Cut and run, literally

As in the past 9 years, Congress has not been able to come up with an operating budget in time for the new fiscal year (October 1). So on September 30, the house passed a stop-gap measure as they have for the past 9 years to keep paying everyone on government payroll and prevent a government shutdown (like the one we had in 1996). It all seems simple enough but that's not what the House Republicans did this year. Nope, this year they changed the funding for this limited period until a full budget is passed. The House's stop-gap measure calls for a 50% cut in every state in social services spending except for the 13 smallest states which are receiving a 75% cut. They dropped it on to the Senate for approval and left for a week long recess. Of course the more moderate Senate was left in a bit of a bind having to either sign the bill or get Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to call the entire house back for a new vote on a new, less destructive bill. Which of course would be quite an unprecedented thing to do if all the Congressional Republicans didn't rush back to Washington to join Bush, on Palm Sunday no less, to sign their Terry Shiavo law. Of course the Senate did no such thing, called a vote, passed the stop-gap measure and left themselves.
It has long been my view that the economic conservatives in power have had a "starve-the-beast" mentality where if they cut enough taxes and make sure that enough social programs go bankrupt that it won't be economically feasible to save them when the chickens come home to roost and people, all of a sudden, realize they have no social security, no welfare, no unemployment benefits, nothing! And all of this while the Bush administration has increased non-military spending even more than Lyndon B. Johnson did during his great society. That's twice as fast as Bill Clinton's government ever grew. Where is this pork building, no bid contract giving, behind the door lobbyist dealing money that we're borrowing from China going?