, the sick and children,” Sanders said. “At a time when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, this budget is Robin Hood in reverse. It takes from struggling working families and gives to multi-millionaires. This is obscene.”

While it is too soon to determine the exact impact the cuts will have on Vermont, Sanders, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said “there can be no doubt that these cuts will be devastating to working families in Vermont and throughout the country.”

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Looks like the Senate Democrats are pushing back at Mitch McConnell for making the ridiculous statement that only the Democrats are talking about their hostage taking and the continued threats of shutting down the government. Apparently old Mitch has forgotten that things like recording devices and transcripts exist and that we can go back and check them.

Here's more from TPM -- Dems To McConnell: What About All Those Republicans Talking About A Government Shutdown! (VIDEO):

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says the only people talking about shutting down the government are a handful of Democrats.

So, Dems are asking, what about all those Republicans who've threatened a shutdown?

They're rounding up examples, and have put a few together in the below video.

And, of course, there's no shortage of examples, particularly from House Republicans for which there's no audio or video record. Read on...

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CNN's Anderson Cooper attempted to get some answers from Rep. Michele Bachmann about what cuts to the budget Republicans want to make to balance the budget and instead of getting a straight answer out of her, she accused the Obama administration of taking a $200 million a day trip to India. This is the kind of crap we're going to get to look forward to once Bachmann starts some of her "investigations" after Republicans take over the House.

Looks like this is the latest Fox/right wing meme of the day since Hannity was attacking the White House for this as well. Media Matters has more on where this attack came from, and surprise, surprise, Drudge was involved along with a bunch of the other right wing screechers out there.

Welcome to this wingnut along with her buddy Darrel Issa and what we get to look forward to from Republican committee hearings in the House America.

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, congratulations on your -- on your big victory last night.

You have campaigned on -- on cutting the deficit, cutting spending, not raising taxes, like a lot of Republicans, a lot of Tea Party candidates. There haven't been a lot of specifics, though, about what programs you would want to cut to really get the kind of savings that we need.

Republican Paul Ryan has suggested sharp cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Are you willing to make cuts there?

BACHMANN: Well, I think we know that, just within a day or so, the president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking 2,000 people with him.

He will be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending. It's a very small example, Anderson.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But don't all presidents take overseas trips and stay in hotels where there's security?

BACHMANN: Not -- not -- not at this level. We have never seen this sort of an entourage going with the president before.

And I think this is an example of the massive overspending that we have seen, not only just in the last two years, really in the last four. That's what we saw at the ballot box last evening.

COOPER: But the -- excuse me -- the...

BACHMANN: The American people are asking us to take a look at this, and not have the sort of extravagant spending anymore.

COOPER: The White House is saying that idea that this is a $200 million, you know, boondoggle is just -- is completely overstated, that the -- that number, it's wildly inflated, those -- those numbers.

BACHMANN: And -- and that may be what the White House is stating. But, again, we have never seen a trip at this level before, of this level of excess.

COOPER: How -- how...

BACHMANN: And I think it's not a good signal to send to the American people, when the American people are, quite frankly, struggling right now with high job losses.

COOPER: But how -- but you know the president needs security overseas. You wouldn't begrudge...

BACHMANN: Certainly.

COOPER: ... begrudge any president that. And, frankly, they...

BACHMANN: Of course not.

COOPER: No one -- no one really knows the cost, because, for security reasons, they don't disclose the cost. So, this idea that it's, you know, $200 million or whatever is simply made up.

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Rep. Eric Cantor can't explain to either Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell what the Republicans would cut to balance the budget and pay for the Bush tax cuts he wants to see extended other than to say they're going to reduce "discretionary spending to '08 levels".

He didn't seem to happy with Lawrence O'Donnell pushing him about how he and John Boehner were going to respond when they get forced to either face the wrath of the "tea party", a.k.a. their right wing base when they're forced to make the choice between raising the debt ceiling or crashing the economy.

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Well his cohort Rep. Kevin McCarthy couldn't name a single program the Republicans would cut from the federal budget the other day after the Republicans released their new "Pledge to America". Today on Meet the Press Rep. Mike Pence couldn't give Meet the Press' David Gregory one actual example of anything in the pledge that's a new idea and not just the same old recycled talking points we've been hearing for years.

After listening to a tape of Jon Stewart slamming them on the Daily Show last week, Pence more or less admits there isn't anything new in the pledge and says the pledge is not "the end-all, be-all" but instead is meant to "be a good start." Sorry Mikey but I think we've had about 30 years or more to see what that "good start" looks like when your party is running the show, and it ain't pretty.

GREGORY: You know, as you go back to 1994, Congressman Pence, there was the Contract with America, and one of the big issues, if you go back even to interviews I've done with Republican leaders till after the election of President Obama, was that this wanted to be the party of new ideas.

PENCE: Right.

GREGORY: And, in fact, this, this pledge has been criticized for being anything but new. Where satire is most effective, Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" this week raised this issue by comparing some of what was said in 1998 by Speaker--rather, who wants to be speaker, Boehner, John Boehner, to what he said in unveiling the pledge. And this is what it looked like.

(Videotape, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Thursday)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER: (From September 23) A smaller...

(From March 3, 1998) A smaller...

(From September 23) ...less costly...

(From March 3, 1998) ...less costly...

(From September 23) ...and more accountable...

(From March 3, 1998) ...and more accountable...

(From September 23, 2010 and March 3, 1998; in unison) ...government in our nation's capital.

MR. JON STEWART: Wow. That's--I don't even know what to say. This thing's not even a sequel. It's like a shot-by-shot remake of your--I thought the pledge was you were humbled and going to come back with fresh new ideas. Wasn't that the pledge?

(End videotape)

GREGORY: So what's new here?

PENCE: Well, ending bailouts and cutting spending in Washington, D.C., is a new idea, David. And the truth is, look, Republicans didn't just lose our majority in 2006, we lost our way. We walked away from the principles of fiscal discipline and reform that minted our governing majority back in 1980 and again in 1994, and the American people walked away from us. What, what we have in this proposal is not, not necessarily new. The idea of fiscal responsibility, pro-growth policies, openness and transparency in government are solid, American ideas. What Republicans are committing to in this Pledge to America is taking important first steps in this Congress to steer our national government back to those basic practices and principles.

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As Think Progress noted, Jon Kyl made very clear what his priorities are during this interview on Fox News Sunday.

Deficit Fraud Jon Kyl: ‘You Should Never Have To Offset’ Tax Cuts:

But today on Fox News Sunday, Kyl threw his concerns about the deficit out the window when discussing tax cuts. Kyl said Congress should not allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, but when host Chris Wallace asked, “How are you going to pay the $678 billion to keep Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?” Kyl wouldn’t answer. And in fact, he went so far as to say tax cuts should never have to be paid for:

WALLACE: We’re running out of time, so how are you going to pay $678 billion just on the tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year?

KYL: You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes. Surely congress has the authority and it would be right, if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.

As they also pointed out he didn't have quite that same concern for the unemployed in America when he agreed with Jim Bunning for holding up benefits saying that they ought to be paid for.