“Spending Cuts”: GOP Demands An End To Their Own Idea
Remember the “triggers” in the debt-ceiling agreement? Let’s take a moment to refresh the political world’s memory.
Congressional Republicans, in a move without precedent in American history, were holding the economy and the full faith and credit of the United States hostage. Democrats, fearful that the GOP wasn’t bluffing and that the nation would pay a severe price, was willing to cut a bad deal: $900 billion in debt reduction, on top of another $1.2 trillion agreement to be worked out by a so-called super-committee.
But Dems weren’t completely willing to roll over — they wanted to create an incentive for Republicans to work in good faith on the $1.2 trillion in savings. Democrats proposed the threat of automatic tax increases to push GOP officials to be responsible, but Republicans refused and offered an alternative: if the committee failed, the GOP would accept $600 billion in defense cuts and Dems would accept $600 billion in non-defense domestic cuts.
Remember, the point was to create an incentive that the parties would be desperate to avoid. Pentagon cuts were Republicans’ contribution to the process. These cuts were their idea.
And wouldn’t you know it, Republicans don’t like their idea anymore.
Failure by Congress’ debt-cutting supercommittee to recommend $1.2 trillion in savings by Wednesday is supposed to automatically trigger spending cuts in the same amount to accomplish that job.
But the same legislators who concocted that budgetary booby trap just four months ago could end up spending the 2012 election year and beyond battling over defusing it.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say they are writing legislation to prevent what they say would be devastating cuts to the military. House Republicans are exploring a similar move.
This isn’t exactly surprising, but it is kind of amusing. Republicans, in effect, said in August, “If we fail, we’ll accept these cuts we don’t want.” The same Republicans, in effect, are now saying, “It turns out, we don’t like our idea anymore.”
In the bigger picture, Republicans were never working in good faith. Even putting aside the inherently disgusting debt-ceiling crisis they created over the summer, GOP officials were willing to offer the defense-cut trigger precisely because they knew they’d try to kill it after the super-committee inevitably failed.
Republicans started this fight demanding debt reduction, then offered massive spending cuts to a part of the government they care about. They’re now demanding less debt reduction and more government spending — and if Democrats balk, these same Republicans will spend an election year accusing them of being anti-military.
I often wonder what our discourse would be like if the general public knew what GOP officials were up to in Washington.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, The Washington Monthly, November 21, 2011
What Does Super Committee Failure Mean For Healthcare?
The medical community is buzzing with concern this afternoon over what the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction means for healthcare providers and recipients.
Under the ‘trigger’ provisions agreed upon during the August debt default crisis, were the super-committee to fail to arrive at their own formula for getting rid of $1.2 trillion in deficit – a circumstance that has now become reality – Medicare would find itself facing an annual cut of 2 percent each year for a ten year period beginning in 2013.
Should this actually occur it would be disastrous for health of the nation’s senior citizens. Properly configured, the cuts could be made without biting into benefits for the elderly who depend upon the program, but the trigger mechanism does not point to specific areas of the federal health program where the cuts could be targeted in a way that would reduce spending while protecting benefits. Thus, everything would have be cut by the 2% amount, including medical benefits.
Personally, I don’t believe for a moment that the sequester provisions that were the penalty for failure of the deficit committee will ever see the light of day. There are thirteen months to go before these provisions kick in and Congress is already planning way to work around the cuts – particularly with respect to the defense budget. As a result, we can fully expect that the lame-duck session that will take place immediately following next November’s elections will either do away with or drastically modify the anticipated cuts.
It should also be noted that there are many policy experts who believe that had the panel reached an agreement, the damage to Medicare may have been far more serious than the planned 2 percent annual cuts.
There is, however, some real potential for immediate damage as a result of this Congressional failure.
The physician community had hoped that a deal would have brought resolution to the Medicare payment reductions doctors face each and every year as a result of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula. While Congress has traditionally delayed the cuts each year, the current decrease scheduled – should it actually happen – would hit physicians with a 27% pay cut for caring for Medicare patients starting January, 2012.
Given the tenor of Congress these days, there seems to be some chance that the Republicans might wish to make their point by allowing the payment reduction to take place. Should this happen, we’ve got a very big problem on our hands.
Physicians are already unable to make much-if any-profit on what Medicare pays them to treat our nation’s elderly. A near 30% cut would cause many-far too many-doctors to close up shop to seniors who are unable to cover the fees doctors require to stay in business out of their own pockets. The disastrous result this would lead to is obvious.
Says American Medical Association president, Peter Carmel:
The failure of the deficit committee forces our nation to continue on an unsustainable path that puts current and future generations of Americans at risk for harsh consequences The deficit committee had a unique opportunity to stabilize the Medicare program for America’s seniors now and for generations to come.
Once again, Congress failed to stop the annual charade of scheduled Medicare physician payment cuts and short-term patches, which spends more taxpayer money to perpetuate a policy everyone agrees is fatally flawed.
As I often point out, doctors are the one element of our healthcare system that are irreplaceable. Having hospitals are of little value when there are no physicians walking the halls to care for us. Drugs aren’t going to reach those who need them if there are no doctors to write the prescriptions.
Let’s hope that Congress is not so foolish as to make their point by hurting physicians and the seniors who depend upon them.
By: Rick Ungar, Forbes, November 21, 2011
‘Super Committee’ Failure: Super Gridlock In The Muppet Congress
In an age of super heroes and blockbuster movies glorifying those with extraordinary powers, we are left with the Muppets. And that may be doing a disservice to the Muppets.
Only 9 percent of the American people have a positive image of Congress—slightly higher than the percentage that view Fidel Castro favorably. Now that is scary.
Are these bad people? No. Do they not have the best interests of the American people at heart? I believe most do.
Is this all about two different philosophies of government? Certainly, that is a big part of the stalemate.
Unfortunately, most Americans now believe that there is more consensus, more cooperation, and more compromise—and maybe more maturity—on a nursery school play yard than in the U.S. Congress.
We can point to growing polarization, a lack of civility, people coming to Congress in ideological straight jackets, signing ridiculous pledges, being beholden to the more extreme elements of their political party.
But I would argue that American Democracy, at least for the moment, has transitioned into a parliamentary system, without the accountability. It is nearly impossible for Members of Congress to routinely cross party lines, at least on the most important votes. The pressure is great, the ideology has become increasingly rigid, and the politics of bucking your leadership is seriously problematic.
The current gridlock on our most difficult problems can’t be resolved by dissolving the government and holding new elections. It probably won’t be resolved next November. We will be faced, no matter who wins, with equal or greater intransigence from the opposition party.
And our voters will not have a chance to vote, as in a parliamentary system, for or against the party in power or the back benchers. Because our system now allows a minority to stifle the majority so easily in the Senate, through filibusters and holds, but allows the majority to dictate what is brought to the floor and voted on in the House, we are faced with paralysis.
Never before have I seen such a strong sense of a party-lock in Congress. Our recent history is one of moderates in the two parties holding swing votes, people crossing party lines on issues, and the ability to reach compromise when the country demands it.
Now, we exhibit all the markings of a parliamentary system but cannot extricate ourselves from the tendency toward permanent gridlock. Campaigns never end and self-preservation determines many members’ votes. The old approach of “working it out” is gone, at least temporarily, and there is no mechanism, even with the so-called super committee, to bust out of the hold that the system has on Congress.
The American people, after this latest breakdown, are watching as their savings and 401k’s are tanking. They are watching the blame game. They are watching Congress do very little to create jobs and improve their economic plight. For the moment, all they can do is throw up their hands. And the anger builds.
By: Peter Fenn, Opinion Writer, U. S. News and World Report, November 21, 2011
Inconvenient History: Proof Positive That Newt Gingrich Supported Healthcare Mandates
As Newt Gingrich takes his turn as the GOP flavor of the week, all that baggage he carries is beginning to be opened, unpacked and examined like a tourist going through customs on a slow day at the airport.
The past few days have shined a light on Newt’s relationship with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the quasi-governmental agencies that Gingrich has been hammering for their role in the nation’s mortgage meltdown. Yet, it turns out that Gingrich’s consulting firm accepted a sum well in excess of one million dollars from these same agencies to push their agenda with his Republican buddies on the Hill.
Now, the media is getting around to examining Gingrich’s record on healthcare reform and are finding themselves shocked to learn that, as Governor Romney accused during one the recent if endless GOP debates, Newt was a big supporter of mandated health insurance long before he was against it.
Anybody who is similarly surprised by this has simply not been paying attention. As I wrote in a Forbes piece back in May of this year, there is a fairly endless record of Gingrich’s commitment to health insurance mandates.
Newt’s explanation for his now inconvenient history is that he only adopted his pro-mandate position in the early 90’s for the purpose of derailing Hillarycare (the failed Clinton administration effort to reform our health care system.)
And yet, he has left a long trail of mandate laden bread crumbs that clearly proves otherwise.
Appearing earlier this year on Meet The Press, Gingrich stood up for his long-held position that mandates were a good idea. However, upon realizing that his statements were causing him big problems with the Republican base, Gingrich recorded and released a video just a few days later wherein he announced:
I am completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals. I fought it for two and half years at the Center for Health Transformation. I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.
Not only did Newt flip-flop on his position, he outright lied when he said that he has fought the notion of mandates at his Center for Health Transformation.
How do we know he is lying?
Just click on the link and you can visit the Insure All Americans section at Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation website. Of course, should you take a little trip over to this smoking gun today, you will find that the relevant page has been removed. Go figure.
Fortunately, David Corn of Mother Jones and MSNBC, along with the Washington Post, got there before the page was taken down. As a result, courtesy of Corn, we have the screen image of the relevant proposal. You will want to note the highlighted section.
This, my friends, is unarguably a proposal that includes a health insurance mandate. And it gets even more interesting. According to the Washington Post article referenced above, Newt’s healthcare think tank raked in some $37 million from the healthcare industry by supporting the mandate concept.
Nice work if you can get it but not particularly useful if you are going to run for president on a platform that completely trashes what you had previously supported.
Now, one could argue that Newt’s proposal is somehow different from Obamacare because Gingrich exempts those who earn less than $50,000 from having to purchase coverage.
But that argument would fail miserably. In Newt’s book “Real Change”, published in 2008, Gingrich repeated his proposal that those making over $50,000 be required to purchase health insurance. But he also noted that those who earn below that level should receive tax credits or government subsidies to assist them in acquiring health care insurance coverage.
Sound familiar? It should. The proposal is pretty much Obamacare on the nose.
If GOP primary voters are paying attention, this should close the door on poor old Newt. After all, what’s the use of running a cranky old guy for President when he spends most of his time engaging in hypocrisy on steroids and running away from previously held positions for which he was paid magnificently to pursue.
And if this is the kind of candidate you’re looking for, why not choose Governor Romney? A pretty masterful flip-flopper himself, at least Romney made his money the old fashion way – buying companies, stripping them down, putting thousands out of work, and then reselling the pieces for a giant profit.
This has got to be preferable to a man who got rich peddling his influence with his Republican colleagues in Congress to the highest bidder…doesn’t it?
By: Rick Ungar, Contributing Writer, Forbes, November 18, 2011
Crazy People Running For President
Every four years, many people decide to run for president. You don’t hear about most of them, because the news media decide, and reasonably so, to ignore folks like the immortal Charles Doty. Even among those who have held major political office, however, some are deemed serious and some are not. For instance, Buddy Roemer — a former member of Congress and governor of Louisiana — is considered not serious, as is Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. Both are running for the Republican nomination, but neither gets invited to debates or has journalists reporting on their campaigns. Yet Michele Bachmann is considered one of the “real” candidates, even as she languishes in the mid-single-digits in polls.
Of course she won’t be president, but I think it’s worth pointing out that someone like Bachmann can still be treated as a real candidate. Since we’ve almost gotten used to her, at times one has to step back and marvel at just how incredibly nutty this person is, and the fact that she is not standing on a streetcorner wearing a tinfoil hat and sandwich board but actually has people come to listen to what she has to say. Here’s what she told some folks at a town hall, speaking about another town hall she had held:
“One man stood up, he was over 7-feet tall. He was a physician in the community. And he said, ‘I had a little lady in my office and because of Obamacare, I had to call the IRS and I had to get a number to put on a form before I could see her.'”
Repealing the Affordable Care Act is one of the centerpieces of Bachmann’s campaign, yet the idea that she would have even the barest clue about what the ACA does and doesn’t do is so ridiculous we don’t even bother to expect it. When a presidential candidate gets up and tell an audience that a gigantic doctor told her that he has to call the IRS to get permission to treat patients —something no doctor has ever had to do, and no doctor will ever have to do, ACA or not—what is the appropriate response? The appropriate response is for the national press corps to say, “This person has officially gone nuts. We will therefore not waste any more of our audience’s time on her.” Or maybe, “We’re going to take this opportunity to explain exactly why this candidate is a liar and a fool, so you will understand exactly why we won’t be wasting any more of your time on her.”
It would literally be only a bit more fanciful if Bachmann had said, “The other day I was at a town hall, and a space alien from the planet Gorgrax was there, and he said that because of Obamacare, Gorgraxian medical robots are going to need to travel through an intergalactic wormhole and get permission from Washington bureaucrats before they can treat patients with Flurznoop Syndrome! Is that what we want for America?”
And Republicans wonder why Americans have trouble seeing them as a responsible ruling party.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, November 18, 2011
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