Governing through Reason
Real Super, Committee
No deal: The Deficit Supercommittee returns with a hung jury.
The Deficit Supercommittee has returned from their monthslong negotiations with…nothing. No deal. Only fingerpointing and blame.
Keep in mind that the Supercommittee needed to find a net savings of three percent in the budget in order to achieve its goal. We’re not talking about huge changes here. Just three percent. And they failed, not because finding that amount to cut is hard, but because finding common ground in a hyperpartisan Congress is impossible.
So what now?
Absent new legislation passed by a majority in both houses, and signed by President Obama (or passed over Obama’s veto), the following will happen:
- The Bush tax cuts will expire, and income tax rates will return to the Clinton levels.
- The defense and domestic program budgets will be cut by equal amounts.
Republicans want to avoid the first two, and Democrats want to avoid the third. As it stands today, it’s pretty clear that the House won’t pass any legislation that excludes an extension (most likely a permanent one) on the Bush tax cuts.
Obama says he will veto any attempts to get around the automatic cuts. And it’s likely that the Senate wouldn’t allow them to make it to his desk anyway.
This makes for a difficult new year, but makes partisan bickering the order of the day for 2012. Republicans will blame Democrats for inflexibility, and Democrats will say the same of Republicans.
Meanwhile, Obama will hold this up as an example of a “do-nothing Congress”, echoing President Truman’s reëlection campaign.
How do you think this will play out? Will Republicans find a way to get the tax cut extension through? Will Democrats find a way to get domestic programs funded despite funding reductions? Will this become Obama’s path to reëlection, following in Truman’s footsteps? What will happen to the members of Congress a year from now?
Related articles
- Democrats Killed The Deal; They Are The “Obstacle”, Not The Bush Tax Cuts (neosecularist.com)
- The Supercommittee Failed. Hooray! (slate.com)
- Prisoners of Bush (slate.com)
- Kerry: Republicans Won’t Give Up Bush Tax Cuts; Supercommittee Will Fail (crooksandliars.com)
- Political Wisdom: Why the Supercommittee’s Failure Matters (blogs.wsj.com)
- Winners and Losers of the Deficit Supercommittee Deadlock (swampland.time.com)
- After the supercommittee, Congress needs rehab | Ana Marie Cox (guardian.co.uk)
- SHOCKER: Republican Candidates Blame Obama For The Super Committee Failure (businessinsider.com)
- Deficit supercommittee members expected to announce failure (thehill.com)
- Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Super failure amidst income inequality (dailykos.com)
- The Supercommittee’s Collapse: An Exciting New Breakthrough in Failology [Failed State] (gawker.com)
- Super Committee Deal Not Reached: Obama Addresses Failure (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
- Supercommittee Fails (politicalwire.com)
- Supercommittee Fails To Reach Deficit-Cutting Deal (businesslawdaily.net)
- Will the supercommittee hit Congress hard? (politico.com)
- With No ‘Superdeal,’ What’s Next In Deficit Debate? (npr.org)
- Deficit Super Committee to Concede to Failure (usnews.com)
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#2 written by shortchain 1 year ago
DC,
Republicans can’t use the lies they told about 2009 and 2010
This appears to hinge on whether people know that those are lies.
To wander off-topic for a moment, in a study that surely has rgbact (wherever he is) gnashing his teeth in frustration, a new study indicates that Fox News viewers are less informed about many things than people who don’t watch any news programs at all.
Wait — that’s not off-topic after all. The RWNM is going to into hyperdrive mode and we will be bombarded with deliberately misleading information, with carefully selected out-of-context quotes from Democrats which will be carefully crafted to confuse the issue.
I’m not possessed of enough ESP to foretell the future effect all this BS is going to have, except that it will utterly convince the right wing, who come into this world that way. But it’s completely predictable that the Murdoch News Empire will do its part to make sure that things are not told honestly.
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#3 written by curious jane 1 year ago
The “echo-chamber” is at work. Toomey said Democrats refused to put Medicare and Medicaid on the table. I think he forgot to add that Dems wouldn’t put them on the table unless Reps. put tax revenue on the table.
I pray that President Obama stands strong. He has nothing to lose if he does. I hope he isn’t too pragmatic to roll up his sleeves and get into the “brawl”. The time for reasoning is over.
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#4 written by GROG 1 year ago
DC,
(And forget that dishonest and misleading “47%” meme — all American workers pay FICA.)
Either FICA taxes are a federal income tax or they’re not. You can’t have it both ways. Either they go to fund the federal government or they go to fund the SSTF, but they can’t do both. Saying so is dishonest and misleading.
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#5 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
This is too rich! Shortchain, who quickly and casually dismisses any and all research emanating from conservative– and/or libertarian-leaning sources (think tanks, policy centers, etc.) that defends conservative/libertarian principles in economics and policy, no matter how well-defined their research and methodology is and conclusive the results are, because they’re “obviously biased” has grabbed the results of a paper from Fairleight Dickinson that focuses ONLY on people from Jersey (hardly representative of people across the country and there are plenty of errors they can’t account for even focusing on just that state) and ONLY on a very select few questions about foreign events (not even policy, mind you), the OWS protests (which, admittedly, is a recent phenomenon which not too much concrete is known about by too many people anyway), and Republican candidates (way too early in the cycle for many) — yet not jack shit asked about solid news stories, policy or economic questions, etc. — and he takes that to dogmatically conclude in broad-sweeping terms (he makes no honest attempt to remind the reader that this study looked solely at the people of New Jersey so we can only assume he’s trying to DIShonestly claim that these results are applicable to EVERYONE), “indicates that Fox News viewers are less informed about many things than people who don’t watch any news programs at all.”
More like:
“Flawed and insufficient research??? Damn the torpedoes and FULL STEAM AHEAD!!!”
If this hypocrisy, dishonesty, and outright stupidity is supposed to represent the best the left has to offer on this blog, you guys are way more off your rocker than I could have ever imagined. You’re the joke that’s no longer funny but keeps getting told over and over and over again. I can’t wait to hear the rationalization — from shortchain himself or whatever other mouth-breather undoubtedly wants to defend his behavior — and the predictable but hollow insults/deflections that I’m the one who’s off-base, “obviously uninformed,” nothing more than a precocious 12-year old, etc. etc. etc.
The most beautiful yet most damning thing about the internet.…for all the information sharing and all the voices that can no be heard, sadly there are so many people who now have that outlet who don’t say anything worth listening to, and that describes damn near all of the left-leaners here at logarchism.com.
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#6 written by mclever 1 year ago
GROG
When people say, “47% pay no Federal Taxes” it’s misleading because FICA is a Federal tax based on income, even though it goes to a separate social security trust fund. That’s not having it both ways, it’s recognizing that the terminology can lead to confusion among people who don’t know or don’t understand what’s really going on.
Furthermore, something close to 90% of those who “pay no federal taxes” are social security recipients, students, and the unemployed. Are you really suggesting that we should be taxing grandma’s social security check? Or that unemployed people should be paying taxes on their non-existent incomes?
That’s why the 47% meme is misleading.
Now, if they counted the number of people with incomes above the poverty threshold who paid no taxes, then it would be more interesting to see who those non-payers were.
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Either FICA taxes are a federal income tax or they’re not. You can’t have it both ways. Either they go to fund the federal government or they go to fund the SSTF, but they can’t do both. Saying so is dishonest and misleading.
I said neither. I said that the silly “47%” meme won’t work here. You can’t say that there are people who don’t benefit from a FICA cut, since everyone pays FICA taxes.
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#8 written by curious jane 1 year ago
Mule and Grog.
I am really interested in your views, without the anger. I don’t understand why, when big corporations can pay no taxes after big profits, that people are making such a big deal about 47%. I am one of the 47%. I worked 45 years. During that time I paid high rates, with no deductions other than myself. I am now on SS and a stipend pention.
My situation is not due to poor planning, it is due to illness. Many of the people who live in my building, lost their retirement in the crash of 2007-08, or illness. The world is tough out there.
How do you explain that the top tier has increased in wealth and had their taxes brought down to rates of the 60’s but, it’s that 47% that are the freeloaders? There might be some logic there that I am not seeing. Facts are facts.
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jane,
Toomey said Democrats refused to put Medicare and Medicaid on the table. I think he forgot to add that Dems wouldn’t put them on the table unless Reps. put tax revenue on the table.
He forgot to add that because the idea of increasing tax revenues is not thinkable to Republicans (except when it comes to taxing the unemployed or students or the disabled or people on fix incomes — and except when it comes to letting the FICA holiday expire.) So Toomey can’t mention putting revenue increases “on the table” because he is intellectually unable to put “revenue,” “increase,” and “on the table” into the same sentence.
Additionally, the concept of “deal” does not exist for Republicans. Either they get their way, or the world ends, with nothing in between. So if the Democrats refuse to accept the Republican demands, it means the Democrats are being intransigent and unyielding.
I heard one of the Republican Supercommittee members on the radio yesterday, talking about how the Republicans stuck together, made sure they were all on the same page, through (at least) daily meetings or conference calls, so they had a single message to convey to the Democrats, and he presented this as a Good Thing. Then he actually complained (!) that they were unable to strip off a single Democrat to vote with them, not even Max Baucus, and this showed how the Democrats were inflexible and unwilling to deal — even though various Democrats kept coming to them independently with differing suggestions.
Had the Republicans as the group hive-mind they are agreed to really negotiate with even one of the Dems on the Supercommittee, a deal could have been reached. But no. The Republicans simply demanded that one or more of the Democrats bow down to the Republican united front and do things their way. All or nothing.
And reporters are pretending both sides are at fault.
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#11 written by shortchain 1 year ago
Mule,
Perhaps you’ll tell us how people from New Jersey are so different from everyone else in this country.
And perhaps you’ll tell us how you would tell whether people are correct on policy issues, rather than questions of fact. Because from my experience, even wise people can disagree on policy — but not on fact.
Finally, when you say:
there are so many people who now have that outlet who don’t say anything worth listening to…
That is surely the most glaring example of the psychological phenomenon known as “projection” we’ve seen, well, since yesterday’s delivery of mule droppings.
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#12 written by Mule Rider 1 year ago
“Perhaps you’ll tell us how people from New Jersey are so different from everyone else in this country.”
Perhaps you’ll tell us all the similarities between the people of New Jersey and the rest of the country that would give us a little confidence that they are a representative sample. The racial make-up, educational acheievement, average income level, etc. of New Jersey are vastly different when juxtaposed with many other states and are often out of line with US averages for each. You — or Farleigh Dickinson — need to make a more convincing case why that subset can speak to broader claims about viewers of certain programs across the US. In their (FD’s) defense, they didn’t really speak or project much beyond what the very limited data they had told them, so I can’t really criticize them. You did, however, and made quite a stretch in your claims, so the onus is on you to back up your dishonest and/or misleading blather.
“And perhaps you’ll tell us how you would tell whether people are correct on policy issues, rather than questions of fact. Because from my experience, even wise people can disagree on policy — but not on fact.”
Perhaps you’ll tell us why knowledge about obscure “facts” as to how the Egyptian revolution went, how the Syrian one is going, and who makes up the OWS movement are more pertinent and representative of people’s knowledge about topics like, oh I don’t know, what rights are enumerated in our 1st, 2nd, 5th, 9th, and 17th amendments, what our current budget deficit is and what our national debt is, where we rank in eductation versus the rest of the world, what the sales tax is in a person’s home state, etc. etc. etc.
I can ask you a bunch of trivial things about sports or economics you probably don’t know and turn around call you stupid and uninformed when you can’t answer them, but to be fair to you, it’d probably be good to ask you a broad swath of questions on several topics before making a judgement call on how well informed you are. You’re not willing to offer the same courtesy it seems; no surprise that it’s in something you can use to slam conservative-leaning people.
“That is surely the most glaring example of the psychological phenomenon known as “projection” we’ve seen, well, since yesterday’s delivery of mule droppings.”
And this is just another in a long line of examples of “I don’t have an answer for being called out once again for being an arrogant, despicable, and dishonest prick so I’ll just deliver another clever psychological one-liner observation to try and shut him up” ever since I’ve known you.
You’re at the top of the bad joke list now, you pathetic piece of garbage. Hope you enjoy it at the top of the heap.
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#13 written by GROG 1 year ago
mclever,
Furthermore, something close to 90% of those who “pay no federal taxes” are social security recipients, students, and the unemployed. Are you really suggesting that we should be taxing grandma’s social security check? Or that unemployed people should be paying taxes on their non-existent incomes?
I want to respond to that, but first I have a question DC when he says:
You can’t say that there are people who don’t benefit from a FICA cut, since everyone pays FICA taxes.
Everyone? Are you sure? EVen the 90% mclever is referring to? They all pay FICA taxes?
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I stand corrected, Grog. As I said in my original comment (see comment #1): Everyone who works pays FICA. (I had thought most readers could recall back to things they read this morning, so I only summarized my original statement instead of repeating it. I’ll try to keep in mind that doesn’t apply to everyone.) I will amend if further, because there are some workers who are covered instead by certain equivalent programs for state and federal employees, but I believe the payroll tax holiday applies to them as well.
So all American workers benefit from the payroll tax holiday. There isn’t any sense in which the meaningless “47%” argument (which doesn’t even make sense in its original context) can be used to argue against extending the payroll tax holiday.
Incidentally, the President is going to give the Republicans a chance to vote for raising taxes, because the Democrats will introduce a bill into the House to extend the tax holiday. Let’s watch the Republicans violate Grover Norquist, shall we?
Now, I encourage you to respond to mclever.
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#17 written by GROG 1 year ago
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#18 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
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#19 written by mclever 1 year ago
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#20 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
Mclever,
The whole issue of cutting the military budget (as part of a shameful political pissing contest no less), even for the first batch of cuts we’re currently dealing with, has gone over like the Hindenburg on my side of the house. Cutting the military budget when our troops are at war and those enemies we are not fighting are stronger than ever is the absolute height of irresponsibility and we will remember who was responsible for this débâcle. Avoiding a second round of crippling cuts to our budget is the absolute least Congress can do.
Speaking of the least Congress can do, passing a budget for this FY would be a good start. The military isn’t able to operate on a normal financial basis on continuing resolutions and this affects a lot of the things we do on a day-to-day basis.
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Warlord,
The whole issue of cutting the military budget (as part of a shameful political pissing contest no less), even for the first batch of cuts we’re currently dealing with, has gone over like the Hindenburg on my side of the house.
I agree with everything you said, 100%. I would add only that it applies to every aspect of the budget, not just the military.
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#23 written by GROG 1 year ago
DC,
My point to mclever was going to be this. Of the 90% she refers to; the unemployed, retirees and students, only a small percentage of those pay FICA taxes. FICA taxes are only paid on earned income, not things such as pensions, social security payments, or unemployment benefits.
To say Republicans don’t care about the middle class because they oppose cutting FICA taxes, which had bi-partisan opposition by the way, is disingenuous and misleading because most of the 90% mclever talks about don’t pay FICA taxes. The cut would have no effect on those individuals.
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Grog,
My point to mclever was going to be this. Of the 90% she refers to; the unemployed, retirees and students, only a small percentage of those pay FICA taxes. FICA taxes are only paid on earned income, not things such as pensions, social security payments, or unemployment benefits.
Anyone who doesn’t pay FICA also doesn’t have a job — do you really want to raise federal income taxes on them? But I think her point was unrelated to mine. Do you want to raise Federal taxes on these particular people, regardless of whether they pay FICA? What happened to the “raising taxes in a recession is bad” idea? Why do you want to raise income taxes on people who have little or no income to begin with?
To say Republicans don’t care about the middle class because they oppose cutting FICA taxes, which had bi-partisan opposition by the way…
I’m not sure I would call it “bi-partisan opposition.” Congressional Republicans, of course, are enslaved to their commitment to mindlessly oppose anything President Obama proposes. Many of those same Republicans have supported a FICA cut in the past, and are opposing it now in contradiction to their oaths to Norquist, and in contradiction to what they claimed to have been their own conscious only a couple of years ago.This means the payroll tax holiday, had it been supported by anyone else, has bi-partisan support.
But away with the hypothetical, it was proposed by this President, So a handful of conservative Democrats oppose the payroll tax holiday. I wouldn’t call that exactly “bi-partisan opposition.” One or two Republicans in the House actually voted in favor of the PPACA. Does that mean PPACA has bi-partisan support?
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#25 written by Armchair Warlord 1 year ago
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For once, the Democrats have the upper hand going into this game. Let’s see how they succeed at throwing it away.
If no agreement is reached in th next year, the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012. I expect the game the Republicans will play will be to hold the 2012 budget hostage, and once more threaten a government shutdown. They will refuse to pass any funding for federal programs for the 2012 fiscal year, unless it includes a permanent extension of the Bush cuts. The budget that comes out of the House may include vicious slashing of domestic programs — and an increase in the military budget, such that the upcoming mandated cuts to the military for 2013 will become negligible.
Before any of that, though, at the end of 2011, the FICA tax holiday and the extension of unemployment benefits will both expire. Democrats should try attaching renewals of these to every bill in both Houses. Republicans will block them every time, but it will remind the public who wants to help Americans and who doesn’t. With working families struggling and with 9% out of work, this is going to matter. (And forget that dishonest and misleading “47%” meme — all American workers pay FICA.)
Republicans can’t use the lies they told about 2009 and 2010 — “The Democrats were in charge and still couldn’t get anything done!” That wasn’t true then (except for six short months, Republicans could block anything in the Senate, and they frequently did). It certainly isn’t true now; Republicans have made it clear they rule the House with hobnail boots, and nothing gets through the Senate without their stomp of approval. If the problems aren’t resolved, failure belongs to the Republicans.
From the article —
Yes, that will be the spin war. But the Democrats have been compromising for nearly three years, and are willing to accept cuts in some of their sacred cows in exchange for revenue increases. That’s called a compromise. Republicans will not negotiate. They demand complete obedience from their own and absolute surrender from the Democrats. It’s politically correct correct to say “There’s enough blame to go around,” but there really isn’t.