House Speaker John Boehner’s failure to wrangle 217 votes for his debt ceiling compromise bill on Thursday shocked the political world and left everyone wondering what might come next as the Aug. 2 deadline draws ever closer.Why is this on the Republicans? The Democrats own the US Senate. Has anyone actually SEEN the plan from the Senate Majority Leader? The President is a Democrat. Is there a URL where I can find the details of his plan? Or is his plan the Fourteenth Amendment?
Regards — Cliff
16 comments:
I think it's fair to consider it "news" when our Speaker loses political relevance, especially in light of his prominent place in our line of presidential succession. It's a somewhat historic event in that non-partisan context, wouldn't you agree?
To your point, there's another analysis that needs to fairly examine why such a failure might be allowed to distract us from the profound failures of all the other players in this farce, but that's not the lede.
Here's coverage of the CBO review of the Democrat proposal: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-democrats-debt-plan-saves-2-2-trillion-134046745.html
The Christian Science Monitor has some thoughtful coverage (not complementary) of Obama's choice to decline to propose a plan, and to rather cajole a Congressional compromise: http://news.yahoo.com/us-debt-crisis-obamas-leadership-style-suited-moment-235806139.html
Failure cannot be made to look attractive, no matter how hard the media tries. Currently, the profound failure of the Democrats who have complete control of 2/3 of the ruling body of America to accomplish anything tangible or meaningful regarding our exponentially increasing debt, is one of the ugliest failures in the history of American governance.
One of the key symptoms of the media attempt to whitewash Democrat (Senatorial and Presidential) abject failure is their round the clock work to pin the blame on the Speaker (well....and George Bush). In logic, it is called a "distraction." "Hey, look over there at THAT disaster."
And...worst of all...imagine the absolute rage that will emanate from the American populace when they finally sort through all the political BS (which is essentially EVERYTHING spoken inside the Beltway) and realize that absolutely NOTHING has changed except how much of their hard earned wages are going to be withheld so that Obama and his troops can continue to hand out favors to their loyal constituency headed by none other than George Soros. He benefits from a recently enacted rule that allows hedge fund folks like him to shield their "earnings" from tax. Along with that little gift, Obama recently offered Petrobras a $2B offshore drilling subsidy, a corporation in which George Soros has an $811M interest.
The ONLY things that will change is NOT that the American society is going to be screwed by its own government, but HOW.
Neal, my only objection to your comments is the implication that it's on one party and not both that we have arrived here. ALL of Obama's policies are Republican in genesis--from Dubya in every case aside from Romneycare--and it's just as disingenuous to blame him alone as it is for D's to blame Bush in the same sort of myopic and self-serving fashion.
This is a tag-team debacle, and party partisans from BOTH sides are responsible. It would be best if we would stop trying to paint our pots and kettles in any differing shades of pitch black.
POTUS is out on a very shaky limb with his base:
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. As you may know, President Obama initially tried to strike a “Grand Bargain” with Republicans over taxes and spending. To do so, he not only chose not to make an issue of G.O.P. extortion, he offered extraordinary concessions on Democratic priorities: an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility, sharp spending cuts and only small revenue increases. As The Times’s Nate Silver pointed out, Mr. Obama effectively staked out a position that was not only far to the right of the average voter’s preferences, it was if anything a bit to the right of the average Republican voter’s preferences.
Obama has offered a deal that any pre-Tea Party Congress would have jumped at.
Kad, my error in not making it quite clear that this whole sordid mess is every bit bipartisan.....a guilty cast of thousands over many years..witness the plaintive comments from the current bunch of crooks that "every other President has always gotten multiple debt limit extensions without so much as a whimper."
POTUS did make a verbal offer...nobody that I know of has EVER seen his offer(s) in writing..that is...something one could sit down and read without hiring a raft of attorneys. And after he made the offers, Harry Reid, et al, said it would never get past the Senate.
Beyond that, anything that has emanated from the House has been summarily shot down or promised a microsecond veto.....before the plan ever left the House or received an approving vote.
Finally, the key and greatest sticking point of the Administration offers is that Obama wants a debt limit increase that takes any revisit into 2013, well beyond his hoped for reelection. "Give me a blank check, but trust me, I won't abuse it."
Blank Checks? Like the one we issued Bush/Cheney, when we trusted them there were WMDs?
This whole thing is a manufactured crisis. and it is RETAAHDED!
Rahm wouldn't waste a crisis. Congress GOPers are creating one.
Don't lose sight of the end game. The point is to make American's HATE gov't.
With gov't out of the way, the middle class will be dead.
"Harry Reid’s plan is basically giving the president a blank check."
Eric Cantor on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 in a TV interview.
PolitiFact says, FALSE.
Jack, at least that's better than McConnell's suggestion to give the POTUS imperial powers to ignore Congress entirely whenever he pleases.
Let's face it--our Congress and our POTUS are NOT acting in our interests, and desperately need to be removed from office at our earliest convenience, and replaced with people (like Scott Brown to be fair) who are willing to evaluate legislation without primary regard for how it advances the interests of their own private political party and benefactors, but, rather, primary regard for the people of these United States.
kad, I am compelled to be a partisan, as I think we are at war and must take a side. But, I am not fighting my friend, Cliff, or his ideals. I am fighting the party his identifies with because I think they are beholden to our corporate feudal masters.
The Democrats, as a parasite, at least understand that they cannot kill the host, aka middle class.
That said, I offer you Lawrence Lessig.
about fixcongressfirst.org
No one is ever going to like everything that Congress does, but we should be able to believe that when it makes mistakes, it does so on the basis of stupidity or incompetence, or because there are too many Democrats there or too many Republicans—but not because of the money. But with special interests funneling millions of dollars into our elections—and a new Supreme Court ruling giving corporations and unions even more power to control our government—we can never have that confidence.
This isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue—it's a fundamental question about what kind of democracy we want to have. As we've watched presidents in both parties fail to pass their agendas, it's become increasingly clear that elections are no longer where decisions are made in this country. A fortunate few, neither dependent on nor accountable to the people, control the direction of our government. That weakening of our democracy should frighten everyone equally, whether or not you support the people currently in power.
Our goal is to restore public trust in our government by passing a hybrid of small-dollar donations and public financing of elections.
FixCongressFirst.org is a project of Change Congress, a non-partisan advocacy organization whose sole purpose is to protect the independence of Congress by fighting the influence of money in politics.
Another version of the same story. This one via The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:
Dodd-Frank Update
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act sings about having its ass f**ked raw for a year.
Jack, both parties are at their current core as corrupt as The Mob in its heyday. The sooner we are able to get our hands around the right necks and jerk them out of their cushy entitled home in OUR Congress...the better we'll all be. Frankly...and you and Kad may strenuously object to this statement......I think that was the whole attraction of the Tea Party candidates....not so much their "fiscal charge" but the sense that they would swim against the stream...and many have...witness Rep. West from FL as an example. I really could care less and heaven knows I've tried which party gets the power reins as one assumes that the good of the country is the goal....and thus...I don't care where the rebels come from or who what party they serve....as long as they don't serve traditional Washington government. I get so sick I want to vomit when I hear some political wonk say, "This is how Washington does it" as if one belongs to a special group of exalted ones who have been given "the power." BS.
We have a long, long string of Presidents who have no edge on being self serving and willing to ignore the wants and needs of the populace unless those wants and needs just happened to be the same as theirs or serve a personal goal.
Most of this is because as a people, we have a long history of electing folks to do our work...and then letting them go off and do what they want. If you are a boss of a work crew, you wouldn't put your people to work and leave for a week without having some means of ensuring that they are doing what you told them to do. People say, "Well, we elected him to represent us and that is his job" when we have done nothing to make certain that he or she never forgets that job...or what it entails.
I particularly resent the fact that a political candidate can cherry pick the state and district in which he or she wants to run based on thin technicalities...that is how MA got Obamney for a Governor. I want a home grown, long time resident who has roots and wants to be able to come home again and be one of us.
Neal, I'd say that the voters envisioned the "Tea Party" as a 3rd party, kinda like they saw Ross Perot. But that is hardly what they got.
Those TP caucus folks are social conservatives, like Michele Bachmann. They are not libertarians. No libertarian wants to "pray away the gay."
One thing, they are ready to bring the US to default. Surely, they are not beholden to Wall Street, like so many from both parties are.
Unfortunately, it looks like they just want to crash the system, push "reset," so they can gain power from the chaos.
I'd rather keep the system we have and extract corporate & union influence in a more tidy, methodical manner.
The concept of the Tea Party is far from the operational reality.
As with all political things, what you want and what you get are almost always two different things...and that is the case for many if not most who thought the TP folks were AN answer...turns out.....NOT.
We still as a society seem to want someone to take care of us....to do the work FOR us....and when you "contract out" you always have some issues....especially when the folks you hire to do your bidding got the work based on lofty promises spending OUR money....
Jack, I believe you mistake between whom this war is being fought--the D's and the R's are actually a single side effectively against the middle class, and by taking up support for one of them, you are effectively supporting BOTH of them. (The same way buying either Coke or Pepsi in the supermarket soda aisle ensured the demise of RC Cola and any hope for future choice).
Evidence of this includes Obama's historic increase to our debt and deficit, pursuing the exact same policies (foreign wars, bank bailouts, etc. etc.) as his predecessor, not to mention executive orders, extraordinary renditions, torture, business as usual at Guantanamo, etc. There is no effective difference between the past two administrations save Romneycare, and I, for one, consider supporters of the D party to be equally complicit in the looting of our Treasury. (I also consider your compulsion to take sides as the prime motivation of others to take equally vehement sides with the R's, and, for that reason it's also the de facto truth that people like you have created the environment in which Fox News flourishes).
Sapere Aude. Burn your party registration card. Wake up that it's party politics, not any one particular party, that causes all this.
Jack
So Dodd-Frank is 2,300 pages and they left the regulation writing up to the agencies they had created?
How does that make sense? If this is just more of the red tape we got with Sarbanes-Oxley we are well and truly in trouble as a nation. But, it ensures long term employment for accountants.
2,300 pages? I grant you that they use big type and double-space, but still...
Regards — Cliff
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