Boehner loses control..extreme right throw GOP off cliff.

[Lord Jim]

As I predicted after the "Plan B" fiasco, the whole effort to reach a deal now rests with the Senate leadership:

All eyes on them, Senate leaders seek fiscal deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders rushed to assemble a last-ditch agreement to avoid middle-class tax increases and possibly delay steep spending cuts in an urgent attempt to find common ground after weeks of postelection gridlock.

An impatient President Barack Obama pressed top lawmakers to cut a deal, even one that falls short of the ambitions he and congressional leaders may once have harbored for a bigger deficit reduction package. Without a resolution, he warned, "every American's paycheck will get a lot smaller."

"Congress can prevent it from happening, if they act now," he said in his weekly Saturday radio and internet address.

Following a White House meeting Friday among Obama and congressional leaders, aides to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., began racing against the clock for a bipartisan bargain. The leaders could present legislation to senators as early as Sunday, with a vote possible on Sunday or Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/eyes-them-senate- ... itics.html

If Reid and McConnell are able to reach at least a limited deal, that will give Boehner cover to bring it to a vote in the House even if he doesn't have overwhelming GOP support for it.

Such a deal should be able to attract enough votes from Republicans and Democrats in the House to be able to pass.

[rubato]

What happens when the right-wing ideology is so bad, so disconnected from reality that even their traditional allies scorn it? Republicans double-down on stupid!


______________________
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democrac ... al-cliff-4

"...
How, I asked my friend, can organisations like this change their minds? The more they get pounded down by the response to their actions, the more hardened they get. "You've seen this kind of thing play out," I asked my friend, who grew up in Serbia. "How does it end?"

"It ends when certain very powerful people and institutions decide they can no longer do business with these people," she said.

The text of the Business Roundtable's letter from December 11th, supporting both tax hikes and spending cuts, is here. The day after the Roundtable sent this letter, Dave Camp, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, dismissed this group of CEOs representing $7.3 trillion in annual revenues in insulting terms: "Big business may support raising tax rates on small businesses, but I do not." How Republicans could possibly be reconciled to any action on gun control, I don't know; but on the fiscal cliff, at this point it's clear who is standing in the way of the kind of deal corporate CEOs want. I can't see the GOP changing its mind on taxes because of any change of heart on the part of Republican voters, but at the point where Republican politics meet the policy preferences of American business, I could imagine a lot of action starting to happen soon. "
________________________


Inevitably, they will come around. But the tea-party whack-os and their slavish adoption of the Grover Norquist pledge will make it very difficult.


yrs,
rubato

[liberty]

Would it be so bad if we all paid more taxes and it would help to fix our debt problem?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Would it be so bad if we all paid more taxes and it would help to fix our debt problem?

The amount needed to fix the debt problem cannot be solved by raising taxes alone. Spending cuts are needed and no one is ready (yet) to make the tough cuts.

[liberty]

Suggested cuts: I normally would not make such suggestions, but our situation is so desperate that radical cuts have to be made, our priorities should be food, clothing, shelter and protection for our own people:

1. End all foreign AID.
2. Give Puerto Rico its freedom
3. End all support for the arts.
Now let’s hear your three suggestions,

[Rick]

Would it be so bad if we all paid more taxes and it would help to fix our debt problem?

The amount needed to fix the debt problem cannot be solved by raising taxes alone. Spending cuts are needed and no one is ready (yet) to make the tough cuts.

Well that's the next issue. If we are not in default at this very moment we will be veeeeeery shortly.

The Treasury Dept (according to the news) is already fixin to implement "extarodinary measures".

My pay check this year will be smaller no COLA and an increase of 2% payroll taxes plus my medical insurance premiums go up this year (they have an increase every other year).

Guess I won't be buying that riding mower this year...

[Lord Jim]

Lib, are you aware of the fact that if we did all three of the things you're suggesting, we likely wouldn't save enough money to run the US government for even one single day?

[Jarlaxle]

Start with 25% across the board for all non-defense spending. Slash defense spending 50%. Keep slashing from there.

[Guinevere]

I would guess cutting defense spending 50% would do a lot of good. That's not possible of course, because of the numbers of men and women it would put out of work. But still, some significant defense cuts *have* to be on the table. And wars have to be ON-budget, not off-budget.

Raise the limit for social security tax to $250,000 or so. Cap benefits to anyone making over $1,000,000.

I'd have to sit down with a good budget overview to figure out where else to cut -- because its got to happen. More tax increases are necessary too.

And Crackpot was right about the social security tax -- painful as it is --it was a not really well thought out short term relief effort that got extended too long as it was. We'll all have to suck it up, but I'd be happier sucking it up if the above reforms were also made.

[Rick]

When did CP post something about SS tax?

I went back and saw nothing? Not that it really matters just curious...

[Gob]

If every man woman and child chipped in $52,059.12 you could be in surplus! Some could afford to pay more, I'm sure.

[Guinevere]

When did CP post something about SS tax?

I went back and saw nothing? Not that it really matters just curious...

It was a different thread. Many of them on this issue, so I did a mashup

[liberty]

Lib, are you aware of the fact that if we did all three of the things you're suggesting, we likely wouldn't save enough money to run the US government for even one single day?

Yes, but it is just my contribution. It is now time for you to add yours. Or, do you have another solution?

[liberty]

If every man woman and child chipped in $52,059.12 you could be in surplus! Some could afford to pay more, I'm sure.

Well we you could just say the hell with national debt and move in with you all. Of course we have to give some freedom to do that. What do you think the effect on OZ would for its population zoom from 30 million to 300 million plus. You would get used to the drugs and the drive by shootings.

[Gob]

Which freedoms would you have to give up Lib?

[oldr_n_wsr]

My gun(s)? although I am not up on Aussie gun laws. Can't imagine them being much worse than NY gun laws

[Gob]

I always find it amazing that Americans choose guns as an indication of freedom, surely there is more to freedom than the right to be shot at?

Firearm laws in Australia are enforced at a Federal and State level. Gun ownership is accessible only for those persons with 'genuine reasons' who can obtain a Permit to Acquire from local Police stations. 'Genuine Reasons' focus on primary production, licenced sport, animal control or employment requirements, and do not include 'personal protection.' In New South Wales (and similar in other States), firearm ownership is widely prohibited for convicted offenders. Gun ownership is low in metropolitan areas whose residents would generally not fulfill 'Genuine Reasons' requirements. Gun licences must be renewed frequently and expire automatically.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Rather the restriction of guns is a limit on freedom.

While I have never owned a gun for personal protection, I am trying to get a hand gun permit. Don't know if I will get a hand gun and certainly would not have it lieing around especially loaded, so it would not do much by way of self defense unless I was able to unluck the safe, unlock the trigger guard and load it and chamber a round before said perp found me.

I do own my rifle which I use for hunting and the occasional range practice.

There is no license for rifles although in order to get a deer hunting license I had to take a gun/hunting safety coarse. Go figure, the gun, no license, but in order to shoot bambi, I needed a license. And then you could go buy the hunting permit.

[Gob]

But again, that is such a meaningless way to judge "freedom", and you would be able to get a gun, for the purpose of killing innocent animals for fun, in Australia in any case.

[Lord Jim]

Lib, are you aware of the fact that if we did all three of the things you're suggesting, we likely wouldn't save enough money to run the US government for even one single day?

Yes, but it is just my contribution. It is now time for you to add yours. Or, do you have another solution?

I'm sorry, but it's not immediately apparent to me how a collection of budget cutting suggestions, (all of which I oppose by the way) that wouldn't fund the federal government for even a single day, qualifies as a "solution"...

Perhaps you would care to elaborate on this....