"Sucking off the programs"? Look in a mirror, fat cat:
This week, the so-called Gang of Six — composed of Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) [worth less than $446K], [multimillionaire] Mark Warner (D-VA) [net work between $65-284M], Dick Durbin (D-IL) [net worth $258,038 to $1,700,998], Mike Crapo (R-ID) [net worth -$245,427 to $988,566], and [millionaire] Kent Conrad (D-ND) [net worth $1,456,035 to $3,376,000] — released the outline of a plan that would reduce deficits by about $3.7 trillion over the next 10 years, with about $3 trillion of that coming from spending cuts. The plan closely mirrors that of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission.
The plan includes many odious measures, including changes to Social Security that would cut benefits by $1,300 per year. It would institute caps on discretionary spending through 2015, and lays out the amount by which individual agencies need to reduce their budgets (without identifying particular programs).
But according to Coburn, it doesn’t really matter which programs get cut, because, as he told Al-Jazeera English, it’s only people who are “sucking off the program” that are going to feel any change:
COBURN: The point is, where’s the efficiency in that? The actual service going to people isn’t going to decline, the people sucking off the program are going to be the ones that lose.
*All net worth information from OpenSecrets. As I've stated previously, we sometimes forget that the agendas of the very wealthy members of Congress may not intersect with our own.
Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans – and not only Americans – were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that we currently have a crisis with Social Security? SEN. DURBIN: I wouldn't use the word crisis. Untouched, Social Security will make every single payment for the next 37 years to every retiree, maybe 47 years. But beyond that, unless the economy grows well and grows us out of the problem, we need to address it. And there are ways to address it in sensible, commonsense approaches today that will play out in 40 or 50 years.
{...]
MR. RUSSERT: So as long as the president insists private and personal accounts are on the table, will you not sit at the table? SEN. DURBIN: I don't believe that we can. I believe that if we are to start with the premise that we are going to weaken Social Security, cut benefits and leave the next generation a $2 to $5 trillion deficit, how can that possibly be good for America?
Social Security is not the cause of the federal deficit and does not need to be touched except maybe raising the payroll tax cap to add more revenue. Not only has Durbin signed on to social security cut benefits, he didn't back up Bernie Sanders.
Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says the bi-partisan group of senators working to find a way to reduce the deficit -- the so-called "Gang of Six" -- is near agreement on a plan that will chart a middle ground between the House Republican budget and the plan outlined last week by President Obama. And while other top Democrats say Social Security should be untouched, Durbin says Social Security changes should be made now.
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He expects the Gang of Six -- which, in addition to Durbin, includes senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. -- to agree on a plan shortly after Congress returns from its Easter recess..
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Durbin criticized a resolution put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal independent from Vermont, that says Social Security should not be cut under a deficit reduction plan. Durbin said he would not vote for such a resolution.
"I think Bernie is going too far with his language," Durbin said.
"In 2037, as we know it, Social Security falls off a cliff," he said. "There's a 22 percent reduction rate in payments, which is really not something we can tolerate. If we deal with it today, it's an easier solution than waiting. I think we ought to deal with it. Many of my colleagues disagree, put it off to another day. But from my point of view, leaving it out makes it easier politically, including it, I think, meets an obligation, which we have to senior citizens."
Bernie Sanders is standing up for the working class and trying to protect them as seniors and you throw him under the bus? Why exactly is Bernie going too far? You sit there in a dark subway car and praise the lunatic known as Paul Ryan, who wants to destroy Medicare, but attack Sanders. I think you're going too far with your bipartisan fetishism, sir. It's obvious Republicans want to attach Social Security cuts to any deal you come up with, but that doesn't mean Durbin has to feed us garbage to be part of it.
Many of my friends on the left -- they are my friends, these are my roots politically -- are going through the stages of grief: denial, anger, frustration, sadness, resignation," Durbin said. "They are going through those stages because they understand that borrowing 40 cents for every dollar you spend, whether it's for missile or food stamps, is just unsustainable. But you've got to do something."
I'm sorry, but If we have to do something then why does it always get dropped at the feet of the working class? Do something then. Raise taxes on the rich and cut military spending like the MEADS missle system. You are betraying your progressive roots, Dick. I understand about compromises and the sausage making process, but there is no justification for this outrageous call to cut social security and that the American worker must be forced to pay far more than their fair share while the rich elites laugh all the way to the bank. You sir, are the one in denial.
I hardly know where to begin. First of all, it's clear that the Democrats plan to implement the recommendations of the Catfood Commission, the same recommendations that couldn't muster enough of the votes it allegedly had to get before it would be presented to the House for a vote. So that's one really big lie to the American public; we were never meant to have any say, it's already decided.
Second, this reporter talks about what Mark Warner's presentation "shows." It does not "show" anything -- it contends, and it is widely disputed by many reputable economists, two of them Nobel Prize winners. It is in the same factesque vein of a prosecutor's opening statement to the jury.
RICHMOND, Va.—A bipartisan group of senators is close to proposing legislation they hope will force Congress to tackle the federal government's ballooning debt, and they have begun a road show to win public support.
The proposal would cut the federal budget deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, roughly four times the savings the White House proposed in February, Sens. Mark Warner (D., Va.) and Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) told about 200 business leaders at a meeting in Richmond.
If enacted into law, the plan would likely force Congress to boost revenue through new tax rules, cut spending and bring down the growth rate of Medicare and Social Security over time.
Some executives at the meeting appeared skeptical that a bipartisan deal could eventually win support from Congress and the White House, but many encouraged the lawmakers to try.
"They know they have to do it now and if they don't do it now, we are going to have other countries in charge of our future," said Doug Gray, executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans trade group, who attended the meeting.
Messrs. Warner and Chambliss are crafting the proposal with Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D., Ill.), Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), and Mike Crapo (R., Idaho).
Mr. Warner's presentation showed that if current trends continued, interest payments on federal debt would skyrocket from more than $20 trillion in 2060 to $80 trillion in 2080. It also showed that U.S. government debt as a percentage of total economic output could soon equal that of Greece, whose fiscal problems have threatened to destabilize Europe.
"If we put this off, we are approaching financial Armageddon," Mr. Warner said.
The senators said their plan would seek to largely implement the recommendations made in December by the White House's bipartisan deficit-reduction commission. That group called for cutting spending in myriad government programs, and trimming costs on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The proposal was made by commission co-chairmen Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson.
The obsession Republicans have with lawsuits and the amount of money someone should receive if they win a case is very perplexing and disingenuous to me. I mean, they are the first people to use lawyers and sue you, like Fox News did to Al Franken over a book. But during the Obama health-care summit, I heard more garbage about "tort reform" from the Republicans as if it will cure our ailing health-care system. (Sen. Dick Durbin dispelled that myth perfectly, by the way.)
But that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the garbage we get served up on a daily basis from the media elite pundits who take to our airwaves and say the most insipid things to defend their positions. Fox News' Megyn Kelly earlier this week gave probably the most ludicrous argument against trial lawyers and for tort reform than anyone I've ever seen. She sacrificed her arm for the cause. For some reason, if malpractice cases disappeared, suddenly health care premiums would majestically be reduced.
Kelly was discussing tort reform with Debbie Wassermann-Schultz and dove into the twilight zone by arguing that if her arm was cut off, it really wasn't worth all that much as long as you can still function. And what the hell? It's only an arm. I mean how much of an impact does it have on your life if you lose one arm, because you have a back up, right?
Kelly: this is a CNN poll and thy ask people about tort reform and 66% of those asked said they favor limiting the amount of money patients can get if they win a medical malpractice lawsuit. 66 % want that. 33 % don't want that. Why can't there be an agreement on tort reform?
Schultz: They support that until it's them or their family member that is injured in a medical malpractice suit and then the poll numbers change.
Kelly: You just have to limit the economic damage, in other words you, if a doctor cuts my arm off. I can get the money back from what my life is to live like without this arm so I can function. You can't get punitive damages.
WTF? How does a person figure out how much one of my limbs is worth? And then I'm not allowed to get punitive damages because I don't deserve it? Are you confused?
You know, if some moron of a doctor cut off my arm through incompetence, not only would I want to get enough money to make my life whole, I would want to make sure the doctor paid a price too, just to try to assure it didn't happen to anyone else. It might not put him out of business, but it would take a piece out of his hide that he would never forget.
Maybe we should have Kelly draw up a diagram of a body and then monetize each part as it relates to how a person functions. She could then pass it on to Michael Steele, Sarah Palin and the teabaggers, because I'm sure they would argue that one foot is only worth about thirty three hundred dollars and sixteen cents.
Why would anyone care if I won $10 million dollars from a f*&king doctor if he cut my leg off and I sued his ass because he was supposed to only drain a little fluid out of my knee? This is the kind of crap Republicans argue for on Fox News every day, and conservative pundits on all the channels spew regularly. They really are ethically bankrupt.
They need to beat him like a rented mule. Shame on him, and shame on the spineless Democrats who let this mean old snake go home to take a nap and then rolled over for his blackmail, adjourning for the weekend and letting desperate families hang:
Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) late Thursday launched a one-man crusade to block an extension of unemployment and COBRA insurance benefits, vowing to allow the benefit programs to expire Sunday unless Democrats agreed to pay for them with unused stimulus funds.
Bunning’s quixotic pursuit of deficit offsets at the potential expense of payments to unemployed or uninsured citizens enraged Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other Democrats, who vowed to keep the chamber in session until Bunning relents or collapses.
A senior Democratic leadership aide said Durbin would ask for unanimous consent to pass the extensions without Bunning’s payment scheme every half hour for the foreseeable future. “We’re going to keep doing it until we break him,” the aide said.
So they had him to the point where he was shouting obscenities on the Senate floor and decided... to let him go home for a good night's sleep.
Awesome!
He probably slept a hell of a lot better than the Kentuckians who are out of work and depending on those benefits, I can tell you that. No word on whether Senate Democrats actually tucked him in.
This morning, the fight resumed, presumably after a nourishing breakfast which some of those Kentucky families would probably have liked to have had themselves. The unanimous consent request to pass the extension was made, Bunning objected, gave a short speech, and then suggested the absence of a quorum, which you may recall is often used as a stalling tactic to avoid conducting an actual filibuster.
[...] UPDATE: Never mind! The Senate appears to have adjourned for the weekend. Bunning has won for the day, and Durbin's threat has shockingly failed to materialize at all. The extent of Bunning's punishment: he missed prime time TeeVee last night.
Oh, and when the DSCC calls you for a donation? Refer them to this. You can also let Sen. Bunning know how much you appreciate his politicking over benefits for the neediest in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Flood his offices with faxes and phone calls.
Can Harry pull it off - without giving away the store? Of course we'll be covering today's events here at C&L, so stay around for updates:
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tonight faces the first big test of whether he can keep his Democratic colleagues united behind health-care legislation.
Senators plan to take a vote at 8 p.m. Washington time that would clear the way for debate on the most sweeping changes to the U.S. health system since the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled.
With every Senate Republican opposing the legislation, Reid can’t afford a single defection from his 60-member caucus to enable the chamber to take up the bill when Congress returns from a weeklong Thanksgiving recess. By late yesterday, Democrats had locked up almost all the votes they needed.
“We’re not assuming a thing,” Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told reporters. “We’re working hard to bring all Democrats together.”
The concern I've had about Guantanamo in these wars is it has been a symbol, and one which has been a recruiting symbol for those extremists and jihadists who would fight us. So and I think that centers -- you know, that's the heart of the concern for Guantanamo's continued existence, in which I spoke to a few years ago, the need to close it," Mullen said.
Didn't the Bush administration and all their flunkies, including Newt Gingrich, say that you can never go against the military or you hate the troops?
REP. GINGRICH: Let me say, first of all, there were over 550,000 troops who served in Iraq. I'm sure you can find one to agree with you.
OK, I guess Newt only likes troops who agree with his positions, and I guess Admiral Mullen is one of those troops too. Well Newt, are you now putting all your hate on the members of our armed forces who want to close Gitmo?
The concern I've had about Guantanamo in these wars is it has been a symbol, and one which has been a recruiting symbol for those extremists and jihadists who would fight us. So I think that centers -- you know, that's the heart of the concern for Guantanamo's continued existence, in which I spoke to a few years ago, the need to close it," Mullen said.
REP. GINGRICH: Let me say, first of all, there were over 550,000 troops who served in Iraq. I'm sure you can find one to agree with you.
OK, I guess Newt only like troops that agree with his positions and I guess Admiral Mullen is one of those troops too. Well Newt, are you putting all your hate on the military now who want to close Gitmo?
The Republicans are so devoid of leadership that they couldn't even offer up a sitting elected member of their party to go on Meet the Press, so they chose disgraced ex-House Leader Newt Gingrich to debate Sen. Dick Durbin on issues of what they consider national security.
David Gregory should look at his ratings one of these days. Gingrich is a washed up gasbag that FOX News has been using for years to smear the Democratic Party. I know he's a good smear merchant; he's quite the professional, but why is he on MTP in the middle of this discussion? Where is an active member of the GOP? I guess Limbaugh was too busy to come on today and represent like a good homey.
SEN. DURBIN: Just remember that President Bush called for the closing of Guantanamo; President Obama did the same, as did Senator McCain in the last campaign. And I also want to remind the former speaker that Major Matthew Alexander, who has actually interrogated al-Qaeda suspects in Iraq, attributes half of the deaths of Americans in Iraq to the detention abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Continuing Guantanamo, unfortunately, makes our troops less safe. The bottom line as I see it is Guantanamo should close in an orderly way. President Obama announced that last Thursday. We understand that at the end of the day there will be some of these people, I don't know the exact number, who will be too dangerous to be released, and President Obama said he would work with Congress and the courts to detain them in a humane, constitutional and legal way.
Gingrich immediately smears the military by saying that Durbin can always find a single troop member from the 550K that served in Iraq that would agree with your point of view.
REP. GINGRICH: Let me say, first of all, there were over 550,000 troops who served in Iraq. I'm sure you can find one to agree with you.
Does Gingrich believe that 550K troops were interrogating prisoners? Maj. Alexander is uniquely qualified to speak on such matters since, but Newt effortlessly smears him and then uses 9/11 to fudge the facts. After 9/11, we invaded Iraq which created thousands of more terrorists. There is no debate about this and the horrors at Gitmo and Abu-Ghraib fueled the fire and Gingrich knows it too.
Gregory had to ask Durbin for proof that Gitmo and Abu-Ghraib created more terrorists than ever before. Where has he been these last eight years? Curious that he didn't ask Cheney for proof for his assertions. Durbin has to reiterate the same point twice.
It's more of the Republican Legacy Tour this Sunday. The main event will be beleaguered former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Face The Nation. He's getting it from all sides: the left, unwilling to forgive him for his lies in getting us into war and now the R(ush) N(ewt) C(heney) Party, unhappy with his recent honesty regarding the health of his own party. And the man who puts the N(ewt) in RNC will be on Meet The Press, to continue to show that despite the fact that he was forced to leave Congress in disgrace for his own hypocrisy years ago, he's the best they have to be the "new" face of change for the Republican Party. And of course, the compliant media keeps their focus on the GOP for yet another week.
ABC's "This Week" - Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell; author Alvin Poussaint.
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Michael Duffy, Katty Kay, Jennifer Loven, David Ignatius. Topics: Will the right or the left be a bigger thorn for Obama on national security? Has Obama already begun his reelection campaign with travel to red states? Meter Questions: Is Obama winning the national security policy debate with Cheney? YES: 11 NO: 1; Can Obama keep Pakistan's government in power? YES: 2 No: 10.
CNN's "State of the Unionk/Reliable Sources" - Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Fareed sits down with Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in an exclusive interview. Musharraf is the guest for the hour and they discuss his years in power and resignation, Pakistan's deadly struggle against the Taliban, strained relations between India and Pakistan, and Benazir Bhutto's death.
