On Saturday, beauty pageant contestants learned that if she gives a thoughtful answer on gun control during a high profile pageant--she will be vilified for it. Here's what the New Miss America, Mallory Hytes Hagan of New York, said about the issue.
Champion: Good evening, Miss New York. In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, there is a lot of talk about gun control. One solution being proposed is an armed guard in every school. Do you think that would make our schools safer?
Hagan : I don’t think the proper way to fight violence is with violence. I think the proper way is to educate people on guns and the ways that we can use them properly. We can lock them up, we can have gun safety classes, we can have a longer waiting period. The answer is not to fight violence with violence, however.
The conservative Media Research Center (MRC) blasted her answer, writing that she was “espousing liberal conventional wisdom on guns” while ridiculing her for supposedly suggesting that “law enforcement officers carrying guns fuels violence.”
Commenters on MRC’s website agreed:- “That idiot answer only reinforces the dumb blond stereotype”
- “The girl is cute, but she lives in a bubble like her head.”
- “this girl is f-ing stupid”
- “More idiocy from people who know nothing about guns”Conservative activists on the far-right Free Republic website condemned Hagan:- “So Mallory Hagan rather the victims get killed than fight back? She belongs in the UK (with Piers Morgan) not America.”
- “She got the looks, but I think she missed the brains line.”
- “Spoken like a true libtard.”
I'm sure more negative responses will forthcoming.
On Thursday's The Factor, Bill O'Reilly was livid that President Obama wants to legislate gun control after the Sandy Hook tragedy and refuses to negotiate over the debt ceiling hostage taking by Republicans. So instead of calling him arrogant or 'uppity,' he substituted 'cocky' instead.
O'Reilly: Have you noticed a subtle change in the president's demeanor? he was always a cocky guy, but now he's got an edge to him. He's almost dismissive of opposing points of view. Here's an example on the gun control issue where the president will have a very hard time with the House...
BillO played a clip of VP Biden saying the Obama will use executive orders .
"The president is going to act. Executive orders, executive action, can be taken," Biden told reporters before meetings with groups representing survivors of mass shootings. "We haven't decided what this is yet, but we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and all the rest of the Cabinet members."
To O'Reilly, if a president enacts an executive order then he must be cocky! In his world, he thinks it violates the constitution,but later in the show a UCLA professor explains to Bill that all presidents have used executive orders. Hell, George Bush issued a slew of them throughout his eight years. Here's a complete list of all of them. However, no matter what they are, they are only justified in Bill O's world if a Republican president does it.
O'Reilly: So what Mr. Biden is saying is that the president is willing to use an executive order on a constitutional issue like guns. Very dicey.
If Bush used an EO on gun control, Bill-O would say that he did it because he felt he was compelled to. End of story. But then O'Reilly flipped the 'cocky' part of Obama and adeptly transitioned into how the people that want to pass gun control only are doing it because they hate America. or, in BillO's words
A driving philosophy behind this is that America is a bad country....
President Obama believes that America is a flawed country and it is his duty to correct those flaws.
See, Obama the cocky hates America and it's his duty to correct those flaws that we here at FOX News make you believe there really aren't any. We're perfect, without flaw, God fearing and righteous. Heck, if we do happen to blow up a few countries along the way I'm sure the folks will be virtuous and forgive em.
As the days tick by in Obama's second term, Bill-O is going to lose it more and more. I don't see how he makes it through without taking a lot of time off. If not, I imagine that he'll blame Obama for fluoridation and other such things. But for now he'll stick to the basics of dog-whistle politics.
General Jack D. Rippe: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?' I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen... tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: [somewhat embarassed] Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Despite the deep unpopularity of fetal personhood bills in 2012, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has again decided to cosponsorthe Sanctity of Human Life Act, a bill that gives full legal rights to human zygotes from the moment of fertilization.
Ryan, who reportedly has 2016 presidential ambitions, had to de-emphasize his opposition to abortion without exceptions during the 2012 election to align his position with presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But this year, Ryan has been tapped as a keynote speaker for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List's sixth annual Campaign for Life Gala, and he is re-upping his support for the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the country.
The personhood bill, first introduced in 2011 by Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and reintroduced by Broun last week, specifies that a "one-celled human embryo," even before it implants in the uterus to create a pregnancy, should be granted "all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood." Similar legislation has been rejected by voters in multiple states, including the socially conservative Mississippi, because legal experts have pointed out that it could outlaw some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization as well as criminalize abortion at all stages
This must be a very deep-seated belief in Rep. Ryan's psyche, since it failed in 2011 and it shows he's not afraid to keep attacking women and their female parts -- even as he makes his plans to run for the Oval Office in 2014.
The bill died in the House of Representatives in 2011, when a record number of anti-abortion bills were being passed, and it is equally unlikely to advance this year. The Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down a state personhood initiative in 2012, deeming it "clearly unconstitutional" because it blocks a woman's legal right to have an abortion.
This bill is so far out there that Oklahoma called it unconstitutional and a non-starter. You'd have to be a committed pro-life zealot to continue on this path and Paul Ryan really stepped up big in that area.
I'm a big fan of Felix Salmon, and I love the Flying Spaghetti Monster, too so when he says, 'If you believe that the country is best run by grown-ups, you can’t believe in #mintthecoin, because it simply isn’t a grown-up strategy,' He makes the case for me. You see, the country is not run by the grownups, but by a cruel conservative caucus of tea party nuts that care nothing about the people of the US, but will give everything to a Jack Abramoff ideology of governing.
Josh Barro and Atrios have been pushing the mint the coin idea hard and I have become a huge supporter.
This morning, Joe Weisenthal and I took our message in favor of minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin to "Bloomberg Surveillance," where we were met with the usual shock and horror from hosts Tom Keene and Sara Eisen. Platinum coin opponents are so distressed that one, Republican Representative Greg Walden, has said he will introduce legislation to ban the coin, citing my post from last week as a dangerous instigation.Walden, Keene and Eisen are all wrong. Here are my responses to the most common objections we are getting to the platinum coin proposal, in increasing order of persuasiveness:
1. "That's silly/zany/juvenile!" This is probably true, but it's not a dispositive objection. Republican intransigence over the debt ceiling is juvenile. There is no particular reason that the president should not use a juvenile strategy in response.The key question to ask about the platinum coin is not "is it juvenile?" but "will it work?" Minting the coin will allow the federal government to continue to meet its spending obligations despite hitting the debt ceiling. It will allow President Barack Obama to pressure Congress to repeal the debt ceiling. That -- not whether it seems silly -- is the important thing.
2. "Where will we get all the platinum?" I'm honestly surprised by this question, but I'm hearing it a lot, including from the Guardian's Heidi Moore and from Keene this morning.To be clear: We do not need a trillion dollars' worth of platinum to make the trillion-dollar coin -- less than an ounce will do. This is not a move to a "platinum standard," and it shouldn't even have any impact on the markets in platinum. There will be no need for dump trucks full of precious metal to head toward the mint.
3. "But that will be inflationary!" This is a more serious objection, and it gets at what the platinum coin strategy really is -- financing the federal government's operations by printing money instead of borrowing it. The trillion- dollar coin will never circulate, but it will be used to back cash payments coming from the Treasury that would have otherwise been financed by bond purchases.
Paul Krugman has been weighing in also and says if the freaks in Congress continue to hold the debt ceiling hostage then just mint the damn thing.
So minting the coin would be undignified, but so what? At the same time, it would be economically harmless — and would both avoid catastrophic economic developments and help head off government by blackmail. What we all hope, of course, is that the prospect of the coin or some equivalent strategy will simply take the debt ceiling off the table. But if not, mint the darn coin.
Ezra Klein has been doing some reporting on the coin also and debunks a childish attack on the platinum coin idea from the NRCC:
Funny, but quite wrong. The NRCC is suggesting that you need $1 trillion worth of platinum to mint a $1 trillion platinum coin. For some bullion coins, that may be true—the coin is worth the value of the underlying metal. But there’s a clear exception for U.S. platinum coins. Again, here’s Section (k) of 31 USC § 5112:
(k) The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.
That’s why the platinum coin option could technically work. The Secretary of Treasury can order up a small platinum coin and give it any value he wants. Say, $1 trillion. That coin would be deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Fed would credit the Treasury’s accounts with $1 trillion. Now the federal government would have enough money to pay its bills without having to worry about debt-ceiling restraints on borrowing. At least for a little bit.
Any idiot who takes a minute to think about seigniorage understands that you don't need an equal weight for value trade off when minting currency. And the former head of U.S. Mint agrees: The platinum coin option would work
*The media refuses to report any real facts about the tea party politicians and Conservatives so when they once tried to renege on the debt in 2011 which would have collapsed economies world wide, nothing much was made of it.
*When they refused to raise taxes on the wealthy even after the election, nothing much was made of it by the media and now they are once again trying to hold hostage the US government by kidnapping the debt ceiling.
*They've made a mockery out of the filibuster rules ever since Obama took office and the media said nothing.
* An insanely low number of judges have been appointed under Obama's White House because Republicans block the nominations.
With a record like this it's not hard to see why the platinum coin is a strategy worth considering and using if need be. That's why I'm behind it.
Unemployment in the euro zone rose to a new high in November, according to data released Tuesday that also showed that the troubles in the 17-nation currency bloc were straining its strongest member, Germany.
The euro zone jobless rate rose to 11.8 percent in November from 11.7 percent in October, according to Eurostat, the statistical agency of theEuropean Union.
Eurostat estimated that 18.8 million people in the euro zone were unemployed in November, two million more than a year earlier.Germany has provided momentum to the European economy over the past three years, as strong exports protected the country from the crisis.But on Tuesday, the Federal Statistics Office in Berlin said that German exports declined 3.4 percent while imports slid 3.7 percent in November from a month earlier. The weakness narrowed Germany’s trade surplus to €14.6 billion, or $19 billion.German factory orders also fell in November amid weak demand from outside the euro area, the Economy Ministry said Tuesday. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, slid 1.8 percent from October, when they jumped 3.8 percent.
The International Monetary Fund is revising its metrics on how fast governments should cut their budgets, with the IMF’s top economist making the case that Europe’s fiscal diets were too severe.In a new paper published Thursday, IMF Economic Counsellor Olivier Blanchardand research-department economist Daniel Leigh show the IMF recommended slashing budgets too fast early in the euro crisis, starving many economies of much-needed growth.
In “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers,” Messrs. Blanchard and Leigh calculate IMF and European economists underestimated the euro-for-euro effect of cutting government budgets. While economists expected that cutting a euro from the budget would cost around 50 cents in lost growth, the actual impact was more like 1.50 per euro.
Republicans like Goober Graham repeatedly fret over the US becoming Greece and call for raising retirement ages and slashed benefits for our entitlements, but the policies they are trying to force us into will actually pave the way to a Greek-like state of mind.
In Greece, which has implemented draconian austerity measures at the request of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank in order to receive bailout funding, the results are seen on the streets where a middle class has plummeted into poverty. One out of three Greeks now lives in poverty and average salaries have been slashed to just several hundred net euros a month. Homelessness, which was rarely seen in that country, is now endemic in certain parts of Athens. The unemployment rate has reached a record 26 percent, with more than 50 percent of Greece's youth out of a job.
Greece received billions of euros in bailout funds, but a large part of why austerity didn't work in Greece is because it wasn't offset by any growth strategy. In a shocking example of how twisted reality became, Greece's bailout funds at one time were simply wired into an escrow account that the government couldn't touch and then wired back for debt service to European banks just days later (read the NYT report here). In other words, not only were there painful cuts, but any money coming into the country was spent almost exclusively on debt reduction rather than on stimulating the economy.
I’m not going to raise the debt ceiling unless we get serious about keeping the country from becoming Greece, saving Social Security and Medicare [sic]. So here’s what i would like: meaningful entitlement reform — not to turn Social Security into private accounts, not to take a voucher approach to Medicare — but,adjust the age for Social Security, CPI changes and means testing and look beyond the ten-year window. I cannot in good conscience raise the debt ceiling without addressing the long term debt problems of this country and I will not.
That is what has been happening with a vengeance in Greece, where fund forecasters, as part of the country’s first bailout program in 2010, predicted that the nation could cut deeply into government spending and pretty quickly bounce back to economic growth and rising employment.Two years later, the Greek economy is still shrinking and unemployment is at 25 percent.Of course no two circumstances are alike. Shut out of international bond markets, Greece had little choice but to begin bringing its public finances into line or face a catastrophic default. Financing wasn’t available to sustain prior spending levels. For an economy that has been reeling for several years, however, a billion or two in extra government programs or investment could have kept a few small businesses open and kept a few more families employed and spending.
I thought I had seen Alex Jones on TV before, but nothing can prepare a normal human being to watch something like this. I know some people might think Piers Morgan shouldn't be inviting the most extreme right wingers on his show at any time at all, but once in a while it's good to let them loose so the American people can truly see who and what they are. The man who made his bones by promoting black helicopter info during the Clinton years and continued to more Bircheresque conspiracies through the Bush years helped start a petition drive to kick Piers Morgan out of the United States for daring to promote gun control after the horrifying massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.
By the way, Morgan's freedom of speech was thrown out of the window by Jones, but he doesn't even realize it. I guess some Constitutional rights are more important than others.
In response, Piers decided it would be a good idea to debate Alex Jones over the issue. As you can imagine, Jones wants to arm everybody in American and in our schools because that's freedom.
Morgan quickly learned that you can't have a normal discussion over an issue with people like Jones, who got more rabid as the minutes passed. He spewed out what he believed to be da facts about violence in America, all the while ignoring Morgan's questions. By the end of the first 15 minutes, Jones screaming at Morgan that if they tried to make Americans register guns then they'll take them all away and Mr. and Mrs.America will rise up and rebel once again like it was 1776 once again, motherf*&kers!
Alex Jones screamed that Piers Morgan and his advertisers were trying to control him, berated his show repeatedly and challenged him to a mano-a-mano boxing match on his set. Jones would even wear an American flag or something.
By the second half of the interview, Jones was so unnerved by Morgan's calm approach to his hysteria that he broke out into some kind of a weird English accent (I think) to describe some past events in history (I think) which makes the word patheticseem too kind.
Millions of extreme wingnuts have listened to this man over the years and the only explanation I have is that there's a sucker born every day.
(h/t Video Cafe for the vid) The corporatist elites have been relentless in their attacks on earned benefits for Americans and are trying to seize upon Disaster Capitalism tactics to try and swindle the 98% out of needed entitlements using the mask of bipartisanship. The loathsome Ed Rendell was back on MSNBC and continued his assault on working-class Americans. He even went as far as to throw support for the election of more Republicans like Steve Latourette, who wanted to cut government spending tremendously.
RENDELL: The people want us to get together and do something. That's why I was sad to see Steve not run for re-election because we need Republicans, we need more Republicans who are going to stand in there and say, spending is the issue, but we gotta have reasonable revenue to come in into the mix and we got to look at everything when it comes to spending. Defense cannot be a sacred cow, we've got to look at everything and we've got to have legitimate entitlement reform. .
And on our side Mike, we've gotta do this. I was on The Cycle, one of MSNBC's shows and I suggested that raising the age in Medicare, given the fact that we're living longer, isn't a necessarily bad idea. The three progressive hosts, you would have thought that I'd proposed treason to the American government.
It is evil for a political hack to demand retirement ages go up and fewer benefits be paid to the many, many millions of people who need them to survive while he collects a fat check to sit on TV and spew bought-and-paid-for propaganda. In my last post, I labeled him a traitor -- so he obviously took it to heart.
RENDELL: And he has to also deliver a message to Democrats that we're going to have to compromise. Now give the President credit, he said he would consider chained CPI, he said back in 2011 that he would raise the age limit on Medicare with carve-outs. Those are things he's going to have to deliver if we're going to get Republicans to go along with more increased revenue and doing something finally on the debt. But only one person can take this on his shoulders and cross the finish line and that's the President of the United States. He has to lead.
No ifs ands or buts about it. He has to lead. And boy, I’d love the whole Congress, this new Congress and the President, they should all go see a screening of Lincoln together, because Abraham Lincoln led on the 13th Amendment when everybody on both sides told him he was crazy.
My God, he even used a slavery fight analogy from the movie Lincoln to justify his wickedness.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki was so shocked by what he heard by this supposed lefty that he forced him to clarify his remarks.
KORNACKI: Well, Governor is... I heard you right there, are you saying you would be okay with raising the Medicare eligibility age?
RENDELL: With proper carve-outs for people who are, you know, have health challenges, absolutely
WTF does he mean by carve-outs and health challenges? Geeze, I couldn't transcribe any more from this Benedict Arnold traitor in a suit.
Latourette's ego is so big that he says Rendell and himself would solve all our problems in a week and a half if he was allowed to. Rendell goes on to support the idea that it's fine if more reasonable and conservative Republicans are elected to Congress. Did it ever cross his mind to maybe mention that electing many more progressive Democratic politicians would be the best solution to the crisis?
Rendell: Look, even if it means there are a few more Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, if they're reasonable Republicans who are moderate-conservative then that's a good prescription for America.
Republicans holding the House hostage isn't enough for Rendell, he wants a few more, just in case their majority isn't strong enough -- and wants to add a couple more in the Senate, which would give R's one-party rule. Ed Rendell, a major league embarrassment!
Here at C&L, I and a few others been bashing MSNBC and demanding that Ed Rendell be kicked off for impersonating a Democrat. He shouldn't be allowed to go on the air since he joined up with a gang of rich, arrogant scumbags, fronting for a group called Fix The Debt. They are demanding that working class Americans and seniors pay for the federal deficit that the wealthy elites on Wall Street created by having their social safety nets gutted. So when Susie says Rendell is no liberal, she's absolutely right!
Apparently, MSNBC hasn't heeded our message and put this vacuous fool back on the teevee. Listen to his moronic rant on what the President should be doing about the federal debt so conservatives can screw most of the people in America because they refuse to deal in reality.
RENDELL: And he has to also deliver a message to Democrats that we're going to have to compromise. Now give the President credit, he said he would consider chained CPI, he said back in 2011 that he would raise the age limit on Medicare with carve-outs. Those are things he's going to have to deliver if we're going to get Republicans to go along with more increased revenue and doing something finally on the debt. But only one person can take this on his shoulders and cross the finish line and that's the President of the United States. He has to lead.
Which does Rendell sound more like? A) Liberal; B) Democrat or C) Fox News Republican from the House of Representatives? C is the correct answer.
Rendell: No ifs ands or buts about it. He has to lead. And boy, I’d love the whole Congress, this new Congress and the President, they should all go see a screening of Lincoln together, because Abraham Lincoln led on the 13th Amendment when everybody on both sides told him he was crazy.
My God, he even used a slavery fight analogy from the movie Lincoln to justify his wickedness.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki was so shocked by what he heard by this supposed lefty that he forced him to clarify his remarks.
Kornacki: Well, Governor is I heard you right there, are you saying you would be okay with raising the Medicare eligibility age?
Rendell: With proper carve-outs for people who are, you know, have health challenges, absolutely.
He mumbles this response because he knows he's shillin' for the billionaires and sounds like a Larry Kudlow wannabe to people of the left. WTF does he mean by carve-outs and health challenges? Geez, I couldn't transcribe any more from this Benedict Arnold traitor in a suit.
All told, chained CPI raises average taxes by about 0.19 percent of income. So, taken all together, it’s basically a big (5 percent over 12 years; more, if you take a longer view) across-the-board cut in Social Security benefits paired with a 0.19 percent income surtax. You don’t hear a lot of politicians calling for the drastic slashing of Social Security benefits and an across-the-board tax increase that disproportionately hits low earners. But that’s what they’re sneakily doing when they talk about chained CPI.
That’s why watchdog groups like the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities argue that the only fair way to do chained CPI would be to pair it with an increase in Social Security benefits, and to exempt Supplemental Security Income, which provides support for impoverished elderly, disabled and blind people. Otherwise, it’s just a typical “raise taxes, cut benefits” plan, and an arguably regressive one at that.
Most of us fought for President Obama to get his second term, but none of us fought for cuts to the social safety net programs as part of the bargain. Ed Rendell gets paid to shill against all of us of the working class who fought for Obama to get reelected.
When, oh when will Democrats realize that once they move away from job creation to deficit reduction, they are playing right into the right wing agenda? On Meet The Press, President Obama told Dancing Dave Gregory this when asked about going over the proverbial fiscal cliff:
Obama: What I said was is that we should keep taxes where they are for 98 percent of Americans, 97 percent of small businesses. But if we're serious about deficit reduction we should make sure that the wealthier are paying a little bit more and combine that with spending cuts to reduce our deficit and put our economy on a long-term trajectory of growth.
I understand the president is in the process of getting Republicans to vote for raising taxes (which has become something of a crisis for them ever since President Clinton came out of his eight years with a budget surplus), but if he's going to be strong on deficit reduction, the solution should be job creation and not draconian spending cuts, including entitlements. Remember this: When it comes to the federal budget---Republicans are great at one thing, which is smashing sh*t on the floor.
Remember the context: Mankiw loved the Bush-era fiscal policies to create long-run structural budget deficits, and worked hard to implement them--the unfunded war and unfunded tax cut and unfunded entitlement policies that did so much to create our structural deficit. Mankiw did his best to join in the process of taking the work that we in the Clinton administration had done in the 1990s to restore America's fiscal balance--work that was very well done, very important, and work that we were and are very proud of--and casually smashing it on the floor.
But Republicans will inevitably see a balanced budget as an opportunity to give money to rich people (tax cuts and crony capitalism). The reward to liberals for this well done very important work? Tax cuts for rich people and unpaid, disastrous wars.
There has been a lot of chaos caused in Congress and to the American people ever since the teaBirchers took over the House in 2010, but some unintentional good things have happened because of them. In 2011, Speaker of the House, John Boehner was forced to turn down an incredible Grand Bargain deal for the Republicans over the dreary debt ceiling debacle. Included in the deal was drastic cuts to to federal spending as well as entitlement cuts.
Obama offered to put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts on the table in exchange for a tax hike of roughly $100 billion per year over 10 years. Meanwhile, government spending would be cut by roughly three times that amount.
So approximately sixteen months later Obama wins reelection campaigning on tax increases and guess what? Boehner and the entire GOP got zilch for their troubles. I can tell you I was very happy when Boehner rejected that God awful deal. Now with the fiscal cliff looming in a matter of hours, Obama offered Boehner and the GOP a massive cut to Social Security benefits that they've been clamoring for by offering to switch to the chained CPI method of calculating Social Security payouts in exchange for making a deal on raising tax rates which has been a demand by the GOP and they turned him down once again.
Tense "fiscal cliff" negotiations on Capitol Hill Sunday inched forward slightly as Republican senators agreed to take Social Security cuts off their list of immediate demands.The cut that GOP leaders had proposed -- picking up on a now-defunct offer from President Barack Obama -- involved basing Social Security cost-of-living adjustments on a chained consumer price index (CPI), which grows more slowly than current measures of inflation and therefore would give seniors less in benefits as time went on. But Senate Republicans realized in a caucus meeting Sunday afternoon that the idea was a loser for now, even if they might return to it in reaching a larger deal later on.
"CPI has to be off the table because it's not a winning argument to say benefits for seniors versus tax breaks for rich people," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "We need to take CPI off the table -- that's not part of the negotiations -- because we can't win an argument that has Social Security for seniors versus taxes for the rich.”
"There's a realization that in spite of the president's apparent endorsement of a chained CPI that that proposal deserves more study," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "My guess, based on what Democrats are saying is that that reform would not happen during this stage of the negotiations."
Every day we don't cut The Big Three is a good day, no matter who is responsible for it. In the above video which was supplied to me by the lovely Heather of Video Cafe, Sen. Jon Thune tries to explain to Dana Bash of CNN why Republicans are now refusing to include chained CPI in the current deal for the fiscal cliff.
Thune: The one thing that is a, you know, Democrats have come out and made a big deal out of chained CPI; Republicans are very concerned that if that not be used as an offset to reduce or to replace some of the spending cuts that would occur in the sequester, that Democrats put forward an alternative.
And so this is a process. Obviously, there's a lot of give and take going on right now, but Republicans don't want to see new revenues, in other words, Democrat tax increases, be used for new spending. So that's sort of where many of our members have drawn the line right now.
BASH: And that is where it seems to be one of the big roadblocks are right now. You all want to use what's known as chained CPI, which is a technical -- I won't get into it now but it would effectively really affect Social Security recipients to replace the sequester, which is $100 billion in cuts. And Democrats want to use new revenue from tax increases to replace the sequester.
Is that where you see it?
THUNE: Well, I think that's a -- that -- yes, I mean, there are other issues involved but that's certainly one example of something I think where -- and frankly, I mean, chained CPI to us is not just about replacing the sequester today. It is putting in place a policy that will help save and protect Social Security in the long term.
But that being said, if Democrats don't accept that as an offset, then come up with something else, because raising taxes to pay for new spending is not something that Republicans believe, this debate ought to be about. It ought to be about reducing the deficit and the debt. And what they are essentially suggesting is we want new taxes, we want higher taxes on people in this country to pay for new spending.
If you can make heads or tails from Thune's explanation of it, he does say that Republicans do want to use C-CPI savings to replace the sequester, so earlier arguments about saving the benefit program is a lie.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: ...but I already have, David, as you know, one of the proposals we made was something called Chain CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on Social Security. Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I'm willing to make those decisions.
A Democratic president should never, ever offer this up to Republicans. Chained CPI doesn't strengthen Social Security at all. It cuts benefits for all seniors depending on it to survive as they get older. Luckily the GOP's tortured logic took hold over them and they nixed the proposal.
Now we have to help make sure President Obama and Congressional Democrats do not roll over during the looming debt ceiling vote and try to give away the store. Heck, they've tried before.
