Tag Archives: Supercommittee

Supercommittee II

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I’m not quite up to speed on the details of the latest Supershenanigans, largely because I have stopped paying attention.  This was a farce to begin with, and now we’ve come to the smelly end of it.

Supposedly, if they identify a certain amount of cuts, then the debt ceiling goes up, but if not, then it stays where it was lifted a while back, and if there’s no agreement whatsoever, then they gut defense and mildly inconvenience some social spending.

[pullquote]Old Democrats know how to wield power, whereas old Republicans know how to avoid responsibility.[/pullquote]This was a bad deal to begin with, and only a feckless Republican leadership would have signed on to a deal that held defense hostage as a guarantor of diplomacy.  So feckless that … Continue reading →

Why We Hate The SuperCommittee

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The SuperCommittee is such an awful punt that it should infuriate not only the Tea Party, but independents and democrats as well. Anybody but the permanent Washington DC bloodsucking class. It is a model of bureaucratic ass-covering and foot-dragging, and it replaces the voters with the President as their most effective driver.

[pullquote]this backscratching society which will operate in secret[/pullquote]We charged into the House, and promptly squandered a huge head of steam with shenanigans over the Continuing Resolutions. Not to worry, we were told, the debt limit fight is where we will really get them! Then we gave up the debt limit fight, and in the process threw away our numerical advantage in the House. All we have left to show for it is this backscratching society which … Continue reading →

Supercommittee and Jobs Act: Twins

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[Events are overtaking this post faster than I can edit!  So it’s a bit of a jumble.]

President Obama’s “American Jobs Act of 2011”  is such a steaming pile of FAIL that it is hard to know where to begin.

Last week the two co-chairs said that many future panel meetings will be closed to the public, though, press and public interest groups have called for transparency and disclosure of every meeting.

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If the joint committee or Congress fail to act by December 23, the bill calls for automatic across-the-board cuts, split 50-50 between defense and non-defense spending, including Medicare.  Social Security and Medicaid would be excluded from the automatic cuts.

The plan also calls for a Congressional vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution by the end … Continue reading →

Cantor to Tea Party: Shut Up and Spend

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Cantor thinks we’re stupid.

To help reduce uncertainty, Cantor is moving to quell rank-and-file grumbling about 2012 spending and the supercommittee.

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Cantor is also urging his members to support the deficit reduction supercommittee created by the debt deal, adding that the supercommittee must succeed in coming up with “at least” $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts, rather than allowing automatic cuts to be triggered.

This is profoundly disappointing, and a continuation of the Tea Party’s reasons to oppose this moronic supercommittee.  Don’t forget that the automatic cuts which are now used as a club to beat the Freshmen and Tea Party into line were brought into being by approving this awful committee as a Hail Mary around the ridiculous August 2 “deadline”.

This is just one more … Continue reading →

Tea Party Lessons Learned for the GOP

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I do not like Speaker Boehner’s bill, although I thank him for much of what he has accomplished so far.  But we need not bother to fight and make gains if our effort is to be thrown away with lousy, worse-than-status-quo bills like the one currently under consideration.  Among its problems are several assumptions baked into it:

  • Must raise debt ceiling: what an awful place to start negotiations
  • ObamaCare need not be de-funded in whole: if it were being de-funded, I am sure you would have told us
  • CBO baseline acceptable starting point for calculations: as opposed to raw spending
  • 2011 an acceptable baseline year: as opposed to 2008 or 2007.
  • “Supercommittee” acceptable in our form of government: as opposed to merely legal, if even that
  • Americans … Continue reading →