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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has a curious habit: he likes to make up "rules" on the fly. It's a bit like Bill Maher's affinity for "new rules," except Boehner isn't the least bit funny.
We've seen this a few too many times. In 2011, the Republican Speaker came up with a "rule" that said any increase in the debt ceiling would have to be accompanied by an identical decrease in debt reduction. How'd he come up with this? No one knows; it was just an arbitrary standard Boehner came up with, which he promptly labeled a "rule." Boehner was equally wedded to a made-up "rule" about only passing House bills that enjoyed at least 218 Republican votes.
And last week, the Speaker came up with an entirely new rule: "The sequester will be in effect until there are cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balance the budget in the next 10 years." Again, there's nothing substantive or policy-driven by Boehner's made-up standards -- he just manufactures rules out of thin air and expects all of Washington to honor them.
Boehner may not have fully thought this one through.
House Republicans have centered their messaging around the Senate's unwillingness to pass a budget, claiming it renders them fiscally irresponsible. But moderates are privately fretting about their 2014 budget, which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Speaker John Boehner say will balance within 10 years.
Some of these concerns are beginning to spill into the open.
"We are saying a 10-year balance -- that's tougher than the last Ryan budget," said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a former Budget Committee member and currently an Appropriations cardinal. "There could be a significant number of Republicans that say, 'I'm not going there because it would be too dramatic.' I have said to my constituents, nobody is talking about changing Social Security and Medicare if you're 55 years or over.' I've been selling it for three or four years that way. So have many other members. Well, to balance in 10, that 55 years is going to move up to 58, 59, 60. It makes us look like we're going back on what we were telling people when we were trying to sell this."
Oops.
One of the details that often goes overlooked is that the House Republican budget plan from the last Congress -- the one that included all the spending cuts, entitlement reforms, and tax breaks the GOP are desperate to have -- didn't bring the federal budget into balance until 2040. That's not a typo -- under the House Republican plan, written by Paul Ryan, the United States would run deficits every year for nearly three decades, and then might reach a balanced budget 27 years from now if optimistic projections are met.
And that plan included spending cuts so severe, GOP candidates were afraid to talk about them out loud in public.
This year, however, thanks to a new "rule" embraced by Boehner and his cohorts, the new House Republican plan intends to balance the budget by 2023, instead of 2040. Why does that matter? Because trying to eliminate the entirety of the deficit in one decade instead of three necessarily means ridiculously drastic cuts.
How bad would it be? Greg Sargent tracked down the numbers.
Getting rid of the deficit in 10 years with no new revenues would require extraordinarily deep cuts to the federal government. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently ran the numbers and concluded it would require across the board cuts totaling anywhere from one-sixth to one-third of the government, depending on whether defense and/or entitlements are included.
And the Speaker is not only using this "rule" to block a compromise on the sequester, he's also using it as a standard for a budget fight.
What Boehner may not realize is that there are midterm elections next year, and congressional Democrats would be giddy beyond recognition to get House Republicans on record supporting cuts this severe to programs the American mainstream strongly supports.
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And worse still, to attempt to save the budget by getting rid of spending in places like Medicare and Social Security would be like trying to save a sinking ship by drilling holes in the side of it. Austerity does not work unless you're trying to crash the economy. Especially austerity this fast and this deep.
Putting money into the system works best by enabling people the opportunity to SPEND money. People with money are less likely to save, more likely to spend, and more likely to stimulate an economy.
Bull. people with money are going to hoard it, and trying to replace the money spent in lieu of jobs lost is too large. This is just another rationale for the party of free stuff.
and another doubtful comment from our favorite conservative. Study after study shows that putting money in the hands of the poorest Americans is basically like putting money directly onto the bottom line of corporations because those Americans have so little that anything extra they get is immediately spent in the economy. The fact is they don't have enough to live on now and if they had more they would just spend it, that is why unemployment insurance is one of the most solid ways to stimulate an economy. Tax cuts for wealth people/corporations is the type of spending that gets hoarded.
So increased unemployment is the path to prosperity? I don't think so.
Shooter,
You are thinking of wealthy people that have too much to spend. Low income families will always spend the extra money on things that they need. A new car, cell phones, insurance, new eletronics, ets... People need to replace old, worn down, and broken things. Wealthy families already have the best of the best and hold on to their money because they have nothing else to buy.
And besides that, after the stimulus package, notice how spending and the economy rose? Or do you doubt all charts, and graphs that do not prove your point?
@tigerarmy247,
shooter is not a conservative. He's a troll who likes to write things that drive other members of this forum batsh*t. And they take the bait every single time. His avatar is someone missing a basket. By even writing about him this much, I've fed his ego to the point where he's probably busting a nut in his office's bathroom. Wise up.
http://moelane.com/2012/06/09/troll-hunting-101/comment-page-1/
You don't "think" at all. You're a mindless, ignorant buffoon and you always have been in every single post you've ever made here.
Ohhey, I totally got lost following this thread. Thanks, though, to the others to responding to Blanks.
Look people, there is an amount of money that has been vaporised in the economy because of all the job losses. There is no way Govt can spend enough to balance that out. Whatever one sends to the unemployed is a pittance compared to what jobs pay.
Consider the payroll cut. Most people didn't even know they were getting a benefit. That $10/wk benefit ended up costing half a trillion dollars, and nothing happened.
Ask yourselves what the end result of stimulus is supposed to be. More spending benefits who? Business. This is all an attempt to stimulate business, as in business needs to make more money, so it will hire. Yet most here are anti-business and anti-profit. What happens when you're in your car and put on the gas while stepping on the brakes? Not much, which is exactly where we are now.
I don't know where you get "anti-business and anti-profit" from, Blanks. I like business, it stimulates the economy. It helps people get jobs. It increases our country's productivity.
As usual, BullShooter is shooting blanks today.
Katherine you're one of the reasons I said "most". Low information commenters assume anything corporate is evil, and profit is ill gotten gains.
I'm not saying Boehner is stupid, I'm just saying he has bad luck when it comes to thinking...
When we were five and six years old, we invented games, and made up rules. Some of us grew up.
The new rule is this: Boehner isn't allowed to cry for himself, while insulting everybody else.
Or......
The Senate could pull their head out of there butt and at least attempt to put together a budget. We have been let down by our government, plain and simple. You can piss and moan about Boehner all you want, but it's not fooling anyone. Their is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. The problem is not so much Boehner or the republicans. The problem is BOTH sides not doing their job and then blaming the other side for obstruction. Yes i'm a conservative, but, i still blame the right for their fair share.
If you're a conservative, you might want to pull out your copy of the Constitution and take a look at which of the two houses are supposed to be writing bills dealing with taxation and appropriations. Hint: it isn't the Senate.
Steve, the law says the Senate has to pass a budget resolution each year. They are just too chicken to tell people they think they can spend beyond reason. And in doing so break the law. Don't you think Congress should follow the law? If not why should anyone else?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the House was responsible for developing the budget, then the Senate approves/amends it.
Article I, Section 7, Clause 1: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Read the Constitution you all so happily drape yourselves in for once in your life. The Senate offering a revenue bill is unconstitutional. The Republican-controlled House MUST do it.
The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, as codified in Title 31 of the United States Code, established the statutory basis for an executive budget process by requiring the President to submit to Congress annually a proposed budget for the federal government. It also created the Bureau of the Budget (reorganized as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1970) to assist him in carrying out his responsibilities, and the General Accounting Office (GAO, renamed the Government Accountability Office in 2004) to assist Congress as the principal auditing agency of the federal government.
5.5 Which part of this talks about the Senate?
As Really points out the budget process involves Congress and the Executive. But lately, Democrats have seen fit to spend whatever they want by using money they never intend to pay back.....
So the reality of Democrats today is spending with no plan, no restraint, and no remorse for stiffing lenders. And people wonder why Govt gets no respect.
Every new budget requires revenues even if there are taxes in place which means the House must initiate the bill. It is irrelevant to the Constitution whether the Senate and Executive branch submit a budget. The point of the latter two proposing a budget is to have a starting point for negotiations, but ultimately the House must pass the budget. Congress by statute may not delegate Constitutional powers to the other branches. For example, the War Powers Act is not a delegation of the power to declare war because the president must seek Congress' approval within 60 days after a foreign military operation is initiated. The act merely gives the president authority to use the military under certain circumstances that are less than a declaration of war. But this authority is limited and ultimately must be approved by Congress. The president may not unilaterally declare war.
Mike: You are the smartest guy in the room. The only thing that irks me is your loyalty to the cubbies, I am a true blue dodger...
Thanks for the clarification, Mike.
New taxes is a separate process from a budget. And as the Senate has demonstrated, the House doesn't have to pass a budget resolution either. Congress today exists on continuing resolutions.
The Senate can do nothing on this matter unless fillibuster Mitt stays home.
OR, the republican apologists could actually do something helpful, rather than pointing fingers. Write your elfin' Reps and if they continue this elfin' game, vote them out of office. The T-Pubs are not helping anything, only keeping economy from recovering.
This mantra of cutting spending is totally bogus until the economy recovers. We need some adults to step up and take upon themselves to work on the issues at hand. That is neither main stream R's nor T-Pubs. They are both too busy ducking punches and pointing fingers to do anything. So, what else is new? The House is supposed to deal with this stuff, send it to Senate, then either back to House or to POTUS. Basic U.S. gov't. The R's have perverted the process. We in CA, voted them OUT to get our budget fixed. I recommend voting the clowns and chimps (Rs/TP) out if people want to get something back on track. The business people cannot take over here. They are part of the equation, not all of it.
The filibuster and outlandish rhetoric/blaming makes us all look like clowns and chimps. Please stop this, it's embarrassing! Governing is not saying no, no, no and we must cut!
Marty, budget items in the Senate are simple majority. As in just Democrats have a majority, but refuse to tell anyone what they want to do.
Sandy, do you understand that the purpose of this govt spending is to boost business, so they can make more money? This is a serious question.
Blanks, the Senate Democrats have proposed an alternative to the sequester. So have House Democrats. So, where's the Republican plan?
Is it that Google is free, and that's why you won't use it? "Free stuff", donchno?
The only rule Boehner really needs to concern himself with, is an old one "Think before you speak.", although that one may still prove to be a problem for him, as you actually have to be able to think.
The Republicans WANT "extraordinarily deep cuts to the Federal Government"
Remember the stated purpose of their whole Tax pledge thing is to "Drown it in the bathtub"
If you cut the Federal government back that far what happens...there is no enforcement for regulations, or standards of safety. There is no effective representation for the lower class and the poor. There is no check on interference in social issues.
If you can make the federal government that weak then there is nothing to stop the states from becoming their own countries again. The Union would effectively end not with a bang but the click of a light switch.
Ok I admit that is an apocalyptic worst case scenario but I do think there are some grains of truth in it and I know there are more than a few people who would like to see it happen. Ask the Russian Oligarchs who the collapse of the Soviet Union was good for...
Translation: smaller increases. How about something radical instead....
Ask the French aristocrats who benefited from the French revolution. One of the main causes of the French revolution was that the French monarchy went broke. They did so 1) because they had lent huge sums of money to the Americans to fight the American Revolution because the French wanted to keep the Americas out of the hands of the British; and 2) the French Aristocrats paid very low if any taxes and the crown could not re-coop the money they had lent to the Americans.
When the French middle class finally revolted and the government collapsed order broke down and there was a reigh of terror, during which the lower classes took revenge on the aristocrats who had been oppressing them.
Me thinks I hath struck a nerve
What? You all don't like Obama's plan, or are you just assuming he's lying for political gain?
This is not fiscal discipline this is fiscal starvation...
Just admit it Shooter you are a crypt-anarchist who wants the entire Federal Government dismantled in it's entirety...
What I do not understand is why you would so willingly and blithely abandon a system of Government that has worked very well for a long time and want to go back to a system that has been tried and failed
Oh brother, You're going to freak out if Govt spends the same this year as it did last year? Are you a closet shop-a-holic or something?
One could arguably/accurately translate "drown gov't. in a bathtub" as
"cut all FDR's and Johnson's programs and deregulate commerce".
Also, throw in filibuster/block anything/anyone that the Republican party doesn't like, regardless of what the voters (wtp) want and regardless of the hamstringing of the important things that the nation faces (such as economy/defense/jobs/actual budget fixing) for political power plays.
Sandy
Bingo!
Hysteria doesn't help. The nation will not fold over a $60 billion reduction in spending. That's a rounding error.
Once again, we can cut Medicare and Social Security to the bone, but we can't cut defense spending a penny. Tell me why? Please.
Don't forget, everybody with less money than one of Romney's key constituents paid into Social Security and Medicare their entire lives without loopholes. Tell me again why the payers get it in the neck but the beneficiaries of some of the most outrageous loopholes in the history of tax are going to be protected.
Not only can't we cut defense spending, the people in the mainstream media won't even talk about cutting defense a penny. Is that because the networks are controlled by giant defense contractors like GE?
All this ineptitude is just a circus side show to avoid facing the obvious. Reagan gave the rich a 50% tax cut that's still in effect to this day. Prior to that, we never had a debt that exceeded 1 trillion dollars. Today it's 16 trillion.
We don't need to debate whether a tiny segment of the top 1% will have their taxes go from 35% to 39.6%. What we need is to return to the historical tax rates on the rich and tax them again at 70% as we did for 20 years from the early 60's to the early 80's.
The sequester is in Ryans new budget, he counts it as savings, as he did with the ACA Medicare Advantage cuts. Boehner is not likely to mess with the boy blunders math, so there is little hope for a deal...
yep ahhh again he just said now he wants to cut loopholes to the tax code for the rich and will not raise the rich taxes..... hello.... hello mcfly hello.... he just got done raising the rich taxes. so he just said he wont raise their taxes a second time.... I mean how can any intelligent American possibly believe any single thing that comes out of his mouth. Obama has not given any cuts to the senseless spending that he has accrued of the past for years. he keeps talking about ppl will loose jobs is they don't do it his way. hello mcfly hello.... people r losing their jobs every single month. his unemployment rate is going up almost every single month. does our president even know what is reality and what is fantasy... their is not one single thing that has gotten better at all with obamas policies. so heres to u Obama.... thanks for not one single thing at all in America that has gotten better since u have been in office.. that's gotto be a record in itself
Perhaps a different "intelligent American" can make sense of your gibberish, because I am astounded at your lowest common denominator orthodoxy...
imhers
" Obama has not given any cuts to the senseless spending "
You sir, are wrong, misinformed or stupid. Obama has signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law,and spending is on a downward track. All you are doing here is opening your mouth and revealing to the whole world that you just spew out what you hear on FOX and that you don't have the intellect to do some research and get your facts straight. Or you don't care what the facts are because you just crawled out of some back woods swamp.
hello mcfly hello - how about one single link to back up any of your rants?
You got that right, Blame the republicans when the liberals fail. Deflect the true nature of our downfall as a nation.
Really? So you think that the single minded goal of ruining Obama's Presidency by the Republicans has been good for the American people?
If by ruin you mean to protect the nation from becoming a bankrupt cesspool than yeah.
Really?-5374886 I don't know where you are from, but I'm in the San Francisco area, we are by all counts a very liberal area and are actually doing much better than the conservative dominated areas in the country, real estate values are rising, we are building bridges and freeways, everybody I know has a job, life around here is pretty good. I wonder why life sucks so bad in the areas of the country that are bastions of conservatism?.
If by bankrupt cesspool you mean a huge unfunded tax cut, an unfunded medicare part D expansion and 2 unfunded wars then yeah.
Those folks that say they love the U.S. and it's the best country in the world wish to call it a bankrupt cesspool?
I love where I live, too. We've had some bad times around here north from mark tk. But some prefer to wallow in pity and victimhood because the person they voted for lost. Taxes are part of living in a country like ours.
It's not going to be perfect. Just visualize your tax dollars going to the things you like. Cutting taxes too much AND spending off the budget for 2 wars is unsustainable. We need to correct all this with stronger economy first, jobs, stop giving tax breaks to those that have not done anything to deserve tax breaks. The fallacy of low taxes bring jobs is disproven.
We don't want taxes too high, but we want to have a country that is leading the way, not keep saying how we are going down if we don't cut taxes on the rich. They showed us that is what they care about. Rubio can say they care about poor, but how to rewind what we just saw, that disproves that.
I keep saying disprove what theory and they call facts, so I think we can safely say they are lying.
The cost of insurance and medical care is unsustainable. Let's adjust, get the economy growing faster, then cut waste, NOT cut spending and have unemployment rise, houses foreclosing again. The market is ticking up, Wall St. has been full steam ahead, so some of these whiners have nothing to cry over. They just didn't get their way and some folks told them they would. They are lying to you. They just keep lying, making you think we didn't reelect the President.
How can people follow such negative views of America and keep trying to make us all go swirling down into the economic toilet and be happy about it?
Some great leadership there, pointing the way to that vacuous chasm and we should just leap into that? They stopped saying trickle down out loud, but that's the fallacious policy they push. We should have a balanced and more serious cooperation to deal with the economy, jobs, revenue, THEN more cuts. We have already cut and been coming out of the recession.
It makes people less likely to buy anything, when we need people buying stuff for business and jobs. So, I hope Congress will get busy. But we keep hearing how terrible things are and we can't do anything. Just figure it out and business will adjust accordingly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/fiscal-cliff-2013_n_2372034.html
But they keep saying the President didn't fix what they did. Always campaigning instead of doing their job they are elected to do. The President was reelected handily. The House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans did and they still want to say they get their way on everything, even Sec. of Defense. What a crock this all is, trying to blame Obama. It seems they can't possibly acknowledge Bush policies and economic downturn brought us here. Instead, they say it's now all Obama's baby. Well, no and yes, but you can't say there have been no cuts and the deficit and economy didn't improve, either.
Here is a better plan than cutting and more pain:
http://www.businessinsider.com/closing-the-deficit-is-painless-2012-12
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told my Republican colleagues at our retreat," Boehner said. "The sequester will be in effect until there are cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balance the budget in the next 10 years.”
More hostage taking.
*Al Capone voice* "It's like this, see. Pass the Republican budget or the economy gets it."
It's Pearl Harbor all over again, and the Zeros are Republicans.
They have not and will not offer ANY concrete cuts because they know it will come back at them in the next election and are demanding Obama and the DEM do it so they can say "told you so they are to blame not the GOP"
How can they call them selves "leaders" when they fail at leading, 112 congress passed the least number of bills ever in history (cant blame DEM or Obama for that GOP has the majority most bills only require simple majority) and their answer was for thw 113 congress to work FEWER days
think things through?
Orange Julius?
LOL
Bonehead is the messiah of the Congress? He speaks and they all kneel down? Then whatever happened to JOBS JOBS JOBS???
Why don't the Dems move Ryan's Budget in the House? They don't have to vote for it.... in fact, they should all vote against it. But force the GOP to vote on this thing that Boehner, Cantor and Ryan keep jawing about. If Boehner, et al are so keen on the Ryan plan, move it for a vote. Get the GOP on record that, in order to balance the budget in 10 years, they are going to have to cut things like like SS, gut Medicare and Medicaid plus SCHIP, school lunches, education -- even defense. (Basically, Ryan's 10-year plan is the Sequester on steroids.) Make the GOP vote on it. Get the CBO to crunch the numbers and tell us how much damage will be done to the economy as a result. Chances are a lot of GOPrs won't vote for it either.
There is no IQ test that someone has to pass to be elected to office. Most of the politicians who say this stuff are really that dumb. I know it's terrifying, but I'm afraid it's the literal truth. They are morons sent to their state capitals or to Washington to represent morons.