No really, if you put everything on auto-pilot, and keep Congress from doing the “Doc-Fixes”, and allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, you get this:
The top picture, doing nothing, gets you a surplus around 2013, the bottom one, cutting taxes, gets you deficits as far as the eye can see.
Republicans care about deficits like I care about William Shatner’s penis size.
Which means that it’s an issue that the Republicans will use to scare old people, but Obama and the Congressional Democrats are negotiating draconian cuts in the program, because they have some sort of twisted political suicide pact thing going on:
This would be brutal for the poor, particularly in Republican states, but even in blue ones. Governors are champing at the bit to cut enrollment and increase cost sharing. State budgets are still strained, and Medicaid is among the highest expenditures. Much of Medicaid spending goes to keep poor seniors in nursing homes, so a lot of the cuts would get targeted there. Which means that you can call this the “Force Your Mother-in-Law to Move In With You Act.”Keep in mind that fully half of all the coverage expansions in the Affordable Care Act come from a Medicaid expansion. A removal of MOE [maintenance of effort requirements, which prohibit states from gutting the program] would basically undercut that; even though the federal government would pick up all the costs of the Medicaid expansion, states want to reduce their current level, and so the coverage expansion will just unravel. Or, the feds will put the burden on the states, and the states will just opt out of it. You’re talking about millions and millions of beneficiaries losing their coverage.
Un-dirtyword-believably stupid, particularly when Medicaid is a vehicle for much of the theoretical improvements in coverage under Obama’s precious Affordable Health Care Act.
I’m beginning to think that, notwithstanding his intellect, Obama really is not interested in doing anything beyond checking off boxes on something that resembles a standardized test, whether it makes a difference or not.
Ironically, that is his education policy.
Harry Reid put the Paul Ryan budget up for a vote in the Senate, and it lost, with all the Democrats voting against it, but 40 Republicans voted to kill Medicare, 41 if you count Rand Paul, who voted no because he thought that it was not radical enough:
The Senate on Wednesday resoundingly rejected a budget sponsored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that calls for significant cuts to future Medicare benefits.
The 40-57 vote came one day after Republicans suffered an upset defeat in a special election in upstate New York where Democrats made Medicare cuts the primary issue.
Five Republican senators voted against a motion to take up the ambitious House budget plan, which suffered only four Republican defections when it passed the lower chamber earlier this year.
Four centrists voted no: Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who favored larger budget cuts than what was proposed in Ryan’s budget, was the fifth no vote.
Every Democrat voted no except for Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), who did not vote.
By forcing a vote on this, Harry Reid did the right thing, and by forcing the Senate Republicans to choose between normal voter in the general election, and teabagger in the primary, he put the ‘Phants between a rock and a hard place, which is a very good thing.
BTW, my guess as to why Murkowski voted no, she has 5 years until her next election, and she knows that the teabaggers in Alaska will hate her no matter what she does, so this was the safer course for her.
So, after the Republican party’s attempt to demolish Medicare results in one of the most Republican districts in the nation flipping Democratic in a special election, Barack Obama completely misses the point:
I want to extend my congratulations to Congresswoman-elect Kathy Hochul for her victory in New York’s 26th Congressional District,” the president said in a statement. “Kathy and I both believe that we need to create jobs, grow our economy, and reduce the deficit in order to outcompete other nations and win the future. Kathy has shown, through her victory and throughout her career, that she will fight for the families and businesses in western New York, and I look forward to working with her when she gets to Washington.
So, what’s here? We have:
What we don’t have:
And did I mention that he neglected to mention protecting the elderly or Medicare?
Note that while this is going on, Joe Biden, negotiating for the Democrats, has not taken Medicare off the table:
Vice President Joe Biden set a goal of at least $1 trillion in budget cuts from negotiations with congressional leaders on the federal debt as talks turned to Medicare, a contentious issue that risks replicating a partisan divide on Capitol Hill.
Democrats in the meeting yesterday ruled out concessions on Medicare without Republican agreement to raise tax revenue, a step the party’s leaders so far have rejected, according to someone familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity. Biden underscored the issue in remarks to reporters afterward.
(emphasis mine)
So the deal is, so long as they can get some token tax increases from Republicans, probably directed at labor unions and single mothers, they can agree to cut Medicare.
This does not bode well for 2012.
<facepalm>
This time, it’s House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is insisting that any aid that any aid going to the tornado ravaged town of Joplin Missouri be offset by budget cuts:
Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.
“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.
Note that this sort of callous disregard for this sort of disaster not only puts him on the wrong side of all decent people, it puts him on the wrong side of Tom “The Hammer” Delay, who supported borrowing to fund hurricane Katrina relief.
I really cannot add anything to the article, but it needs to be shared:
Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation’s Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students
WASHINGTON—According to bewildered and contrite legislators, a major budgetary mix-up this week inadvertently provided the nation’s public schools with enough funding and resources to properly educate students.
Sources in the Congressional Budget Office reported that as a result of a clerical error, $80 billion earmarked for national defense was accidentally sent to the Department of Education, furnishing schools with the necessary funds to buy new textbooks, offer more academic resources, hire better teachers, promote student achievement, and foster educational excellence—an oversight that apologetic officials called a “huge mistake.”
…
Read the rest.
He says what needs to be said on the debt ceiling negotiations:
According to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, Mr. Obama has told Democrats not to draw any “line in the sand” in debt negotiations. Well, count me among those who find this strategy completely baffling. At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line. Otherwise, he might as well move out of the White House, and hand the keys over to the Tea Party.
Of course, since Barack Obama seems incapable of drawing such lines, I’m thinking that the only question will be whether or not the ‘Phants use lube before having their way with the American people.
Actually, the ‘Phants won’t use lube.
So, after voting to abolish Medicare, the Republican freshmen have sent a letter to Obama demanding that the Democrats not beat them up over this:
Politicians usually don’t begin press conferences with an admission of guilt.
But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday, when freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) called on the president to condemn the scare tactics Democrats have used against Republicans on Medicare — the same type of attacks Republicans used against Democrats throughout the 2010 campaign that helped put many of the GOP freshmen in office.
“We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of playing partisan politics with key issues facing our country, but now is the time to hit the reset button,” Kinzinger said, as if to pre-empt accusations of hypocrisy coming from Democrats. “As a freshman class, we have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and … not continue the petty politics we’ve seen in the past.”
Last year, as a candidate, Kinzinger sang a different tune: He criticized the Democratic health care overhaul, saying it would amount to $500 billion in cuts over 10 years, removing 4 million patients from Medicare and putting 15 million on Medicaid, according to local news reports.
I’m sorry, but if these guys are not strong enough to defend themselves from a 72 year old constituent with blue hair, how can they be expected to protect us from bin Laden Saddam Hussein Fidel Castro anyone more threatening than the Easter Bunny?
You know the attacks against the rat f%$#s are different from the death panels, because they are true, which has counted for something in the United States since the days of John Peter Zenger.
Why do House Republicans hate America?
The moron is talking about means testing Medicare:
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) offered cautious support Tuesday for the idea of adopting further means-testing of Medicare and Social Security to help shore up the finances of both programs. But the devil, he said, will be in the details.
“I don’t want to get into means testing until we look at specific proposals,” Hoyer said at his weekly Capitol briefing in response to a question from TPM. “Generally speaking, we do, as you know, have certain means testing in both Medicare and SS at this point in time. … I think clearly we’re going to have to make both of those programs sustainable over the long run, and I think to some degree it would be clearly appropriate to look at — without endorsing any specific proposal — the insuring that the least well off are protected and to do that look at the best off … in terms of what level of support they get.”
First, if you cut off the top ½%, you don’t save any money, and if you cut off any more than that, and you destroy the program, which makes it bad policy.
Then you have to follow that up with the fact that the Republicans are killing themselves with this, but good old Steny feels the need to give them an opportunity to point at the Dems and say, “See, they are trying to cut your Medicare!”
Is he trying to lose?
Actually, considering him, he might be. I think that he figures that he becomes the Dem leader in the House if Pelosi does not get back the House in 2012, so he wins by the country losing.
In California, Republicans are refusing to even allow tax increases to be voted on, so Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg are suggesting that cuts be targeted in Republican districts:
With no agreement in sight on how to close the state’s remaining $15.4 billion deficit, some Democrats are discussing targeting GOP districts with steeper cuts if legislative Republicans will not vote for a solution that includes taxes.
“You don’t want to pay for government, well then, you get less of it,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told reporters Wednesday.
If other options fail, the Sacramento Democrat said he is willing to consider a targeted cuts approach like one laid out by Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who has suggested that an all-cuts state budget should focus on the districts of lawmakers who oppose putting $11 billion in tax extensions before voters.
“When it comes to kids or the vulnerable, I wouldn’t want to make distinctions between who lives in a Democratic district and who lives in a Republican district, but when it comes to sort of basic services, convenience services that affect adults … I have an open mind,” he told reporters after speaking at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon.
What he is referring to here as “convenience services” is (I hope) things like DMV offices, vehicle inspection stations, agricultural extension offices, etc.
Good for him.
One of the reasons that there are so many no taxes ever lunatics out there is because they manage to structure taxation, and benefits, such that other people pay for their services, and this needs to stop.
Because he has just announced that he will be forcing a vote on the Senate floor on the Paul Ryan budget, which dismantles Medicare:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it’s definite: He will scheduled a vote on House Republicans’ fiscal 2012 budget plan, which passed the House on a party-line vote earlier this month and includes the proposal to make Medicare a voucher-style health-care program for seniors.
The move could create an awkward situation for some Senate Republicans, who would anger conservative constituents by voting no, but could alienate independents by voting yes. Sen. Susan Collins, a centrist Republican from Maine, said last week she’ll oppose the budget.
Senate Republicans “seem to be in love with the [Rep. Paul] Ryan budget, they’re going to get an opportunity to vote on the Ryan budget,” Mr. Reid said. Asked if he thought the Senate would defeat the House GOP budgetary plan, Mr. Reid said “I hope so.”
An “awkward situation”, yes, I guess it is.
BTW, the Senate rules does not allow a filibuster of the budget.
But John Boehner has gotten himself completely pwn36 (OWNED) this week.
First, the CBO scored the budget cuts, and it turns out that that the $38 billion in budget cuts are actually only $352 million in budget cuts, and then Boehner loses ¼ of his caucus on the budget deal and has to rely on Democrats to put it over the top, and finally, the Democrats abstain on an amendment proposed by the even-more-right-wing-than-Paul-Ryan Republican Study Committee, which had the amendment passing until Boehner whipped Republicans to change their votes at the last minute:
Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn’t hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes — from “no” to “present.”
Panic ensued. In the House, legislation passes by a simple majority of members voting. The Dems took themselves out of the equation, leaving Republicans to decide whether the House should adopt the more-conservative RSC budget instead of the one authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. As Dems flipped to present, Republicans realized that a majority of their members had indeed gone on the record in support of the RSC plan — and if the vote closed, it would pass. That would be a slap in the face to Ryan, and a politically toxic outcome for the Republican party.
I do believe that Boehner is a rum and nicotine soaked incompetent, but I see this as more of a residue of luck than any sudden outbreak of competence by the Obama administration.
I’ve read it, and it was much better than I expected.
It is not what I would want in a perfect world, it’s pretty much a 3rd way center right prescription, though it was rather stronger that I expected.
He did not sell out Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and he did not hippie punch, and he framed the Republican plan as a transfer from poor to rich.
The fact that he actually presented a moral argument here stuns me.
My only problem here, and I agree with Paul Krugman:
I should probably say, I could live with this as an end result. If this becomes the left pole, and the center is halfway between this and Ryan, then no — better to pursue the zero option of just doing nothing and letting the Bush tax cuts as a whole expire.
This is clearly a first shot in the 2012 campaign, though I hope that is more than that.
His statements about needing reforms in the social safety net toward the end of the speech worry me though.
I’ll take what I can from him.
So they managed to cut a “deal”, where he made bigger cuts than Boehner originally wanted, forbade abortion funding in Washington, DC, among other idiocies, including high speed rail. (You can see a more complete list and an impassioned critique here)
Seriously, how can someone be such an incompetent negotiator (Reid and Obama together, but Obama is where the buck stops) that you give more than he initially asked for?
One of the things that gets turned off if there is a government shutdown is FHA loans:
I was hoping not to have to write this particular piece, but it seems I may have no choice, so here we go with housing.What happens to today’s housing market without FHA loans?
Right now FHA loans are about 20 percent of the overall mortgage market (purchases and refis) and 40 percent of purchase applications.
Compare that to around 11 percent of the overall market during the last shutdown in 1995. For the nation’s big public home builders, it’s far more of an impact, according to analysts.
This basically means that the housing market shuts down for the duration, because if 40% of home buyers can’t buy, the remainder will be able to extract even more in the way of lower house prices.
House prices have fallen 7 straight months, but prices are sticky in the short term, so you will have the housing market freeze.
He would use what now appears to be the inevitable government shut down to show people just what they would be missing if the federal government went away.
My guess is that he will instead choose to make sure that the brunt of any shutdown falls on the poor and minorities, because that’s how he rolls.
But all we have is the Democratic Party, so now that the Republican Party has formally proposed abolishing Medicare and Replacing it with vouchers, so I expect that they, and Barack Obama in particular, will spend the next few months negotiating with themselves before capitulating.
E.J. Dionne asks a question:
And you wonder: Will President Obama welcome the responsibility of engaging the country in this big argument, or will he shrink from it? Will his political advisers remain robotically obsessed with poll results about the 2012 election, or will they embrace Obama’s historic obligation — and opportunity — to win the most important struggle over the role of government since the New Deal?
They will shrink from their responsibility, even though it fighting for Medicare is an unalloyed political winner for them.
This has been another answer of simple answers to simple questions.
The legislature has now passed the bill, which would give the governor the power to declare any government or school district in the state and take it over, hand it to a crony, and dismiss elected officials he did not like.
Background here.
That a friend of mine who lives in Japan is fine, as is his wife, and the earthquake did no damage to his home.
A word of note, if this hit anywhere in the US, we would not have the infrastructure of personnel to handle this, and we would already be seeing private profiteers cheating people.
Also note that the Republican budget cuts include cuts to the Tsunami warning system.
Allegedly Democratic Co-Chair of Obama’s deficit reduction (aka cat food) commission, Erskine Bowles, was recommending changes to Social Security that would likely lead to its privatization while on the board of directors of Morgan Stanley:
Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s debt-reduction commission, said his job as a Morgan Stanley (MS) director didn’t influence his work on the panel’s recommendations for balancing U.S. spending, which said taxes are sapping the competitiveness of companies.
He and the commission’s co-chief, Alan Simpson, told an audience of bankers, investors and executives at an Economic Club of New York lunch meeting March 7 that the country may face a crisis if it doesn’t rein in the debt. Bowles, 65, has been a member of the bank’s board since the end of 2005.
“It didn’t have any effect on me at all,” he said in an interview after the lunch, when asked if his work for New York- based Morgan Stanley influenced the commission’s December proposals. “We tried to gore every ox we could.”
He also said that “The check is in the mail, this won’t hurt a bit, I’ll respect you in the morning, and I won’t cum in your mouth.”
Note also that Barack Obama was the one what hired these guys.