Late Late Night FDL: Senorita
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 15th, 2011 4:51 am by HL
Late Late Night FDL: Senorita
Los Lonely Boys — Senorita.
What’s on your mind? I’m thinking about the FDL Meetup this Thursday in Portland, OR (details in the comments).
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Medicare Benefit Cuts, Tax Hikes Taken Off Table in Dwindling Debt Limit Talks
Both sides played one of their cards in the battle over the debt limit and a deal on the nation’s budget deficit today. First, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal that there will be no tax increases in any deal that results in an increase in the debt limit. He also spelled out what the deal would look like in his perfect world, and even managed to offer some political advice to the President.
CoC's Tom Donohue: Boehner “put on his big boy pants”
Both sides played one of their cards in the battle over the debt limit and a deal on the nation’s budget deficit today. First, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal that there will be no tax increases in any deal that results in an increase in the debt limit. He also spelled out what the deal would look like in his perfect world, and even managed to offer some political advice to the President.
“I can say pretty confidently, as the speaker has, that we are not going to raise taxes in this agreement,” McConnell told National Journal during a lengthy interview in his Capitol office. “And what the president ought to say to his own political left is, ‘Those crazy Republicans won’t let me raise taxes, but we need to do this for the country.’ That would be my advice to him. I’m not his political adviser.” […]
McConnell told NJ for the first time what the deal needs to look like. He said that there’s not enough time to consider comprehensive tax reform and that he wanted spending caps for eight years of any 10-year deal to resemble those created in the mid-1980s by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation.
“We would have to do something significant. A top-line for at least ’12 and ’13 on our annual discretionary spending that continues to send spending downward,” McConnell said. “Caps beyond that; it’s better to have them than not. Out-year caps are worth having, even though we all know some people view those as a promise to something someday maybe. But the next two years would be clearly real and enforceable.” […]
“Out of this debt-limit discussion we need entitlement changes. I’m not going to get into what kind,” he said. “But we need entitlement changes that bend the trajectory significantly downward. I’m not going to negotiate the details of that with you, but this whole package would have to be viewed by Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s and foreign countries and the American people.” He said that the changes need to be dramatic enough to convince everyone that Washington is serious about the problem, “that adults are in charge in Washington and we’re going to get our house in order. We’re talking here about trillions, not billions.”
The demands on entitlements are actually less stringent than McConnell’s prior remarks, which demanded cuts to Medicare. Senate Democrats slammed the door shut on that today, sort of, by saying that benefit cuts would not be allowed. Other cuts, along the lines that Democrats have already described, such as the kind of cuts to corporate welfare in the Affordable Care Act, or allowing Medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs, or moving dual eligibles to Medicaid, could be part of a deal. But benefit cuts are straight out.
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Class Warfare? Yes please.
The Wisconsin Supreme court sticks it to the poor and middle class while statistics show it is more than a trend, it’s a feature of the new gilded age.
pic via Tostie14 at flickr.com
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court did exactly as predicted and limited public employees collective bargaining rights — showing their priorities “with unusual speed“. So Madison is about to see yet another large demonstration. In addition to guaranteeing his recall, will Governor Scott Walker start off his campaign to do the Koch Brothers bidding by placing provocateurs in the crowd this time?
And so let this new round of protests bring on the fluttering Noonian cries of horrible liberals trying to foment class warfare (maybe Austan Goolsbee will join in too?). After all what could the poor and middle class possibly have to complain about? Charts showing the cliff diving of workers’ income is turned into a smile your average CNBC viewer hears because businesses (as opposed to most people, or State governments) are sitting on large piles of cash and not using it to hire people. So somebody is getting wealthy…and it’s people like the Koch Brothers.
Heaven forbid anyone else get to ask for anything.
