Category: Budget

Pelosi Caves to Republicans….AGAIN

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Yes, Nancy Pelosi, in discussions with Republicansgave up more in food food stamps and an extension to unemployment benefits to get tax rebates for the working poor.

She also gave in on tax breaks for business.

I heard on the radio that 1$ in unemployment benefits generates about $1.60 in economic activity, and $1.70 for the food stamps, while the business tax cuts generate about 25¢ for every dollar.

The unemployment and food stamps also hit the economy in weeks, as opposed to about 6 months for business tax breaks.

Thank you for knuckling under and screwing the economy to give tax breaks to Bush’s buddies.

Yes, Nancy Pelosi, good old Ms.
NOT ON THE TABLE! NOT ON THE TABLE!

Nobel Prize Winning Advice on Stimulus

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From Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz:

  • Improving unemployment, which Pelosi has already bargained away.
  • Provide assistance to state and local governments who will be hit with tax shortfalls, particularly in property taxes.
  • More spending on education.
  • Find a way to help victims of predatory lenders without bailing out the perps.

On Bush’s ideas for tax cuts, he says:

The Bush administration has long taken the view that tax cuts (especially permanent tax cuts for the rich) are the solution to every problem. This is wrong. Tax cuts in general perpetuate the excessive consumption that has marked the American economy. But middle- and lower-income Americans have been suffering for the last seven years — median family income is lower today than it was in 2000. A tax rebate aimed at lower- and middle-income households makes sense, especially since it would be fast-acting.

Bernanke supports stimulus package – Jan. 17, 2008

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Bernanke speaks out in favor of a stimulus package, and he is saying that it should help “beleagered consumers” and that it “should be explicitly temporary”.

While he does speak favorably of some temporary tax credits for business investment too, he is not repeating Alan “Bubbles” Greenspans incompetence, and endorsing massive permanent tax cuts.

He’s already put himself well ahead of Ayn Rand’s acolyte in the competence department.

Bush to Hold Stimulus Package Hostage

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Read the article about the Bush Administration strategies.

The stimulus is needed now, but veto anything that does not extend Bush’s disastrous tax cuts, which would otherwise end in 2011.

The fact is that sticking with appallingly bad tax policies in order to create a relatively modest stimulus package is a bad idea both in terms of the well being of the republic, and in terms of politics, and the Democrats should be willing to walk away from the table if this is a condition.

Of course, they will drop the soap instead.

Bush Pocket Veto of Troops Pay Raise is Invalid

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I understand that Bush is threatening a veto of the latest defense authorization bill.

It appears that inconveniencing banks means more to him than giving our troops the payraise they deserve.

That being, this rather insightful analysis is correct: If he wants to do this, then he has to put his name on the veto with those crayons sharpies that he is so fond of. He cannot use the pocket veto, because Congress is still technically in session.

The Senate has remained in session to prevent recess appointments, and as such his claim, “The adjournment of the Congress has prevented my return of H.R. 1585 within the meaning of Article I, section 7, clause 2 of the Constitution”, is completely without merit.

If you really find this provision so bad, stop behaving like what Ahnuld would call a “Girlie Man”, and put your name on a veto that cuts pay for the troops.

Don’t worry, it’s not like any or your kids will be affected.

Democrats Cave on Spending

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David Obey had a suggestion, if Bush is adamant about his bogus numbers, cut out earmarks, the idea was to make lawmakers, particularly Republican ones, pay more than lip service to budget restraint.

Of course, this was shortly followed by a story titled Pelosi backs down.

Am I the only one who thinks that this headline occurs far too often?

Mr. 33% is a lame duck. If he wants to trigger a shutdown, well f#$@ him.

How about some guts, Mrs. Pelosi.

Hat Tip to David Obey, for Having Some Backbone

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Obey, the House Appropriations Committee Chairman, has been working for some time on compromise spending legislation with the Congressional Republicans and the White House, and now that Bush has threatened a veto of anything more than what he submitted (Obey was trying to split the difference), he has terminated negotiations, and told the White House and Republicans that he will balance the budget by wacking Republican priorities and earmark pork.

Good for him. If Bush and His Evil Minions™ don’t want to negotiate in good faith, hit back hard.

Crap!!!! Dems to Cave AGAIN

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This is bullsh&%:

Democrats now are expected to allow Senate Republicans to attach tens of billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a $500 billion-plus government-wide spending bill. That move would be in exchange for GOP support on the huge spending measure.

The war money would not be tied to troop withdrawals, as Democrats want. But it would let Democrats wrap up their long-unfinished budget work and go on vacation before Christmas. It also would spare them from criticism during the holiday recess by President Bush for leaving work without providing money for the troops.

If they want to filibuster, make them talk. No more of this courtesy of withdrawing the bill because you can’t get cloture. MAKE THEM TALK.

What’s more, make them talk on Christmas day.

Senate Folds on AMT to Republicans

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Let’s be clear about this, the Alternative Minimum Tax is just a flat tax. You compute the regular, and the AMT taxes owed, and choose the higher. For all the talk of millions of people being hit, it’s not a big deal.

Most of these people, will pay a few hundred bucks more than they would have otherwise.

When the House passed this bill, they closed loopholes for oil companies and phony capital gains for hedge fund managers to pay for it.

There were the votes to do that in the Senate, but not the votes to overturn a filibuster, so the Senate caved, and passed AMT relief without paying for it, violating pay-go.

At the very least, Reid could have insisted that the Republicans talk. We need a real filibuster, not one of these 24 hour talk fests, but one where you take a vote when the guy stops talking.

So far this year, the Republicans have filibustered more times than during any session ever, and each session covers two years.

Enough is enough. If the Republicans want to filibuster, make them filibuster.

Clinton Promises Major Increase in Autism Funding

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Full disclosure, my son is on the spectrum, very high functioning Aspergers, so I consider this statement from the front runner that she plans to increase funding for research and education to $700 million a year to be a very good thing.

By way of comparison, that figure is 7½ days in Iraq.

I once read that a majority of people in prison were learning disabled, when we neglect them, we neglect the needs of the greater society.

O’Malley Increases Influence With Wins on Taxes and Slots – washingtonpost.com

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The Washington Post has a generally glowing review of Martin O’Malley’s handling of the special session. He comes across as engaged, hard working, and willing to listen, as opposed to this characterization of his predecessor, which is prize:

Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery) said O’Malley won points for his openness to lawmakers’ ideas and a work ethic that contrasted with that of Ehrlich, whose tenure Hucker derided as “four years of press conferences and golf.”

Personally, I will still vote against the slots proposal, but it was a productive session because O’Malley did his homework.

Senate Looks Ready to Cave on Iraq

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CQ is reporting that Carl Levin, Daniel Inouye are floating a spending bill without restrictions.

This is wrong, and worse, it is a mistake.

Voting against the war is the right thing to do morally and politically, and these morons can’t seem to get it through their heads that caving to Bush hurts the country and the Democratic party.

Don’t back down, make it harder on the Republicans. Make them really filibuster. Declare on every talk show that the Republicans are filibustering money for the troops.

Not one step back.

Krugman Nails Fuzzy and Dangerous Thinking by Obama

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Barak Obama has chosen to attack Hillary Clinton on inaction on what he calls “the social security crisis”. He does not get it.

While people have some legitimate concerns about Social Security in the (very) distant future, the problem facing the US is that health care is eating us up.

What’s more, not only do the vast majority of Americans find the Republican meme of a “Social Security Crisis” to be pathetic and stupid Republican double talk, so does an overwhelming majority of the Republicans out there.

In fact, the only people who are selling the crisis meme about social security besides corrup partisan Republican hacks like Grover Norquist and Bush and His Evil Minions™ are the Very Serious People inside the beltway, the Fred Hyatts, the Charles Krauthammers, the Bob Novaks, etc.

The very serious people in the beltway are wrong about EVERYTHING, and he seems determined to please him.

When Krugman titles today’s OP/ED, “Played for a Sucker, he is more right than you can possibly imagine.

The American people don’t care about bipartisanship. They want a government that works for them. They do not care how it is accomplished, but they want a rising standard of living, and to stop living in fear and uncertainty that the next illness can wipe them out, and Barak Obama, like the rest of the Very Serious People inside the beltway, don’t care about that.

All they care about is that they can go to each other’s cocktail parties and have a nice time. They do not care about the government working for them.

To quote the future Nobel prize winner in economics:

I don’t believe Mr. Obama is a closet privatizer. He is, however, someone who keeps insisting that he can transcend the partisanship of our times — and in this case, that turned him into a sucker.

Mr. Obama wanted a way to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton — and for Mr. Obama, who has said that the reason “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” is that “politics has become so bitter and partisan,” joining in the attack on Senator Clinton’s Social Security position must have seemed like a golden opportunity to sound forceful yet bipartisan.

But Social Security isn’t a big problem that demands a solution; it’s a small problem, way down the list of major issues facing America, that has nonetheless become an obsession of Beltway insiders. And on Social Security, as on many other issues, what Washington means by bipartisanship is mainly that everyone should come together to give conservatives what they want.

This position on Social Security, much like his despicable use of dog whistle anti-gay bigotry in his South Carolina campaign, is something that the Very Serious People inside the beltway appreciate. They think that the rest of us are stupid. They think that we are bigoted rubes.

They want nothing to do with the people who live in America and make things work, and they don’t want to make things better, because they are doing fine right now, and having to work for a living is beneath them.

Army Beats Air Force on Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) Program

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This was a relatively small (1/2 the size of a C-130) cargo aircraft, with the C-27J Spartan winning the competition.

The conflict was that TheHill.com – Army poised to win fight over cargo aircraft

They got it because the USAF is cutting everything in an effort to get more bling like F-22s and C-17s.

The Army and Air Force National Guard are slated to fly the C-27J, the aircraft selected for the JCA program.

Had the Army lost responsibility for the program, more Air National Guard units would have flown the C-27J in support of homeland defense missions. But Army supporters argued that the Air Force did not have the necessary staffing or processes in place to take over the program in a timely manner. Had that takeover occurred, the Army argued, it could have wound up delaying the program by at least a year.

And then there is the US Army experience with what happens when the USAF takes over small STOL cargo aircraft. They have restrictions that greatly reduce the utility of the aircraft to the ground troops.

House Passes Iraq Pullout Funding Bill

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Hopefully, this will pass the senate too. It funds to the tune of $50 billion, and requires that troops start being withdrawn within 30 days with a complete withdrawal by Dec. 15, 2008.

As I’ve mentioned earlier Reid is promising a real filibuster, where the ‘Phants will have to talk, on this, so it should get interesting.

The voting is interesting, Republicans Phil English (PA), Walter Jones (NC), Christopher Shays (CT) and James Walsh (NY) supported the bill. This was the first time that either English (who once bumped me off a plane flight, not because he was a congressman, but because of the luck of the draw), and Walsh voted for such a bill, so we do have some evidence of a gradual peeling off of Republican support.

On the Democratic side, we had the following Bush Dogs: John Tanner (TN), Brian Baird (WA), Dan Boren (OK), Jim Cooper (TN), Gene Taylor (MS), John Barrow (GA), Jim Marshall (GA), Jim Matheson (UT), Nick Lampson (TX) and Vic Snyder (AR).

Will no one rid me of these turbulent Bush Dogs?