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Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
It was just two months ago when it seemed the fight in Washington over health care was largely over. After all, what more was there to fight about? The election was over; the Supreme Court fight was resolved; Republican governors were beginning to grudgingly implement the law; and even House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the Affordable Care Act "the law of the land." GOP candidates spent a year running on a repeal platform, and they lost.
And yet, despite all of this, Republicans just can't move on. Dana Milbank explained:
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans supported legislation proposed by the freshman [Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas] to defund Obamacare -- the 35th attempt, give or take, to abolish the program.
This one failed, like all the others.
Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, it has been said, defines insanity. But among Senate Republicans, the lunatics are running the asylum.
I should note that there's some debate among Hill watchers whether this was the 34th Republican attempt at repeal or 35th, but I think most folks can agree that's not really what's important here.
Rather, what matters is the fact that GOP lawmakers, two months in the new Congress, aren't even trying to be serious about policymaking or governing. They know they can't repeal "Obamacare," but they keep bringing these measures up for votes anyway. Indeed, how many Senate Republicans voted for yesterday's Cruz amendment? Literally all of them.
Over the weekend, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) appeared on Fox News, explaining his support for repealing the parts of the Affordable Care Act that help people receive medical care. Host Chris Wallace asked, "Are you saying that as part of your budget you would repeal -- you assume the repeal of Obamacare?" When Ryan said yes, Wallace replied, "Well that's not going to happen."
But therein lies the point: they don't care.
There is a certain irony underscoring recent events. To listen to Republican rhetoric on Capitol Hill is to hear a series of complaints about President Obama: he's not being "serious" enough about getting things done; he's too focused on electoral considerations; he's not "leading" in a way the far-right finds satisfactory; he's reaching out to his rivals on the other side of the aisle but he doesn't really mean it.
But it's against this backdrop that Republicans vote, over and over again, to repeal a health care law they know won't be repealed. They do so, in part because they have a radicalized base that expects near-constant pandering, in part because some of their leaders have broader ambitions and see these tactics as useful, and in part because these votes just seem to help Republicans feel better about themselves.
We can debate the relative merits of these motivations, but can we also keep this in mind the next time we hear whining about the White House not being "serious" enough about constructive policymaking?
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Remember when we all used to joke about how whiney the Liberal base was? It all seems so long ago...
I remember.
It's a Center-Left country now, and look who the angry extremists are these days.
"It's a Center-Left country now"-- of course it is, cuz Rachel said so correct?
So how come the Maddow Blog is totally ignoring the most important story of the day?
From Talking Points Memo:
President Obama is seeking to push Republicans to work with him on a grand deficit bargain by first assuring them he's willing to cut entitlements, and then attempting to scrape off enough of them who will in turn agree to raise new revenues.
House Republicans emerged from a rare meeting with Obama on Wednesday afternoon saying he assured them he was serious about cutting programs like Social Security and Medicare in order to reduce the long-term deficit.
"It was a really great first step," said Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI). "He did express a willingness to give on entitlements."
"He focused a lot on entitlements," said Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL).
If President Head Up His Ass wants to continue this sellout of everything Democrats are supposed to be for, it's not going to matter whether Republicans "spin their wheels" on healthcare. President HUHA will next be working with them to overthrow ObamaRomneyCare.
What part of ENTITLEMENTS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEFICIT!!!!!! does this fukking MORON not get???? God, I hate having had to vote for this self-described "moderate Republican". At least with Romney we'd have known we were dealing with an enemy in front of us, rather than one with the knife in our backs.
Agree. I wish this story would get more attention. Why is Obama pandering to these cretins? It makes me disrespect him. If Dems cut entitlements, I see no reason to continue voting for them. They'll be worse than Republicans. And evidently, Reid and Pelosi are onboard.
Only a complete fool would think Obama is going to go to Republicans to screw over the people who elected him. The Republican are obviously not interested in Obama getting anything done, so the very last thing they would do is agree with him, regardless of subject. Imagine for a second Obama working with Boehner whipping votes and try to not burst out laughing...
This doesn't look like news to me. It looks like the same story we've been hearing for the last 2 years (at least). Obama has consitently looked at cuts to entitlement programs that don't reduce benefits. Republicans look like they're willing to compromise at first and then when a deal starts forming, they shut down. Wake me when the pattern changes.
I'm sorry, but I find the TPM story to be hearsay and bull@!$%#, and it's damn frustrating to see so-called progressives so eager to cut the knees out from this Prez. How many times are we going to fall for this standard 'bash-the-Prez-from-the-left' catnip? If you want to see what the President has offered Republicans, all you have to do is look here, where it's in writing:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/sequester/the-presidents-plan
And understand this, in terms of the two-tenths of a percent change to calculating increases contained in the Superlative CPI idea, it's been completely overlooked that the larger point of it is the savings that will be piled back into Social Security, therefore helping to close its shortfalls in the long term, i.e., strengthening it. Now, no doubt I'll be piled on here for not joining in this needless Prez pile on, but so be it. Here's CBPP's analysis of 'chained-CPI':
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1895
Very well said June. It seems like so many of us swallow such whoppers. It's not like Obama is going to go head to head against Nancy Pelosi and chum up with Louie Gohmert.
TCinLA: If you scroll down a couple of entries to the 'Morning Maddow' section, you should see a story link titled: "House Repulicans make with the details from their meeting with the President yesterday". This is the reporting on the story you were looking for, though they come to slightly different conclusions than your glib extrapolation.
Yeah, Dude, I hate to bust your bubble, but he's continuing the Surrender Tour today with Senate Republicans.
My "glib extrapolation" is what pretty good reporter Brian Beutler came away with and put in his TPM report. But feel free to continue Obamabotting.
TCinLA - what would it take to get you to take a deep breath long enough to actually look deeper into topics that seem to perpetually enrage you? I understand that one of the missions of Bernie Sanders lately has been to whip people up into a frenzy over chained-CPI, and I understand that some 23 (?) Democrats 'sent a letter to Obama' about it. But at times (not often) our side can play fear-mongering-fundraising just as good as the other side. The points left out in the whole chained-CPI argument are 1) Obama states he will consider it if it contains 'protections for vulnerable'; 2) Social Security recipients will still receive increases, the difference is the calculation would amount to two-tenths of a point less than it is now; 3) that two-tenths will add up to compounded savings that would extend Social Security solvency for several more years beyond current projections; 4) Calculation adjustments much more dynamic than 'chained-CPI' have been made to this formula without Bernie Sanders or anyone else raising so much as a 'whoop' about it. If those who are screaming bloody murder over chained-CPI are not including at least some of these facts, they are playing their listening audience for their own purposes.
Just in case numbers matter: Combined, these two entitlement categories (Social Security and all health care programs) will comprise 52.9 percent of the projected $47.2 trillion in total federal outlays from 2014 to 2023.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-entitlements-obamacare-make-53-federal-spending quote from a CBO report
If they are going to try to repeal Obamacare, they should offer an alternative: a single payer system or at least something to rein in health care costs. When the CEO of a non-profit medical facility is making $1,000,000.00 or more, something is wrong with the provider; not with the payer.
But that would hurt the big-bucks CEO's who make major campaign contributions. Not gonna happen.
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans supported legislation proposed by the freshman [Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas] to defund Obamacare -- the 35th attempt, give or take, to abolish the program.
Will somebody help me out here? Was a vote held?
The Republicans are a minority in the Senate. Don't Democrats, specifically Harry Reid, determine what gets voted on in the Senate? If so, then how was it that this vote was held in the first place?
I should have read the Dana Milbank piece first. This vote was on an amendment to another piece of legislation. Mystery solved.
Paying out more rope? Waste of time, yes, but perhaps worth it? The previous 33 efforts were all in the House, IIRC; time to let the Senate Repubs show how stupid *they* are?
The GOP does this stuff so media talks about it and nothing important happens. I just saw on MSNBC, two interviews with Republicans, none with Dem. Just criticism on how DEM and the PREZ don't give up in raising taxes. How do we break this cycle. Think about it.
Is repeal of Obamacare an issue outside of Washington? Seriously I wonder who the heck keeps pushing this. I am a believer in the old "follow the money" approach to Washington. Where is there money in all this for the right wing. Those of us in the country are simply adapting to the new law.
I'm not sure where you're located, but I can tell you that during the Republican caucuses in Northern Iowa it was a BIG topic. I would go so far as to call repealing the Healthcare Act the single most galvanizing issue at the caucus in which I participated. Trust me on this one. There are plenty of people outside of Washington who are still talking seriously about the need to overturn this Law. They're woefully misinformed, but they are also vocal and in contact with their Reps.
Those are the same morons (in northern Iowa) who blindly follow their farming parents and grandparents and vote GOP every time, even if it's for idiots like Bob Latham and Steve King.
I'll bet not a one of them can tell you three things about the ACA either. "One, Obama supported it so I'm against it; two, Mitt and Paul said Obama took $700 billion from Medicare to pay for it and i'm stupid enough to believe them; and three, .....hmmmmmm, three.......uh........"
Obamacare will continue to be an issue so long as he occupies the White House. It is a rallying point to raise campaign funds and to scare the rubes who are willfully ignorant of the laws provisions. But eventually Obama will leave and the law will still be in effect. And that is when the Obamacare will lose its visceral effect on some voters and Republicans will have to move on to a different issue without the benefit of appealing to voters base instincts with racially tinged rhetoric.
Why the term "entitlements" chafes you and always will.
This is a pull quote from an NPR article on the origins of "entitlements". The comparison of thinking between certain former candidates for President and Vice President and plutocrats who lived in the 1800's is not subtle. It can be stretched over oil industries and banks as well.
"When people fulminate about the cost of government entitlements these days, there's often the implicit modifier "unearned" lurking in the background. And that in turn makes it easier to think of those programs as the cause of a wider social malaise — that they create what critics call a "culture of dependency" or a class of "takers," which are basically ways of referring to what the Victorians called the undeserving poor."
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/14/158756957/with-ryans-ascent-a-few-thoughts-on-entitlement
Yeah, well, my entitlements were earned because I paid for them - unlike the Corporate Welfare Whores and Frauds and Cheats. I am taking what is mine.
TC, I've been reading where they are starting to call things like Social Security and Medicare earned benefits instead of entitlements. More clearly defines their true meaning.
"Rather, what matters is the fact that GOP lawmakers, two months in the new Congress, aren't even trying to be serious about policymaking or governing."
Please, sometimes you fake it til you make it, yet unfortunately for US all the GOTP have "faked it" so much so that they now are actually there and haven't a clue about what to do. What was that thing about the Emperor with NO CLOTHES on again?
And if memory serves me well - wasn't one of those GOTP newbie incoming freshmen whining about how "his health insurance" wasn't kicking in fast enough, the nerve!!!
Republicans in the House were paid last year for failing to repeal The Affordable Health Care Act 33 times, NO JOBS BILL. First thing for the new congress was Michelle Bachman attempting to repeal this law and now Cruz. Stop paying these people repeatedly do the same failed function over and over again. Stop living in the past and join the rest of the world in the present and moving towards the future - Pass the American Jobs Act. Get people back to work, creates revenue and decreases the expenditures for unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, housing assistance etc.
How is Social Security or Medicare an entitlement when I and other Americans have paid into it all our lives?
It's an entitlement because you aren't drawing out the money you paid in. No one ever was. We all pay for the generation(s) ahead of us and we all (those who live long enough, anyhow) draw out vastly more than we ever paid in. That's why it's an entitlement.
1982 Guy, you're obviously a victim of what passed for "education" since 1982 (which allows me to understand why you can't understand written words, since you were probably a victim of "Whole Language" literacy miseducation). "Entitlement" means you are entitled to it, because you participated in it by paying into it.
Didn't that remedial education your freshman year in college have any positive effect?
TCinLA I think you're forgetting how the whole program even started. The very first people who gained SS benefits never paid a cent into the system. You don't get money from SS because you paid into the system. You get money from SS because we as a Country choose to continue the program after you begin drawing off of it. If you just ignore the first people to draw from SS then you would be correct, however when we include those first recipients in the equation the brackets are shifted. I completely support Social Security and I would continue paying into it even if I knew it were not going to be around when I am eligible to draw from it. I think it is worth what modest monies are taken from my paycheck to sleep knowing the elderly aren't surviving on dogfoog and shoe leather.
I understand your confusion on the issue. My aunt works for Social Security, I am familiar with the program.
I apologise if you are offended by my referring to your extrapolation in a previous reply as 'glib', but I think you were glossing over the fact that NO AGREEMENT HAS BEEN FORGED from that meeting. To extrapolate that Obama is surrendering everything Dems are supposed to stand for is lazy, paranoid, and ridiculous if all you have to go on is one article from TPM.
Because the program doesn't need an annual appropriation to be passed by Congress.
That's the definition, plain and simple. Nothing else involved.
Looks like the Republicans are their usual selves with lies and deceptions to the public than brew on how they are going to screw over people behind closed doors. If we learned anything from leach Romney campaign, the Republicans are still just up to their literal load of crap for rich bastards and false Pharisees.
And there it is one more Republican Talking head in MSNBC, this is their third one, without challenged them. why?
Joe Walsh + Alan West + Louie Ghomert + Michelle Bachmann = Ted Cruz. This guy is going to come up with more bulls!it than all those nut jobs combined. We've got 6 years of this psycho. A strategic lightning strike by God would be nice.
Ted Cruz looks like the kid who got caught cheating on his math test but it didn't matter because he still didn't get any of the answers correct.
Insane, immature, irresponsible and dishonest. The cornerstones of liberal lunacy.
Insane, immature, irresponsible, hypocritical and dishonest. All cornerstones of proud liberal lunacy.
The Obama budget projections show that by 2017, entitlements, which go up automatically, even when spending is "frozen," will be no less than 62.5% of the budget, and interest on the debt at 14.9%. That means that less than a quarter of our spending will be used on anything else that could be cut. Of course entitlements are a primary reason for the deficit.
I'm waiting for my $2,500 check that Obama promised I would get if ObamaCare was just passed.
Another Obama lie.................
Where is the $2,500 savings Obama promised me when ObamaCare comes out?
Another Obama lie.......
I would caution against repeating that line about Obamacare being "the law of the land," as I don't believe it accomplishes very much. In fact, it tends to make people feel bummed. The Patriot Act and the NDAA are the law of the land. There's no need to rub it in.
http://youtu.be/rLtgDlPqw4w
Well we have 39 trys from the Republicans to avoid the Obama care legislation, and yet, they lost, what else is there to do? but the Republicans are still trying to find options from the UFO'S and to me, I think Ted Cruz is really talking to them, because he is trying to come out with other ( out of this world ) Ideas, and he seems to be talking in Martian, or Jovian language, we'll see what he has in mind.