Charlie Pierce is still trying to fight the good ‘political’ fight. Unfortunately for Charlie, politics as he’s known it his whole life is over. He’s still trying to save a system that the people have totally rejected. Everyone knows, at least everyone paying any attention, that whenever any politician opens his/her mouth they’re lying. Charlie would be doing himself, and all of us, a favor if he just threw his hands in the air, stepped away from his word processor, and pitched a tent at his local OWS location.
what are you talking about? charlie is a great blogger! he’s doing us all a great favor by writing his fantastic posts. few people lampoon the system as well as him
If the committee comes out empty-handed Obama has no choice but to veto the automatic reductions. Hell, taxing the rich was part of his plan to begin with, except now everyone knows that Occupy has provided him all the political cover he needs. And besides, there’s no way he’ll allow cuts to SS and Medicare—especially in an election year. Plus, he can advance the notion that unemployment benefits must be provided for the long-term. The Movement is a life-saver for the prez.
If the committee comes out empty-handed Obama has no choice but to veto the automatic reductions.
he can’t veto the automatic reductions (that’s why they are called “automatic”). the automatic reductions were part of the bill that passed when the supercommittee was created. obama already signed that bill and the bill he signed stated the across the board cuts would happen automatically (in 2013) assuming the supercommittee didn’t come up with a superplan before thanksgiving recess.
of course congress could always repeal the automatic reductions before they go into effect. that’s what i hope happens. what i fear is that instead they will only pass a partial repeal–a repeal of the DOD cuts but not any of the other ones.
as matthew yglesias pointed out, a flaw with the trigger is that it is not as balanced as it was said to be. the idea was that republicans don’t want cuts in the defense budget and democrats don’t want cuts in social programs. the fear on both sides will motivate them to get a deal. but yglesias notes that the incentive for a deal is not balanced. the democrats don’t want cuts to defense or social programs, whereas the republicans don’t want defense cuts but welcome the social program cuts. that sets us up for a “compromise” repeal of the automatic cuts for defense, but not for anything else.
Co-chair Jeb gave us the obvious solution and he didn’t even know it: “We have to get health care spending under control”. Voila, a single-payer system will reduce costs by at least 30% and improve medical care quality. Of course, the insurance (banksters) won’t like being cut out of this cash cow, but since it came from their own personal representative on the super committee, what are they going to do?
Charlie Pierce is still trying to fight the good ‘political’ fight. Unfortunately for Charlie, politics as he’s known it his whole life is over. He’s still trying to save a system that the people have totally rejected. Everyone knows, at least everyone paying any attention, that whenever any politician opens his/her mouth they’re lying. Charlie would be doing himself, and all of us, a favor if he just threw his hands in the air, stepped away from his word processor, and pitched a tent at his local OWS location.
what are you talking about? charlie is a great blogger! he’s doing us all a great favor by writing his fantastic posts. few people lampoon the system as well as him
If the committee comes out empty-handed Obama has no choice but to veto the automatic reductions. Hell, taxing the rich was part of his plan to begin with, except now everyone knows that Occupy has provided him all the political cover he needs. And besides, there’s no way he’ll allow cuts to SS and Medicare—especially in an election year. Plus, he can advance the notion that unemployment benefits must be provided for the long-term. The Movement is a life-saver for the prez.
If the committee comes out empty-handed Obama has no choice but to veto the automatic reductions.
he can’t veto the automatic reductions (that’s why they are called “automatic”). the automatic reductions were part of the bill that passed when the supercommittee was created. obama already signed that bill and the bill he signed stated the across the board cuts would happen automatically (in 2013) assuming the supercommittee didn’t come up with a superplan before thanksgiving recess.
of course congress could always repeal the automatic reductions before they go into effect. that’s what i hope happens. what i fear is that instead they will only pass a partial repeal–a repeal of the DOD cuts but not any of the other ones.
as matthew yglesias pointed out, a flaw with the trigger is that it is not as balanced as it was said to be. the idea was that republicans don’t want cuts in the defense budget and democrats don’t want cuts in social programs. the fear on both sides will motivate them to get a deal. but yglesias notes that the incentive for a deal is not balanced. the democrats don’t want cuts to defense or social programs, whereas the republicans don’t want defense cuts but welcome the social program cuts. that sets us up for a “compromise” repeal of the automatic cuts for defense, but not for anything else.
Co-chair Jeb gave us the obvious solution and he didn’t even know it: “We have to get health care spending under control”. Voila, a single-payer system will reduce costs by at least 30% and improve medical care quality. Of course, the insurance (banksters) won’t like being cut out of this cash cow, but since it came from their own personal representative on the super committee, what are they going to do?