Tag Archives: debt ceiling

Paul Ryan and the GOP have some good news and some bad news

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House GOP Approves Budget That Cuts Taxes For Millionaires, Slashes The Social Safety Net | Travis Waldron on Mar 21, 2013

The House of Representatives this afternoon approved the Republican budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) by a vote of 221-207, with 197 Democrats and 10 Republicans voting against it. Three Democrats and one Republican did not vote.

For the third consecutive year, the House GOP has approved a budget that ends the traditional guaranteed Medicare coverage for senior citizens, makes substantial cuts to poverty programs and the social safety net, and grants massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Recent analyses have shown that the budget plan’s tax reforms, which lower top tax rates to 25 percent, would give millionaires at least $200,000 in tax cuts. At the same time, it would slash the social safety net, targeting poverty programs for two-thirds of its cuts.

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House approves far-right Ryan budget plan | Steve Benen on March 21, 2013 

Though there were whispers that GOP leaders had to worry about significant defections, only 10 House Republicans broke ranks and opposed Ryan’s budget — the exact same number of Republicans who voted against their party’s budget blueprint last year.

And what a plan it is. We’re talking about an ambitious plan to redistribute wealth — from the bottom up — with a healthy dose of “almost frighteningly ambitious” social engineering. Ryan’s budget would end Medicare, cut taxes by over $5 trillion, take health care benefits away from millions of Americans, make “massive” cuts to in programs for low-income and vulnerable Americans, and relies on smoke and mirrors to balance the budget within a decade.

It is, in other words, the exact opposite of what the American mainstream wants, and bears no resemblance to the platform the American electorate endorsed in national elections four months ago. It’s designed to satisfy folks who believe the wealthy are over-burdened by taxes and struggling families have too much access to affordable health care.

Despite all of this, 95% of House GOP lawmakers voted for the plan anyway.

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CHART: Paul Ryan’s Massive Tax Cut For Millionaires | Sahil Kapur March 15, 2013

Ryan’s plan also cuts spending by some $4.6 trillion over the next decade, targeting programs like Medicaid and the portion of the budget that includes Pell Grants and food stamps. He insists his tax cuts will spur significant economic growth, and he promises to pay for them by closing unspecified tax loopholes, deductions and credits — ideally on high incomes.

“You can actually plug loopholes and subject more of higher earners’ income to taxation through a lower tax rate,” Ryan said. “We think that’s smarter.” His promise mirrors that of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential election. The problem, as numerous independent experts concluded, is that finding that much revenue in tax expenditures would require raising effective taxes on the middle class.

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Renewed hostage-taking | Pema Levy on March 21, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Thursday that Republicans will require a dollar in spending cuts for every dollar that they agree to raise the debt ceiling, which the United States is expected to hit in August. “Dollar for dollar is the plan,” Boehner said at a press conference. As TPM reported Thursday, conservative House Republicans are pushing their leadership to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand major reforms or cuts, including dollar for dollar cuts.

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Remember when John Boehner and other distinguished Republicans had great fun on Twitter using the hashtag #Obamaquester when discussing sequestration cuts? This week, Boehner admitted with his own damn mouth that President Obama “didn’t want the cuts.” Watch:

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More Republican good news / bad news: 

  • Bad: Mitt Romney / Paul Ryan didn’t win the election, and Republicans lost seats in Congress.
  • Good: So? Doesn’t matter, the GOP will continue ‘patriotically’ ignoring what the majority of Americans voted for.

Remember: either they’ve decided they know what’s best for all of us — or they’re going to try to get away with as much as they can until we stop them. 


image: odinsblog

Sequester countdown — 23 days: Democrats propose fixes, Republicans rebuff fixes

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Obama Proposes Short-Term Fix to Avert Sequester

President Obama called for a short-term fix to avert across-the-board spending cuts, Roll Call reports.

To give negotiators time to pass a broader deficit and budget package, the president is asking for “a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms to avoid the economically harmful consequences of the sequester for a few months. … While we need to deal with our deficits over the long term, we shouldn’t have workers being laid off, kids kicked off Head Start, and food safety inspections cut while Congress completes the process.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner issued a statement opposing any new revenue increases to avert the sequester: “President Obama first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law. Republicans have twice voted to replace these arbitrary cuts with common-sense cuts and reforms that protect our national defense. We believe there is a better way to reduce the deficit, but Americans do not support sacrificing real spending cuts for more tax hikes. The president’s sequester should be replaced with spending cuts and reforms that will start us on the path to balancing the budget in 10 years.”

Of course he did. Because the GOP prefers the sequester’s big defense cuts to any new tax revenue. The public doesn’t support that, just the GOP.

What kind of new tax revenues are Democrats and the President considering? Greg Sargent notes some sensible ideas that work.

In a nutshell, it outlines three stages of deficit reduction, two of which have already happened. The first: $1.7 trillion in spending cuts Dems agreed to as part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal that ultimately led to the sequester. The second: $737 billion in new revenues that Republicans agreed to as part of the fiscal cliff deal earlier this year.

The third stage is the key to the plan. It proposes to replace the $948 billion sequester with roughly the same amount in new revenues achieved by closing loopholes and deductions enjoyed by corporations and the wealthy. That makes a total of $3.3 trillion in deficit reduction when all three stages are taken together, evenly balanced between cuts and new revenues.

Meanwhile, the plan also invests in job creation — and pays for it by cutting defense spending. The total in defense cuts is $278 billion, which would then be plowed into infrastructure spending and other stimulus ideas in Obama’s American Jobs Act.

These are ideas which the GOP won’t even consider at the moment. Nope. The wealthy must be protected!  However, a majority of Americans DO support new revenue from the sources mentioned, irregardless of what the GOP says.

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Mark Thoma notes that the case for sequestration overlooks the significant deficit reduction measures that have already been passed: “We have already cut around $1.5 trillion of spending from the budget… plus the $.5 trillion in tax increases in the ATRA, plus the $300 billion in interest savings amount to around a bit over $2.3 trillion in deficit reduction… to say we’ve made no progress at all is wrong and misleads about the urgency of finding further cuts.”

But, Out of Control Spending! (NOT)

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government is projected to run a deficit of just $845 billion in 2013. Furthermore, the deficit in 2014 may be as low as $616 billion.

[...] Republicans in the House will vote this week to require that the president balance the budget within five years, and the ironic thing is that, if they get out of the way, he may do so without their petty, symbolic resolutions.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan, the GOP’s ‘ideas guy,’ is proposing a deficit-reduction plan that would require bigger cuts than the ones he ran on in the 2012 election.

Things which actually could use some major spending cuts:

Defense CEOs vs. Workers

The U.S. will never become Greece IF we reject conservative principles and austerity cuts

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John Amato makes a good point about the constant threat from Republicans that America is moments away from becoming Greece because of the deficit:

“…after seeing the International Monetary Fund implore Great Britain to ease off its austerity program so their economy could heal, I had a little change of heart. See, one of the only reasons why many countries in Europe have suffered so much after the financial collapse has been because, instead of turning towards Keynesian policies that Paul Krugman has begged for, they’ve embraced the Conservative principles that the UK’s Cameron touted. And that decision ushered in very painful austerity measures upon the people of their nations. The effects of those decisions has been a non-existent financial recovery to their economy and an accompanying nightmare to their population.

[...] If we don’t want to become Greece (which can’t happen, anyway), we should never, ever consider austerity measures or conservative principles. How quickly the world forgets that it was under a conservative George Bush presidency that the global economy collapsed. Why should we ever turn to his acolytes’ beliefs to fix the problem now?”

A bad economy, another recession, high unemployment, suffering — or, in other words, the entire Republican strategy for the 2014 and 2016 elections.

I love the smell of capitulation in the Republican Caucus

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TPM: The House passed a GOP bill suspending the debt ceiling until May 19 on Wednesday by a margin of 285 – 144. The bill now heads to the Senate.

The bill passed with a “majority of the majority.” 199 Republicans and 86 Democrats voted for the bill. 111 Democrats and 33 Republicans voted against passage.

TP: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called it a “gimmick unworthy of the challenges we face.”

By suspending the debt ceiling until May, there is effectively NO DEBT LIMIT between now and May 19 when the suspension expires. So the House Republicans must not be too terribly worried that the President will borrow a jillion trillion gazillion in 3 months’ time.

Ezra Klein thinks this is a great idea and we should do it forever.

Steve Benen explains the bigger picture:

Republicans had a bad hand and played it poorly. They threatened to crash the economy unless they got their way, but the White House simply didn’t believe the GOP was prepared to shoot the hostage. As quickly became clear, this assumption was correct — Republicans made threats they couldn’t back up, which made the cave that much more humiliating.

Yes, the resolution is temporary, and yes, the stage is still set for ugly fights on automatic sequestration cuts and keeping the government’s lights on. Time will tell how severe the looming standoffs become.

But the key takeaway today is pretty straightforward: Republicans said they were prepared to force the nation into default but they weren’t. When Obama didn’t budge, the GOP’s house of cards collapsed.

The New York Times explains the GOP’s “gimmick,” added to the bill:

The debt ceiling legislation — mindful of constitutional hurdles imposed by the 27th Amendment on Congressional pay — would simply impound lawmaker salaries until a budget is passed or the 113th Congress ends, whichever comes first. And it would not require the House and the Senate to come to a compromise on the two spending and tax blueprints, which are likely to be very different. That will be the really difficult task.

So in other words, the Republicans got nothing (except for adding the threat that they won’t pay themselves — temporarily — if they don’t come up with a budget). Or as Chuck Schumer gloated: “The president stared down the Republicans. They blinked.”

The GOP’s debt ceiling retreat probably means there will be a government shutdown

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Jonathan Chait says the jig is up, the debt ceiling hostage crisis is over:

It’s over. House Republicans, following a literal and metaphorical retreat, have announced they plan to lift the debt ceiling without extracting policy concessions. Whatever mini-dramas may follow, the GOP leadership has both recognized the need to abandon their strategy of using the debt ceiling as a hostage and also to recognize this publicly. The GOP announcement came wrapped in a face-saving demand …to let right-wingers believe, or at least claim, that they succeeded in extracting some concession in return for not playing Russian roulette with the world economy. But it’s a superficial gesture. The Senate’s failure to pass a budget resolution has become a ubiquitous Republican talking point, but it’s essentially a meaningless technicality. [...]

The main credit here goes to the Obama administration for recognizing that enmeshing the debt ceiling with policy negotiations was a horrible idea that it had to stop dead in its tracks… The whole key to making Obama’s extortion-squelching plan, and saving American government from endless cycles of hostage drama that would eventually end in a default, was to credibly insist that he would not trade anything for a debt ceiling hike… Now, Republicans are only voting on a three-month extension. But this is a face-saving gesture, too. Once they’ve recognized that the debt ceiling isn’t leverage, they have no reason to keep taking painful votes that expose their members to attack ads.

Steve Benen thinks there’s still too many potential Teapublican “glitches” that could occur to consider this a victory just yet:

Even if we assume Democrats accept the GOP’s retreat, which isn’t a sure thing just yet, GOP leaders may once again run into trouble with their own caucus, leaving John Boehner and Eric Cantor dependent on Democratic votes for the third time in four weeks. In an odd twist, it’s not necessarily the case that those intransigent House Republicans want to default and trash the full faith and credit of the United States — on the contrary, many want the debt ceiling to go up. The problem is they don’t want to vote for it. The New York Times calls this “unofficial group” the “Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus.”

Greg Sargent predicts that caving on the debt ceiling means there will be a government shutdown over sequestration cuts — if for nothing else than for the “Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus” to be able to impress its voter base:

On the debt ceiling, at least, this is a complete cave. As noted below, the mere willingness to raise the debt ceiling temporarily was itself an acknowledgment by Republicans that the threat of default gave them no leverage and that they had essentially lost this fight. Now the three month extension means that in practical terms, it’s essentially been removed from the talks entirely.

The GOP will now stage the battle to get the spending cuts it wants around the threat of a government shutdown. Remember, GOP aides have explicitly conceded that instigating a confrontation will be necessary in order to placate House conservatives and Tea Partyers who wanted to flirt with default in order to get their way, but will ultimately be forced to accept the fact that this just ain’t gonna happen. Remember that quote to Politico? House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes — so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”

And so it looks as if we’ll now have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown, rather than default, so House conservatives can “get this out of their system.”

These conservatives aren’t in the House or the Senate for the public “service.” They don’t care how well or badly the government runs for the majority of Americans. They’re in Congress for personal fame and job security. They have one bottom line, and that’s to impress their hometown, extremist, tea-smelling voter base — and they’ll happily sacrifice the rest of us to prove themselves.

Republicans and government shutdowns: remembering 1995-1996

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TPM: Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) is walking back his threat to use the debt ceiling and other fiscal deadlines to force President Obama to accede to deep spending cuts. “We will raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to default on our debt… I will tell you unequivocally, we’re not going to default.” That’s a dramatic change in tone from just two weeks ago, when Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle pointedly threatening not to raise the debt limit or fund the government unless Obama agrees to scale back Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security: “Republicans are more determined than ever to implement the spending cuts and structural entitlement reforms that are needed to secure the long-term fiscal integrity of our country… The coming deadlines will be the next flashpoints in our ongoing fight to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain. President Obama needs to take note of this reality and put forward a plan to avoid it immediately.”

Let’s remember what happened during the Clinton Administration’s …government shutdown which included, and was not limited to:

  • curtailment in health and welfare services for military veterans;
  • reduction in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for disease surveillance;
  • new clinical research patients not being accepted at the National Institutes of Health.
  • Toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites was halted;
  • closure of 368 National Park sites resulted in the loss of some seven million visitors;
  • 200,000 applications for passports and 20,000 to 30,000 applications for visas by foreigners went unprocessed each day;
  • U.S. tourism and airline industries incurred millions of dollars in losses;
  • more than 20% of federal contracts, representing $3.7 billion in spending, were affected adversely.
  • Some 400,000 newly eligible Medicare recipients were delayed in applying for the program.
  • Claims from 112,000 new Social Security applicants were not processed.
  • 212,000 new or replacement Social Security cards were not issued.
  • 360,000 office visits were denied. 800,000 toll-free calls for information were not answered.
  • Delays occurred in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
  • Work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases reportedly was suspended.
  • Cancellation of the recruitment and testing of federal law enforcement officials reportedly occurred, including plans to hire 400 border patrol agents;
  • delinquent child-support cases were delayed.

Read more…

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The United States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996 was the result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget. The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. The federal government of the United States put non-essential government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, for a total of 28 days. The major players were President Clinton and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. [Wikipedia]

Thanks, GOP! We could default by mid-February, then watch sequestration kick in March 1st

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Some examples of the backbone and courage that’s currently seated on the Republican side of Congress:

Politico: “The idea of allowing the country to default by refusing to increase the debt limit is getting more widespread and serious traction among House Republicans than people realize, though GOP leaders think shutting down the government is the much more likely outcome of the spending fights this winter. GOP officials said more than half of their members are prepared to allow default unless Obama agrees to dramatic cuts he has repeatedly said he opposes. Many more members, including some party leaders, are prepared to shut down the government to make their point.”

Think Progress: “Tea Party Congressman Steve King (R-IA) appeared on Fox News Tuesday morning to argue in favor of shutting down the federal government and breaching the debt ceiling if President Obama does not agree to drastic spending reductions. “We can start shutting down the appropriations. We can dig in,” King explained. “We must have cuts to go along with any debt increase. They must be substantial. There must be a line.” But when pressed for specific spending cuts the GOP could support by host Martha MacCallum, King demurred…” 

TPM: “House Republican leaders are weighing a proposal that would increase the debt limit for four years in exchange for substantial spending and entitlement cuts.”

Of course we already know the Republican / Teaparty House members won’t say what they want to cut, because it would have an effect all of their non-wealthy base-rubes.

  • President Obama’s acting budget director told agency heads Monday to step up their efforts to prepare for $85 billion in automatic spending cuts on March 1 by planning for furloughs, contract delays, hiring freezes, buyouts and other cost reductions.

From the budget director’s letter to agency heads:

President Obama dares Republicans to cause another economic crisis

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“To even entertain the idea of this happening, of the United States of America not paying its bills, is irresponsible. It’s absurd. As the speaker said two years ago, it would be — and I’m quoting Speaker Boehner now — “a financial disaster not only for us but for the worldwide economy.” So we got to pay our bills. And Republicans in Congress have two choices here: They can act responsibly and pay America’s bills or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis.

But they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy. The financial well-being of the American people is not leverage to be used. The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip.

And they’d better choose quickly because time is running short. The last time Republicans in Congress even flirted with this idea, our triple-A credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history, our businesses created the fewest jobs of any month in nearly the past three years, and ironically, the whole fiasco actually added to the deficit.”

— President Obama, Jan 14, 2013

(via liberalsarecool)

 

House Republicans: dreaming of anarchy

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House GOP eyes default, shutdown – POLITICO: “Republican leadership officials, in a series of private meetings and conversations this past week, warned that the White House, much less the broader public, doesn’t understand how hard it will be to talk restive conservatives off the fiscal ledge. To the vast majority of House Republicans, it is far riskier long term to pile up new debt than it is to test the market and economic reaction of default or closing down the government.

GOP officials said more than half of their members are prepared to allow default unless Obama agrees to dramatic cuts he has repeatedly said he opposes. Many more members, including some party leaders, are prepared to shut down the government to make their point. House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes — so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”

The country would eventually default if House Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit, which the Treasury estimates will hit in late February or early March. The government would shut down if House Republicans instead were to refuse to extend the law funding current government operations on March 27.”

* * * * * * UPDATE

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (TN) insisted that shutting down the government should be “on the table” as Congress and the Obama administration deal with passing a continuing resolution, raising the debt ceiling, and addressing the sequestration cuts.

CHRIS JANSING (HOST): [But are your constituents] willing to see the government shut down? Are you hearing that, Congresswoman?

BLACKBURN: Yes, they are. Yes, they are. But they want us to be thoughtful in what is done. And this is the good thing. You know, maybe it’s better to keep it open so we can keep cutting it. [...]

JANSING: Would you be willing if you don’t get the kind of cuts that you think are necessary, would you be willing to go into default or to shut down the government?

BLACKBURN: I think that there is a way to avoid default. If it requires shutting down certain portions of the government, let’s look at that. Let’s put these options on the table, be very thoughtful, but get this spending pattern broken. We cannot afford a $4 billion a day deficit and trillion dollar plus deficits every single year.

Sen. Pat Toomey’s dumbass payment priority plan

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Think Progress: “Now that Congress has to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months, Toomey is back with his bill…

“[...] As ThinkProgress explained at the time, Toomey’s plan is unworkable and doesn’t prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations. These charts from the Bipartisan Policy Center show why. Once the debt ceiling has been breached and Treasury has exhausted the extraordinary measures at its disposal to avoid default, the government will be limited to only the revenue that comes in each day. BPC lays out what happens:”

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Congress is obligated to pay ALL the federal government’s bills — not just the ones that Republicans like the best.

Republican negotiation strategy: government shutdown or default

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Jamelle Bouie’s take on the hostage situation (emphasis below is mine):

“[..] in the House, Republicans are pressing Speaker John Boehner to take a stand on the debt ceiling. Here’s Politico: In a marked shift, Boehner allies are urging him — publicly and privately — to do something he never has before: be willing to shut down the government or default on the nation’s debt to extract compromises from the White House.

To reiterate a point from last week, it’s worth clarifying what Republicans mean when they commit to refusing to raise the debt ceiling: The United States would be unable to pay its full obligations as mandated by Congress, and would have to forgo payments to bondholders, employees, contractors, and anyone else who receives money from the federal government. Refusing to raise the limit is an act of astounding irresponsibility, and Republicans are threatening it unless President Obama implements policies that voters rejected at the polls two months ago.

It should be said that this isn’t a negotiation. If Obama does decide to support cuts to retirement programs, Republicans won’t have conceded anything other than their permission to allow the government to operate and pay its debts. In other words, when liberals describe the current scenario as a hostage situation, they aren’t exaggerating.”

Obviously rightwing extremists still have a lot of sway with GOP leadership. None of this is what any reasonable person would consider “conservative.”

The Republican hostage plan: monthly debt ceiling hikes until they can all agree on a ransom

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Can you imagine the debt ceiling fight going month to month — for eternity? That’s John Boehner’s new vision for America, because even though Republicans know the debt ceiling has to be raised, they want to use it as leverage for all their demands. Forever.

Greg Sargent thinks it’s a sign that Republicans may not have the spine for a debt ceiling fight:

“Boehner does this by threatening to only agree to ‘monthly’ debt ceiling hikes. But this should be read, if anything, as a sign of weakness. It’s essentially a concession that the debt limit has to be raised; Boehner is merely threatening to drag his feet as he allows the inevitable to happen. But it’s just nonsense. The business community is not going to go for such a course of action, to put it mildly. And it risks dragging the country through monthly threats of default, a terrible thing to inflict on the American people.

Ultimately, what this highlights is the utter incoherence of the GOP position on the debt ceiling. Republican leaders know they have to raise the debt limit — they know the threat not to do this isn’t credible, and they need to signal to the business community that they don’t view this option seriously — yet they want to continue to use it as leverage to get what they want, anyway.”

Steve Benen agrees that it’s a sign of weakness:

“In order for a hostage standoff to work, everyone has to sincerely believe the hostage takers are prepared to follow through on their threats. In the case of the Republicans’ latest debt-ceiling crisis, that means President Obama and congressional Democrats have to be convinced that GOP policymakers will hurt Americans on purpose unless Dem meet Republicans’ demands.

[...] the fact that Boehner hedged at all on using the debt ceiling suggests there’s at least a small crack in the wall.Indeed, it’s not the only one. The Washington Post quoted Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) the other day questioning the utility of the strategy, noting “no one knows the ramifications of not passing a debt ceiling increase.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was reluctant to rattle his saber, too, in his Sunday show appearances.

Newt Gingrich and the Wall Street Journal‘s conservative editorial board have also raised concerns about the apparent Republican plan. (I use the word “plan” loosely; to date GOP leaders have indicated they intend to hold the debt ceiling hostage, but they have not yet figured out what to put on the ransom note.)”

And Kevin Drum summarizes Boehner’s negotiating “skills” during the fiscal cliff negotiations — and what it probably means for future “negotiations” over the debt ceiling:

“Because in this case, the objective facts are really pretty clear. Boehner never once put forward a detailed plan, while Obama did repeatedly. And as Andrew says, Obama’s position moved in Boehner’s direction every time, with his revenue ask going down and his spending cuts going up.

In the end, though, Boehner just couldn’t make a deal. This isn’t because Obama was an arrogant bastard who never tried to understand their differences, it’s because a majority of Boehner’s caucus simply wasn’t willing to agree to a tax hike of any kind and Boehner wasn’t willing to back a plan that didn’t have majority GOP support. There’s really not much more to it than that. Boehner and Obama may well be tired of each other, but that’s not why their negotiations routinely fall apart. It’s because Boehner has no control over his own caucus.”

Is negotiating with lunatics and idiots — whose only concern is staying in their recently acquired, cushy, do-nothing jobs for life by answering only to the voters in their little gerrymandered districts — really what’s best for the country?

Republicans calling for a government shutdown are getting louder

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The GOP has apparently decided to just ignore the 2012 election completely — and the will of the majority who voted.

Adding to the recent crazy pronouncements from Lindsey Graham and Pat Toomey are the following additions from more members of the brain-trust known as the Republican Party:

Sen. Cornyn (R-TX): ‘It May Be Necessary To Partially Shut Down The Government’: “In an op-ed published Thursday in the Houston Chronicle, Sen. John Cornyn suggested that a partial shutdown of the federal government may be necessary in the coming months “in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain.”“

Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ): ‘It’s About Time’ We Had Another Government Shut Down:  ”Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation [yesterday] morning, Rep. Matt Salmon  enthusiastically called for a government shut down: SALMON: I was here during the government shutdown in 1995. It was a divided government. we had a Democrat [sic] President of the United States. We had a Republican Congress. And I believe that that government shutdown actually gave us the impetus, as we went forward, to push toward some real serious compromise. …

“[Newt] Gingrich [also] claimed that the shutdown led to the misleadingly named Balanced Budget Act of 1997, but the law was so laden down with conservative pet projects that it actually increased the budget deficit. In reality, the principal policy driver of the Clinton era surpluses was something that every single Republican in Congress voted against — the Clinton tax hikes on the rich. These surpluses, of course, were wiped out almost immediately after President George W. Bush took office, thanks to Bush’s tax cuts that largely benefited the very wealthy.”

And, finally, this “very special message” from a representative of the tea party:

Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): ‘I Don’t Think What Washington Needs Is More Compromise’: “if voters sent a message to the GOP in November by reelecting President Obama and voting out Republicans in both the Senate and the House, freshman tea party Sen. Ted Cruz seems to have missed the memo. He appeared on Fox News Sunday: “I think the fiscal cliff deal was a lousy one, but moving forward with the debt ceiling and those who believe in limited spending and solving the debt…I don’t think what Washington needs is more compromise, I think what Washington needs is more common sense and more principle.”

Seems to be a growing chorus of fail. John Cole says:

“The Democrats appear to have learned and will refuse to negotiate with the terrorists, so it will be all on the GOP. When the blue hairs stop getting their SS checks and the military has former Generals on every cable channel talking about how lack of funds is impeding their ability to perform their mission, it will truly be a site to see. Can’t wait for it. Bring it on.”


image thepoliticalfreakshow

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) wants to shut down the government: Republicanland is full of denial

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“We Republicans need to be willing to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown.” — Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.

The Hill: “President Obama has already warned Republicans, though, that he will not tolerate another extended debate over the debt ceiling… “While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed,” he said on Tuesday night. “If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic — far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff,” Obama added. Toomey disagreed with Obama’s argument that the debt ceiling is about paying past debts. “It’s to enable him to engage in the future spending that he wants,” he said.”

President Obama was re-elected just two months ago with 51% of the vote — as the first president in over 50 years to win 51% twice. Toomey, like Lindsey Graham, either needs intensive therapy or a voter intervention to remind him that there are a number of things Republicans need to be willing to do — and the first would be accepting they lost (which would include their “vision” and their “priorities”).

Washington, D.C.
502 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-4254
Fax: 202-228-0284
Twitter: @SenToomey
Facebook: SenatorToomey