When you think Republicans cannot sink any lower, along comes Speaker Boehner and Ryan to prove otherwise as I just learned from an email:
Republican Speaker John Boehner just broke the news that Republicans in the House expect to pass Paul Ryan's disastrous budget this year. As you know, Paul Ryan’s budgets have called for slashing seniors’ health care benefits, ending the Medicare guarantee, and handing huge tax breaks to the top 1%.
Some things don't change with today's Republicans favoring the top 1% and the rest of us can pound salt for all they care. Never seen anything like it and it is starting to filter down to Republicans in the States. What happened to the Republican Party of old? How long have they been like this and many of us missed the signs? Many of the office holders some of us worked for their elections and know personally are not the same people and come up with some of the dumbest comments day after day. Hard to equate a party many of us worked for to today's party of the rich. Can remember for years being told the Democrats have the most wealth -- more narrative versus facts. Have to admit the GOP PR machine has been better at churning out lies then the Democrats over the years.
How can you not guarantee Medicare when it has been guaranteed for years? Makes no sense but then little of what the GOP does today makes sense. Their oath is to support and defend the Constitution not support and defend the Koch Bros and their millions.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Rep Ryan (R-WI) who heads the House Committee on the Budget and was Romney's VP candidate, is one of the more dishonest people in the house as he says one thing about his budget but when you read it, his comments are hollow. Just went to the site of his Committee and all I can find is info from the 2013 budget -- it is like the 2014 budget is cloaked in secrecy.
Why do they want to cut Medicare benefits to the people but protect what doctors get paid? Talk about class warfare -- that describes the GOP efforts today to make sure their wealthy donors, Koch Bros, and others get what they want out of Congress. We now know the attacks on the EPA over the years was to lessen regulations on polluting and other things so the Koch's had a free reign to pollute at will.
Republicans have launched a party-wideattack blitz against Democrats over payment cuts to private insurers under Medicare Advantage, which covers one-third of Medicare beneficiaries. The savings were enacted under Obamacare, then included in the Ryan budgets for each of the last three years. Nearly all Republicans voted for them.
Instead of using the money to finance Obamacare, Republicans used the roughly $150 billion in savings to help cover the cost of their tax cuts and meet their deficit reduction targets. (The Medicare cuts to providers and insurers under Obamacare total about $700 billion.) Without them, it'd be harder to make the Ryan plan's numbers add up. It's already awkward for Republicans to attack cuts they've supported without a fuss in the past, but it'd be more embarrassing to vote for cuts they're simultaneously using as a key campaign issue in the 2014 elections.
Then there's Social Security. Republican leaders have been attacking President Barack Obama for rescinding a provision in his budget to cut future benefits. "This reaffirms what has become all too apparent: the president has no interest in doing anything, even modest, to address our looming debt crisis," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
Notably, the provision -- known as Chained CPI, which slows the rate of inflation for benefits -- was not included in any of the GOP's own budgets, which left Social Security untouched. But if it's a mere modest step toward avoid a debt crisis, as they now say, Republicans would have a tough time justifying excluding it from their budget.
That said, if they do take up the policy, Republicans would make themselves vulnerable to attacks for seeking to cut the highly popular retirement program. Democrats would pounce, and the attacks could be especially damaging among elderly voters, who vote in large numbers and tend to prefer Republicans. They would also be undercutting their own election arm's attacks on Democratic candidate Alex Sink of Florida for speaking favorably about a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan that cuts Social Security.
The source added that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is “shopping an idea of passing defund through the House with the CR, but with a mechanism that would allow it to be decoupled in the Senate, defeated, and then the base CR be passed without coming back to the House.”
That is now dead to be replaced by a vote on the continuing resolution with a much trickier defund Obamacare package which would be harder to decouple according to the Atlantic Wire below. Looks like after the vote, the House GOP plan to leave town so the Senate can figure out how they handle this mess created by the House Republicans who are bowing to their hard right Tea Party base risking the full faith and credit of the US Government to get reelected. The very idea that the House is not working next week according to their schedule I just got from the House.gov website should make every one's blood boil.
Would someone like to explain to me why the House is on recess again next with with continuing resolutions and an upcoming debt ceiling looming? Are they really this stupid to stay out of DC to allow the Federal Government to default on 1 October 2013 since they have not passed a continuing resolution?
Their hair brained scheme to defund Obamacare risking the full faith and credit of the United States to appease the Tea Party and wealthy donors should get every last Republican supporting it thrown out of office in November 2014. These bunch of clowns don't deserve the title of Congressman with their antics and threats to shut down the Government to get their own way to defund Obamacare. Sound like a bunch of spoiled brats who need to go sit in a corner until they can behave.
Those spoiled brats have struck according to The Atlantic Wire article that just broke with a new GOP plan to defund Obamacare or shutdown government with NO decoupling mechanism in the Senate. Is it me or does Speaker Boeher look like he has a total dislike of this President? Is it because the current Republican leadership cannot stand having a minority as President and from what I hear from the hard right a Democrat woman would face the same obstacles. Bottom line is the current GOP cannot stand not having a Republican in the White House. This picture does Boehner no favors!
If the Atlantic Wire is correct, the House GOP is getting ready to throw a monkey wrench into their vote on the continuing resolution with their new scheme trying to back the Senate and Obama into a corner risking the shutdown of Government over Obamacare. Petty bunch of Republicans.
The Republican House leadership will give in to their conservative charges and stage (another!) vote to defund Obamacare as part of a continuing resolution to keep funding the government, according to the National Review. The internal GOP fight about an anti-Obamacare provision in the resolution has played out to the side of the main stage drama over Syria, but with Congress facing a September 30th deadline to keep the government funded, Boehner, Cantor and co. need to do something to get the fight over what the next few months of government funding will look like at least out of the gate.
Here's the National Review, who note that the leadership will announce the vote Wednesday:
This means the conservatives who have been urging Boehner to back a defunding effort as part of the CR have won a victory, at least in terms of getting the leadership to go along with their strategy. But getting such a CR through the Senate and signed into law will be very difficult — and many House insiders say the vote may be just the first vote in a long series of legislative ping pong.
(snip)
But it looks like the measure the House ended up with won't provide that easy separation — the measure will simultaneously fund and defund, without the opt out amendment structure. It's the latest iteration of a conservative push to refuse to continue to fund the government unless Obama agrees to defund Obamacare. And while this round is likely just as symbolic, and doomed to fail, as every previous attempt, we now know more about the line conservatives see between too much symbolic opposition, and just the right amount. Excerpt: Read More at the Atlantice Wire about GOP shenanigans on using the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare
As some of us have been saying, financial markets are way too complacent about the debt ceiling — which we’re going to hit in as little as five weeks. Everything Republican leaders are actually saying suggests that they intend to go full-on blackmail, holding America’s full faith and credit hostage to the sacred goal of crippling Obamacare before it gets going. Assumptions that they will in fact blink are entirely faith-based.
And this article about the plight of the near-old — those close to, but not yet at, the Medicare age — shows what it is the GOP is willing to fight for, indeed to endanger the stability of world financial markets:
THE sweeping federal health care law making its major public debut next month was meant for people like Juanita Stonebraker, 63, from Oakland, Md., who retired from her job in a hospital billing office a year and a half ago.
She was able to continue her health insurance coverage from the hospital for a time, but when she tried to find an individual policy on her own, none of the insurers she contacted would cover her because she was diabetic.
Yes: Republicans are willing to push the economy and the financial system to the edge of disaster in order to deny people like Ms. Stonebraker coverage. Awesome, isn’t it?
What makes these House Republican leaders tick? Never have witnessed anything like this with their hatred of the President who has taken to joking about if he is for something they are automatically against. They refuse to show respect to the Office of the President now but demanded all Democrats respect Bush-Cheney even when they were lying -- bunch of hypocrites on top of obstructionists, rude, obnoxious, dishonest, and a few other choice names that are unprintable.
Bottom line no matter how many conservatives think President Obama is going to cave, I would be willing to bet he won't cave on delaying Obamacare and the Republican Party will be blamed if the Government is shut down come 1 October 2013, the beginning of the fiscal year. American people need to understand this is the fault of Republicans in the House who have refused to meet with the Senate on budget resolutions. We kept hearing the Senate never passed a budget. When the Senate wrote a budget that was passed in the spring, the House GOP has refused to acknowledge that budget and send negotiators to work out a deal between the two Houses so the Government can be funded.
This is not the way Government is supposed to work but House Republicans keep pushing ahead going over the cliff. Now it is time for Americans to wake up to the kind of people who are members of the House GOP caucus who put their own re-election ahead of the Country. Let's get rid of the obstructionist GOP in 2014 and elect Democrats who want to move the Country forward.
Congress is on five-week recess with no budget in place for FY14 that begins 1 October 2013 and with a debt ceiling stalemate staring them in the face.
Will Republicans really shut down Government over Obamacare is the question that demands an answer? Right now I would say it is 50/50 but after the GOP hears from the hard right Tea Party, it may move to 75/25 to shut down Government. We are in a holding pattern right now to see if the GOP is dumb enough to shut down government.
What would your life be like if you only worked 126 days a year at your job and had 239 days off while getting paid $174,000 a year and if you were the boss you would get paid $223,500 a year. As you can probably guess I am talking about Congress. Here are the days worked and scheduled to be worked per month for 2013:
Five weeks off and how many Town Halls are they holding? One or two the first couple of weeks and then it is vacation time. They were on vacation for 4th of July for a week. Will someone explain why Congress takes the entire week off. It is not the horse and buggy days as they can fly on airplanes and be there in a short time. What's wrong with spending the 4th of July in the Nation's Capitol?
This week marks the last days – four working days to be exact – before the GOP-led House will skip town for five weeks leaving behind a mountain of unfinished business and unresolved issues with pressing deadlines.
The final week before the August recess in a non-election year: Customarily, it’s the occasion for climactic votes on some of the most important matters of the year. This time, it will come and go with little more than a rhetorical torrent about how little’s been done to justify a five-week vacation.
The last week before the August recess is usually full of late nights, last-minute deal-making and achievements to take home to constituents. This week, the House will not even show up until Tuesday evening…
…the House’s marquee moment before adjourning until Sept. 9 will come on Friday with its 40th vote to cripple President Obama’s health care law. House members preparing their vacation plans have been assured that the last vote will be no later than 3 p.m.
On top of the fact this GOP-planned recess shows shocking disregard for the American people and our economy – House Republicans will spend the four working days this week voting on a slew of dead-end message bills with no chance of passing the Senate, including the 40th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and arguing among themselves over threats to shutdown the government if they don’t get their way.
On Sunday, senior GOP Congressman Peter King weighed in calling these threats “terror politics.”
There’s no reason to be threatening to bring down the government. Let’s make this work, let’s get the spending cuts we need. But American people get turned off with the threat of terror politics.
So is the message getting through? Apparently not.
This weekend Tea Party Republican Sen. Mike Lee told FOX News Sunday he takes it as a compliment that members of his own party are criticizing this decision to mobilize the Tea Party contingent against funding the government.
Speaker Boehner, enough is enough. It is time to lead by example – cancel recess and come to the table. Democrats are ready to find solutions for the American people.
Democrats may be willing to find solutions but House/Senate Republicans have to return to their states for marching orders from the Koch entities on how to proceed with obstruction. It is not about what is best for the American people from Republicans but what benefits their wealthy donors like the Koch's. The rest of America is chopped liver to them.
Do the Country a big favor when you cast your vote - Don't Vote Republican!
The Governors understand how much the Sequestration is going to hurt their states, but looks like the GOP House could care less as they will be out of town on 1 March
Yesterday's speech by President Obama to the National Governor's Association covered many of the harmful effects Sequestration will have on the middle class and poor in all the States:
Unfortunately, in just four days, Congress is poised to allow a series of
arbitrary, automatic budget cuts to kick in that will slow our economy,
eliminate good jobs, and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly
stretched scrambling to figure out what to do.
This morning, you
received a report outlining exactly how these cuts will harm middle-class
families in your states. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off.
Tens of thousands of parents will have to deal with finding child care for their
children. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care
and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings. Tomorrow, for
example, I’ll be in the Tidewater region of Virginia, where workers will sit
idle when they should be repairing ships, and a carrier sits idle when it should
be deploying to the Persian Gulf.
Now, these impacts will not all be
felt on day one. But rest assured the uncertainty is already having an effect.
Companies are preparing layoff notices. Families are preparing to cut back on
expenses. And the longer these cuts are in place, the bigger the impact will
become.
So while you are in town, I hope that you speak with your
congressional delegation and remind them in no uncertain terms exactly what is
at stake and exactly who is at risk. Because here’s the thing -- these cuts do
not have to happen. Congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit
of compromise. To do so, Democrats like me need to acknowledge that we’re going
to have to make modest reforms in Medicare if we want the program there for
future generations and if we hope to maintain our ability to invest in critical
things like education, research and infrastructure.
I’ve made that
commitment. It’s reflected in proposals I made last year and the year before
that, and will be reflected in my budget, and I stand by those commitments to
make the reforms for smart spending cuts.
But we also need Republicans
to adopt the same approach to tax reform that Speaker Boehner championed just
two months ago. Under our concept of tax reform, nobody’s rates would go up,
but we’d be able to reduce the deficit by making some tough, smart spending cuts
and getting rid of wasteful tax loopholes that benefit the well-off and the
well-connected.
I know that sometimes folks in Congress think that
compromise is a bad word. They figure they’ll pay a higher price at the polls
for working with the other side than they will for standing pat or engaging in
obstructionism. But, as governors, some of you with legislators controlled by
the other party, you know that compromise is essential to getting things done.
And so is prioritizing, making smart choices. (End Excerpt)
House GOP with their obstructionism on the economy and jobs since taking back the House in 2010 has made me realize that I no longer know these people who put Party and big donors/corporations over the American people. The very idea that the GOP is holding the American people hostage once again this time on Sequestration after holding us hostage on the fiscal cliffs, has many former GOP supporters seething at the GOP lack of caring for the 98% of us who are not wealthy.
A lot of former conservatives, including this one, are questioning the move to the hard right of the Republican Party that we are seeing with their attacks on so many including veterans, military, seniors, police, fire, teachers, women, et al as they pander to the wealthy. Sequestration is my final straw with the Republican Party - will not vote or support any Republican for office after this. I refuse to work for candidates who I think have let America down with the refusal to compromise in order to protect the wealthy. Always thought when you were elected to office you worked for all your constituents not just ideologues and special interest groups.
Speaker Boehner has become crude in his remarks since taking over as Speaker in January 2011. No better example then when it comes to Sequestration - wonder if it because he knows he made that 98% remark when telling his caucus they won against the President. Here is an example from this morning:
A salty Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday told members of the Senate to “get off their ass” and pass a bill to replace the $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that will kick in on March 1.
“We have moved a bill in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something,” Boehner told reporters in a press conference, repeating a message he had just delivered in a closed-door meeting of the House Republican conference.
The House in 2012 approved measures twice to replace the cuts known as sequestration, but because a new Congress began in January, those bills are now inoperative. Still, Boehner has been adamant that the Senate move first in 2013 if Democrats want to stave off the cuts to military and domestic programs.
“It’s time for the Senate to act,” Boehner said. “It’s not about the House. We’ve acted.” The House is not scheduled to be in session Friday, when the cuts will begin to take effect, but the Speaker said the lower chamber would be prepared to respond to Senate action.
So now the House is going to be out of town on March 1st the day the Sequestration cuts start to take effect. Forgot they only work a 3-day week and just came back from a 10-day vacation yet Boehner attacks the Senate for not working? This is the laziest House I can remember along with the worst Speaker who answers to the hard right instead of the American people.
Senate has two competing bills on Sequestration which probably won't pass the 60-vote threshold Wonder how Majority Leader likes his compromise with Senator McConnell on filibuster rules when Reid sold out Democrats and American people to continue to allow 41 Republicans to keep the Senate from doing their job. Looks like the GOP in Congress still haven't gotten over Romney losing in 2012.
Majority of Americans want a mixture of responsible cuts along with tax loopholes closed for the wealthy/corporations like their jets, investment income, offshore accounts, etc. Keeping their income off shore while taking off some deductions from their income tax drives most Americans up a wall. Why do Republicans keep protecting their wealthy donors/corporations by refusing to close tax loopholes? How much are they being paid off the record? Only thing that makes any sense. Here is an example:
On September 20, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a
hearing
on “Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code.” Witnesses from academia,
the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. multinational corporations, international tax
and accounting firms and the nonprofit Financial Accounting Standards Board
(FASB) answered questions from the Senators about how tax and accounting rules
allow U.S. multinationals to shift profits offshore using dubious transactions
and complicated corporate structures.
The committee looked at two case studies investigated
by the committee staff. In the Microsoft case, the committee investigation found
that 55 percent of the company’s profits were “booked” (claimed for accounting
purposes) in three offshore tax haven subsidiaries whose employees account for
only two percent of its global workforce. Microsoft did that by selling
intellectual property rights in products developed in the U.S. (and subsidized
by the research tax credit) to offshore tax haven subsidiaries, then creating
transactions to shift related profits there.
Hewlett-Packard used a loophole in the regulations to use offshore cash to
pay for its U.S. operations without paying any U.S. tax on the repatriated
income. Rather than having offshore subsidiaries pay taxable dividends to the
U.S. parent company, HP had two subsidiaries alternately loan funds to the
parent in back-to-back-to-back-to-back 45-day loans. In the first three quarters
of 2010, there was never a day that HP did not have an outstanding loan of $6 to
$9 billion from one of its foreign subsidiaries.
Can I safely assume that HP took these short loan interest off their Federal Income Tax or am I over reaching? They are borrowing their own money from their offshore subsidiaries with few workers and all of us are supposed to think that is good for the rest of us because they are using a loophole? Who came up with these loopholes and is this why Big Business poured so much into the Romney campaign so he would protect their loopholes?
The next time a Republican tells you that it is President Obama's fault as he didn't submit a plan, please direct them to the White House website to see the President's Plan. Here are a few excerpts:
Only Congress can avoid this self-inflicted wound to our economy and middle
class families, and the only thing standing in the way of a solution today is
Congressional Republicans’ refusal to even consider closing tax loopholes that
benefit wealthy Americans and well-connected corporations. The President and
Congressional Democrats have put forward solutions to avoid these cuts and allow
time for both sides to work on a long-term, balanced solution to our deficit
challenges. (my bold)Let’s take a moment to look what we’ve done so far:
The President has already reduced the deficit by over
$2.5 trillion, cutting spending by over $1.4 trillion, bringing domestic
discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the
Eisenhower era [see below]. As a result of these savings, together with a
strengthening economy, the deficit is coming down at the fastest pace of anytime
in American history other than the demobilization from World War II.
Andhe's
laid out a specific plan to do more. His proposal resolves the sequester
and reduces our deficit by over $4 trillion dollars in a balanced way- by
cutting spending, finding savings in entitlement programs and asking the
wealthiest to pay their fair share.As a result the
deficit would be cut below its historic average and the debt would fall as a
share of the economy over the next decade. Justtwo months ago Speaker Boehner said there was $800 billion in
deficit reduction that could be achieved by only closing loopholes and reducing
tax expenditures. So we know we can get this done.Let’s be clear: the President’s proposal to Speaker Boehner is
still on the table. Here
it is again.
Read more at The White House Website including the specific plan that is still on the table even though Speaker Boehner is out there saying the President has no plan. It would be nice if Boehner would speak the truth instead of trying to score political points for Republicans. He knows better but he is so beholding to major donors/corporations/Tea Party that he has forgotten the people of his district he represents which is heavily manufacturing, small towns, and farming - Middle Class America. Grew up in that district in the heart of Ohio farm country with people who are going to be hurt by the very person they elected to office thinking he represented their interests. It is going to be a hard lesson but maybe wake up some people.
Stay tuned for more updates but currently there are no negotiations as Republicans in the House go about their obstructionism against anything this President puts forward for the American people.
