McConnell-Reid Debt Plan Includes Catfood Commission II with Teeth

Posted: July 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Democratic Politics, Medicare, Psychopaths in charge, Republican politics, Social Security, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , , , , | 23 Comments

Since Harry Reid is now on board, it’s looking more and more likely that the so-called “McConnell Plan” is the one the villagers favor in order to get the debt ceiling raised. Naturally, that is the plan that will allow Republicans to blame the President for raising the debt ceiling while continuing to procrastinate on dealing with the deficit. From ABC News:

This proposal has not yet been the subject of a lot of interest by House Republicans, but there are signs it may be gaining “traction,” according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal. “What is emerging as the most likely outcome is a plan based on Messrs. McConnell and Reid’s work, a Democratic official familiar with negotiations said,” the Journal’s Carol E. Lee and Janet Hook report. “It would include roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction, but would not come with tax increases or Medicare savings, the official said. It could include an extension of unemployment insurance, the official said, which costs $40 billion and would be offset by spending cuts.” http://on.wsj.com/p3l6u3

The problem for us ordinary citizens who have to live with whatever Congress decides, is that McConnell’s plan includes the establishment of a sequel to the Catfood Commission that is scarier than the first one.

The McConnell Plan: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would allow the debt ceiling to be raised by the president, with Congress voting disapprovingly three times before the 2012 election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and McConnell are talking about creating a deficit commission that, like the base closing commission, would issue legislation that would be voted on up or down. They’re also discussing attaching spending cuts to the plan.

Greg Sargent quotes {shudder} Larry Kudlow on what the new Catfood Commission would be able to do.

Larry Kudlow, who’s plugged in with Congressional Republicans, scoops a key new detail about the emerging Mitch McConnell proposal to transfer control of the debt ceiling to the president:

McConnell is negotiating now with Sen. Harry Reid for a large-scale package that will allow the debt ceiling to rise unless overturned by a two-thirds vote. If a White House debt-ceiling deal comes through with $1.5 trillion of spending cuts, that will be part of the package. Right now, it’s not completed because enforceable spending caps have not been determined.

The key part of the new McConnell package is a joint committee to review entitlements in a massive deficit-reduction package. Unlike the Bowles-Simpson commission, this committee will be mandated to have a legislative outcome — an actual vote — that will occur early next year. No White House members. Evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. No outsiders. This will be the first time such a study would have an expedited procedure mandated with no amendments permitted. Also, tax reform could be air-dropped into this committee’s report.

A source with knowledge of the emerging proposal confirms to me that while nothing has been finalized, this is where the discussions are headed.

If I’m reading this right, what this means is that in order to make the McConnell proposal more palatable to conservatives, there would be a mandated bipartisan review of entitlements next year. The source tells me that if a majority of the committee can agree on recommendations for entitlement reform, the proposal would also mandate a Congressional vote on those recommendations.

So efforts to gut Social Security and Medicare will be postponed, but far from dead. And Congress will have to take up or down votes on the Catfood legislation–meaning no amendments permitted. We are so F’d.

Maine Congressional Caucus Throws a Monkey Wrench into Obama’s Plans

Posted: July 11, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

One of the last of an endangered species: Rockefeller Republicans

Via Think Progress, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe announced she will not vote for a budget bill that includes cuts to Medicare or Social Security. From the Bangor Daily News:

AUGUSTA, Maine — Don’t look for members of Maine’s congressional delegation to support cuts in Social Security or Medicare as part of the debt limit legislation, but all four say a debt reduction package that includes budget cuts and new revenues is likely.

“There are solvency problems with both programs,” Sen. Olympia Snowe said in an interview on Friday, “They have to be addressed but not as part of the debt reduction talks.”

She said any debt reduction plan worked out by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders will still need the support of members of both parties and both Medicare and Social Security have strong bipartisan support.

“The talks between the President and congressional leaders should have happened in January,” Snowe said. “Everyone knew we would be coming up against the debt limit and that we needed to take action to reduce spending but it kept being put off until it has to be addressed and it has to be addressed.”

Snow and fellow Maine Senator Susan Collins support cutting agricultural subsidies for “wealthy corporate farmers” who grow “corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice. Collins points out that farmers who grow blueberries and potatoes (popular Maine products) don’t get subsidies, why should the richy-rich farmers get them? Collins also mentioned that “a second type of engine for the new joint strike fighter aircraft is unneeded and eliminating would save billions.”

I hope we aren’t going to see President Obama prostrate before Susan Collins again, as he was in the health care fight. And I hope the Maine Caucus sticks to their guns on Social Security and Medicare.

Obama Talks Down to Us; Boehner Just Lies.

Posted: July 11, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: income inequality, jobs, Medicare, Psychopaths in charge, Republican politics, Social Security, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

President Obama at his press conference this morning, responding to a question by Ben Feller of the Associated Press (emphasis added):

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. Two quick topics. Given that you’re running out of time, can you explain what is your plan for where these talks go if Republicans continue to oppose any tax increases, as they’ve adamantly said that they will? And secondly, on your point about no short-term stopgap measure, if it came down to that and Congress went that route, I know you’re opposed to it but would you veto it?

THE PRESIDENT: I will not sign a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day extension. That is just not an acceptable approach. And if we think it’s going to be hard — if we think it’s hard now, imagine how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season where they’re all up. It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So we might as well do it now — pull off the Band-Aid; eat our peas. (Laughter.) Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?

We keep on talking about this stuff and we have these high-minded pronouncements about how we’ve got to get control of the deficit and how we owe it to our children and our grandchildren. Well, let’s step up. Let’s do it. I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. And I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing — if they mean what they say that this is important.

That’s pretty insulting. We’re not children after all. I guess the President was aiming his remarks at Congress, but really we serfs are the ones who will have to face the pain of these decisions aren’t we? That’s the real issue here.

President Obama has made some kind of proposal to the Republicans and hasn’t shared the details with us or with his fellow Democrats, as far as I know. All we know for sure is that two programs that we pay for with a separate revenue stream are on the table–Social Security and Medicare. Well, as of today, we know a little more. Sam Stein reports that Obama offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67.

According to five separate sources with knowledge of negotiations — including both Republicans and Democrats — the president offered an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, from 65 to 67, in exchange for Republican movement on increasing tax revenues.

The proposal, as discussed, would not go into effect immediately, but rather would be implemented down the road (likely in 2013). The age at which people would be eligible for Medicare benefits would be raised incrementally, not in one fell swoop.

Sources offered varied accounts regarding the seriousness with which the president had discussed raising the Medicare eligibility age. As the White House is fond of saying, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. And with Republicans having turned down a “grand” deal on the debt ceiling — which would have included $3 trillion in spending cuts, including entitlement reforms, in exchange for up to $1 trillion in revenues — it is unclear whether the proposal remains alive.

Social Security and Medicare are vital programs that no one should be talking about cutting, especially now when unemployment is at levels not seen in this country since the Great Depression. Furthermore, we pay into these programs with our hard-earned money–they are not “entitlements.” But that’s mostly what we’re hearing about from the President and his Republican buddies–they are just drooling over the prospect of slashing the social safety net.

This isn’t a joking matter, Mr. Obama. Show a little respect for the people who pay your salary. Actually, one group liked the President’s remark about eating our peas, The Peat and Lentil Council.

A spokesman for the pea council said it wasn’t interpreting the remarks in a negative context.

“We take President Obama’s comment on the need to ‘eat our peas’ as a reference to the first lady’s push to get all Americans to eat a more healthy diet as part of the Let’s Move campaign,” Pete Klaiber, the council’s director of marketing.

“We know that if tasty and nutritious meals featuring peas are served more frequently in the White House and in the cafeterias of both Houses of Congress, it will contribute to a balanced diet, if not a balanced budget.”

Klaiber added, “Eating more lentils couldn’t hurt, either.”

If the President is really serious about “sharing the pain,” perhaps he should tell the White House chef to serve split pea soup and lentil loaf at his next dinner party.

Now to House Speaker John Boehner’s remarks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Boehner rejects Obama’s “Grand Plan” to exchange safety net cuts for cosmetic “revenue increases”

Posted: July 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Nancy Pelosi meets with right wing Republicans

From Ryan Grim at Huffpo:

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner is rejecting President Obama’s offer to make historic cuts to the federal government and the social safety net, saying in a statement Saturday evening that he can not agree to the tax increases Democrats insisted on as part of the bargain….

Obama had proposed to Republicans a “grand bargain” that accomplished a host of individual things that are unpopular on their own, but that just might pass as a huge package jammed through Congress with default looming. Obama offered to put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts on the table in exchange for a tax hike of roughly $100 billion per year over 10 years. Meanwhile, government spending would be cut by roughly three times that amount. It’s no small irony that the party’s dogmatic opposition to tax increases is costing the GOP its best opportunity to roll back social programs it has long targeted.

Republicans are now banking on a smaller deficit reduction deal that would still make major cuts, somewhere in the range of $2 trillion.

“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

Politico reports that Boehner will still attend the President’s “summit meeting” at the White House tomorrow.

Is it possible that Boehner decided he didn’t want to risk tampering with Social Security and Medicare? After all, we know the Tea Party crowd doesn’t want to lose their safety net any more than the rest of us. Remember those signs at Tea Party rallies that read “Don’t mess with my Medicare?” One of the big issues for Republicans in 2010 was the claim that Obama’s health reform bill included Medicare cuts.

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Just a thought. On the other hand, maybe it’s all just a kabuki dance to fool the progs into supporting Obama’s Hooveresque policies.

Hey Andy, me ‘n’ Barney didn’t have nuthin’ better to do, so we decided to crash the economy!

Posted: July 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Economy, Psychopaths in charge, Surreality, Team Obama, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment, voodoo economics, We are so F'd | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Barack O'Gomer and Deputy "Barney" Geithner*

This morning Sky Dancing’s resident economist Dakinikat wrote about Tim Geithner’s latest trial balloon about maybe stopping Social Security checks in August if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. That’s right, he wants to use the trust fund that elderly people paid into all their working lives to pay China and other foreign debtors. Now that’s a brilliant plan boys–throw grandma and grandpa out in the streets to starve and die. It’s genius!

Then while we were all commiserating in the comment thread, we got the jobs report for June: only 18,000 jobs were added, and the phonied-up unemployment rate is now at 9.2%.

O’Gomer dragged his sorry a$$ out to the Rose Garden in late this morning to mumble a few weak excuses.

“Today’s job report confirms what most Americans already know,” Obama said. “We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security and opportunity that they deserve.”

The president tried to lay some blame at Congress’ feet. He said lawmakers could pass a handful of policies today to create jobs. His list included an infrastructure bank, free trade deals and patent reform.

“There are bills and trade agreements before Congress right now that could get all these ideas moving,” he said. “All of them have bipartisan support, all of them could pass immediately, and I encourage Congress not to wait.”

Yeah, patent reform, that’s the ticket! And more trade agreements to create more outsourcing of American jobs. Brilliant! And cutting off Social Security checks! That’s really gonna give Americans “the security and opportunity they deserve.” Who is advising this guy anyway?

Well, one of O’Gomer’s top advisers, David Plouffe, made an unfortunate remark before the jobs report came out. Minkoff Minx wrote about it in her SDB reads earlier this evening. From The Christian Science Monitor:

David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s top political adviser, got things started Thursday at a breakfast sponsored by Bloomberg News.

“The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Mr. Plouffe said. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate; they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”

Ask yourself, Mr. Plouffe, how do you think most ordinary Americans feels about their situation right about now? O’Gomer’s buddy Timmy Geithner is talking about cutting off Social Security payments. O’Gomer himself is trying to talk the Republicans into cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This administration hasn’t done diddly-squat about jobs except occasionally have O’Gomer mention that we need to create them. Talk is cheap, Mr. Plouffe. Actions speak louder than words as my mom used say.

According to Julian Brookes at Rolling Stone, Plouffe also made this odd assessment:

the president, says Plouffe, has a good shot with independent voters, who’ll reward his bipartisan, bend-over-backwards approach the debt talks; is a seasoned campaigner with a huge war chest; has moved to the center without losing the base (the oft-noted “enthusiasm gap” seems to have closed); and has demographic trends working in his favor (he won big with minorities in 08, and they’ll make up a larger share of the electorate next year). Plus, of course, the GOP field is weak: Frontrunner Mitt Romney is the most formidable of the bunch, but he’s nobody’s idea of a galvanizing standard bearer.

What is wrong with this guy? Does he really believe that Independents like politicians who “bend over backwards” instead of showing some strength? Does he really believe O’Gomer hasn’t lost his base? And the center? O’Gomer has gone so far right he’s out-crazying the Tea Party!

Then there’s William M. Daley, the White House chief of staff. Check out what he recently had to say about Americans’ attitudes about the crappy economy. According to Peter Nicholas at the LA Times, O’Gomer’s main defense is that the middle class was already suffering under Bush, so it’s not really his fault. Never mind that unemployment has gone from 7.8% to 9.2% on his watch. So O’Gomer is asking for more time:

Speaking at a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia last week, he said that the nation’s challenges “weren’t a year in the making or two years in the making, but are actually 10 years in the making.”

But Obama’s nuanced message isn’t breaking through. A Gallup Poll last month showed that Americans’ economic confidence was near its low for the year.

For the White House, it’s tough to get the public to pay attention to anything else.

A Democratic senator spoke by phone recently with White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley. “He said, ‘Honest to goodness, if we’re not talking about jobs and the economy, nobody is listening,’” recalled the senator.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!!

Gee, do you think maybe you ought to stop talking and actually DO something then? Just wait until Grandma finds out she might not get her Social Security check in August. Maybe O’Gomer and his advisers need to get a clue. And find O’Gomer a couple of advisers who know something about economics, Mr. Daley.


*NOTE: The graphic at the top of this post is the work of our old friend StateOfDisbelief.

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