“Exposing Republican Intransigence”: John Boehner Rejects Obama’s Offer To Cut Social Security
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) preemptively rejected President Barack Obama’s upcoming budget proposal Friday, slamming the president’s offer to cut Social Security as “only modest entitlement savings.”
President Obama’s budget plan, which he will send to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, will reportedly seek $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction through a combination of new revenues and spending cuts. The most controversial cut is the move to the chained consumer price index (“chained CPI”) for Social Security, which would significantly reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries. President Obama has long suggested that he could support the measure, which would cut federal spending by about $130 billion over the next decade, only if Republicans agree to raise new tax revenues.
To many of the president’s liberal allies, such a proposal has been a non-starter. When he floated the idea in late 2012, many House Democrats warned that they would rather go over the “fiscal cliff” than accept the cut. Similarly, in an exclusive interview with The National Memo in March, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka vowed that America’s largest labor federation would oppose any budget deal that included chained CPI, saying the index is “another example of how Washington creates fancy-sounding phrases to mask stupid policies that only work for the rich.”
The public seems to stand with Trumka; recent polling suggests that Americans strongly oppose any Social Security cuts.
The budget reportedly includes several other cuts, such as $400 billion in health care savings (including additional means-testing for Medicare,) and $200 billion in cuts to farm subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, and unemployment compensation. Obama’s budget also aims to raise $600 billion in new revenues, including an increased cigarette tax, which would be used to finance the president’s proposal for universal pre-K.
“While this is not the president’s ideal deficit-reduction plan, and there are particular proposals in this plan like the CPI change that were key Republican requests and not the president’s preferred approach, this is a compromise proposal built on common ground, and the president felt it was important to make it clear that the offer still stands,” a senior Obama administration official told The Hill.
Obama’s offer to meet in the middle has already failed to move House Republicans, however. Not waiting for the full proposal to be released, House Speaker John Boehner quickly released a statement Friday blasting Obama’s plan.
“Despite talk about so-called balance, the president’s last offer was significantly skewed in favor of higher taxes and included only modest entitlement savings,” Boehner said. “In the end, the president got his tax hikes on the wealthy with no corresponding spending cuts. At some point we need to solve our spending problem, and what the president has offered would leave us with a budget that never balances.”
“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Boehner added.
Although Boehner’s statement still completely ignores the $2.5 trillion in deficit reductions to which the White House has agreed since 2010, it does at least acknowledge that Obama is offering “entitlement savings” — even if Boehner rejects the compromise out of hand. This is a modest step in the right direction, considering that until this budget, Republicans have consistently denied that Obama has offered them anything at all.
In the end, that subtle shift may end up as the most significant result of Obama’s budget deal. Although the proposal has no real chance of becoming law — as evidenced by Boehner’s immediate rejection — making a highly publicized compromise offer will further expose the Republicans’ intransigence.
In March, President Obama reportedly offered congressional Republicans a choice: accept a deal that raised revenue in exchange for chained CPI and means-testing of Medicare, or walk away with no budget deal at all. In April, it appears that Boehner has made his decision.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, April 5, 2013
“Stark Raving Mad”: Liz Cheney Slips Further Down The Rabbit Hole
The point of Liz Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed today is fairly predictable and not altogether uncommon among far-right activists — she wants the Republican Party to resist the urge to become more mainstream, and instead “fight” harder against the GOP’s real and imagined enemies. But in execution, Cheney’s piece is a rather extraordinary work of delusion.
Jon Chait highlights some of the more glaring problems with the op-ed — he uses it to argue, persuasively, that Cheney is “obviously stark raving mad” — which reads like a bizarre rant from a partisan so filled with rage towards President Obama that reason was thrown out the window when the writer made a right-hand turn into Crazy Town. Cheney is certain, for reasons that remain mysterious, that Obama has “launched a war on Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” is deliberately sabotaging capitalism, and wants to destroy the nation’s global standing on purpose.
It’s a truly ridiculous tirade with all the sophistication and accuracy of a Breitbart comments section. But there’s also an unintentionally amusing part — Cheney’s unhinged rant includes this Ronald Reagan quote from 1961:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
This is, to be sure, a popular quote on the right, and if it seems familiar to long-time readers, it’s because I’ve written about it several times before.
In this case, however, Cheney forgot to look up the context in which Reagan made these comments before relying on it. Indeed, note that at one point in the quote, Reagan said, “And if you and I don’t do this,” although in Cheney’s piece, there’s no frame of reference to tell the reader what “this” is.
And what was Reagan referring to at the time? I’m glad you asked.
“This” was referring to preventing the creation of Medicare. Reagan warned Americans in 1961 that Medicare, if approved, would turn the United States into a dystopian nightmare. In the same recording Cheney quoted, Reagan argued that if Medicare became law, we’d see federal officials empowered to dictate where physicians could practice medicine, and open the door to government control over where Americans were allowed to live. In fact, he warned that if Medicare passed, there was a real possibility that the federal government would control where Americans go and what we do for a living.
And so, freedom-loving Americans had to stop Medicare or we “may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
We now know, with the benefit of hindsight, that Reagan’s paranoid rant was wrong, and hysterically so. His predictions didn’t come true, and Medicare did not destroy American freedom. Those who are actually in their sunset years are delighted with Medicare, and are not sitting around, longing wistfully for an America where seniors seeking medical care were forced into poverty.
Cheney, either out of confusion, negligence, ignorance, or willful disregard of the truth, thinks Reagan’s warnings from a half-century ago “still ring true.” They do? How? What is Cheney talking about?
As Chait added, far-right paranoia seems to be bequeathed from one generation of deranged conservatives to the next. Social Security was going to destroy America, they said. When that didn’t happen, it was Medicare that would crush our way of life, they said. When that didn’t happen either, it was the Affordable Care Act — the dreaded “Obamcare” — that threatened everything Americans hold dear.
The delusions, like Cheney’s op-ed, are laughable.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 29, 2013
“Victory For The Middle Class”: On Obamacare’s Third Birthday, There Are Already Reasons To Be Grateful
On March 23, 2010, Obamacare — formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — was signed into law by President Obama.
Three years later, the bulk of the first serious attempt at near-universal health care has not yet taken effect. Health marketplaces are still being formed, states are still deciding if they’ll take Medicaid expansion and the subsidies that will help tens of millions of Americans afford health care won’t roll out until January 1, 2014.
Implementing Obamacare won’t be easy, as even some of the biggest fans of the program admit. Expanding Medicare to cover all Americans would have to be an even simpler solution but a complete political impossibility — given that Joe Lieberman (I-CT), whose vote was necessary to pass the law, single-handedly vetoed a provision that would allow 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare. It’s a compromise solution that uses unpopular provisions — like the individual mandate — to achieve extremely popular results — ending lifetime limits and banning insurance companies from dropping patients once they become sick.
There will be plenty of time to debate the efficacy of Obamacare — especially with insurance companies enjoying record profits threatening to raise rates in order to justify changes to the law.
But right now we should celebrate the greatest victory for the middle class since Medicare and Medicaid. At its heart, Obamacare is a program that asks the rich and corporations to pay a little more to help working Americans get insurance they can count on, thus lowering the cost of health care for everyone. We already pay for each other’s health coverage, but just in the dumbest possible way — emergency rooms.
Here are five reasons to be grateful for Obamacare, which is already making life better for the middle class.
Obamacare Frees Workers And Entrepreneurs
One of the most popular aspects of Obamacare is that beginning in 2014, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny people coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Because insurance companies had been able to do this, many people avoided going to the doctor for fear of being diagnosed with a disease or condition that would brand them for the rest of their lives. Some stayed in jobs they didn’t want and others didn’t take the leap to start a new business for fear of not being able to get coverage. These changes especially free women — who by federal law can no longer be charged more for care because of their gender — to pursue new opportunities.
Insurance Companies Pay You Back
Insurance companies are required for the first time to prove that they’re spending between 80 and 85 percent of premiums, depending on the size of the company, on actual health care. If companies don’t spend that amount on coverage, they have to return that money to their customers — $1.2 billion was returned in 2012 to self-employed Americans whose insurers didn’t hit the proper ratio.
Millions Of Young People Already Covered
An estimated six million college students are already taking advantage of Obamacare’s provision that lets them stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26. This has led to a record drop in uninsured young people, allowing them to go back to school or pursue graduate degrees without taking on as much student loan debt.
Seniors Spend Less On Drugs
One of the most immediate benefits of Obamacare was the closing of the Medicare D prescription drug “donut hole,” which requires seniors to pay for the coverage gap between their deductible and yearly limit, at which point the plan covers all medication — $6.1 billion in drug coverage has already been distributed to seniors, which leads to the irony that Republicans ran and won in 2010 on saying that Obamacare cuts Medicare when, in fact, benefits for seniors have only increased. All the savings come from reforming the way providers are paid.
The Red States Get To Pay The Blue States Back
When the Supreme Court ruled that the mandate in Obamacare was Constitutional, it also gave states the chance to opt out of the Medicaid expansion that will provide free public health care for those not already on Medicaid, but who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty level. The states that are turning down the expansion, unfortunately, are some of those that need it the most. All of the states that have rejected the federal extra funding — which begins at 100 percent of the cost of the expansion and goes down to 90 percent — are states that generally vote Republican.
You probably know that most red states take in more federal money than they contribute, as Republican policies encourage growth of programs like food stamps. Though Republican governors can reject the benefits of Medicaid expansion, their richest citizens and corporations will still have to pay the taxes. As a result, they won’t be such “takers.”
Unfortunately, the working poor of red states — who earn too much to be on basic Medicaid — will suffer without the health insurance they need. Those on Medicare and Medicaid will likely see fewer doctors who want to accept clients from these programs, as Medicaid expansion was supposed to make up for the cut in reimbursement rates that begins in 2014. And all residents will not enjoy the slowdown in the growth of health care costs that will come from shrinking the number of the uninsured.
For red state governors, it’s a chance to fulfill the prophecies of doom Republicans made when Obamacare passed. But for residents of blue states, it’s a chance to make America’s health care system more equitable, with red states finally paying closer to their fair share.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, March 22, 2013; Photo: The Advisory Board Company
“Riding The Bench” John Boehner Still Waiting For Others To “Lead”
When it comes to power in Washington, John Boehner isn’t exactly a hapless schlub, at least not on paper. He’s the Speaker of the House, second in the presidential line of succession, and ostensibly the most powerful member of the legislative branch of government. He has a powerful megaphone, a sizable House majority, and the capacity to have an enormous impact on policymaking.
And yet, John Boehner believes leadership is something others should show. In his new Washington Post op-ed on the larger budget fight, the House Speaker is giving new meaning to the phrase “leading from behind.”
The problem, in large part, is that Democrats refuse to make the tough choices necessary to solve our long-term debt crisis…. [P]residential leadership is really what’s needed.
Needed for what? Well, according to Boehner, he’d like to see President Obama cut spending the way Republicans want, cut entitlements the way Republicans want, balance the budget the way Republicans want, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline the way Republicans want.
And if Obama disagrees, he’s not making “tough choices” and failing to show “leadership.”
Left unsaid: John Boehner, despite his power and authority, isn’t leading, doesn’t want to lead, has no intention of leading, and doesn’t even know how to lead — which is precisely why he keeps waiting for the White House and Senate to do the real work while Boehner waits patiently (or as evidenced by this op-ed, perhaps not so patiently) on the sidelines.
Let’s make this easy for the Speaker: (1) Name one budget issue on which you and your party are prepared to compromise; (2) Name one concession you and your party are willing to accept in exchange for a related Democratic concession.
If the answer to either of these is questions is a blank stare, then the Speaker of the House has no business calling himself a leader of anyone or anything.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 14, 2013
“Explain That Budget, Please”: Let’s Have Less Sanctimonious Talk About Your Principles And Vision Mr. Ryan
Today’s opening meditation, coinciding with the beginning of that annual speechapaloosa of the Right, CPAC, is from a belligerant remark made by Paul Ryan in an interview with National Review‘s Andrew Stiles, responding to incredulity that he’s back with more or less the same old budget for the third time:
Even some conservatives have questioned the idea of refighting old battles, as opposed to confronting the new reality with new solutions. But Ryan is sticking to his guns. “So just because the election didn’t go our way, that means we’re supposed to change our principles? We’re supposed to just go along to get along? We reject that view,” he tells National Review Online in an interview at his Capitol Hill office. “A budget is supposed to be a display of your vision,” he adds. “Our vision is a world without Obamacare.”
Ryan points out that Obama was not the only one who was returned to power in 2012; House Republicans maintained their majority. “We’re here, and we won our elections based on limited government, economic freedom, and we should not shy away from espousing those views,” he says.
If you’re like me, you’ve heard those words expressed by conservative ideologues so many times you barely register their content anymore: conservative principles, conservative principles, limited government, freedom, bark bark woof woof. Ryan may rely for his reputation in D.C. on a perception that he is some sort of genius-wonk, but the reason “the base” went nuts with joy when Mitt Romney lifted him to the national ticket last year is that right-wing activists believe he’s found a way to reflect their “conservative principles” in a blizzard of numbers.
But if you get out of the trance-state of believing everything Ryan says, and that his fans say about him, do his budgets actually reflect, or disguise, his “principles?”
Let me once again quote a key paragraph of Ryan’s speech last November at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner wherein he discussed his “vision,” which is a world not only without Obamacare, but without any real public safety net:
Not every problem disappears through the workings of the free market alone. Americans are a compassionate people. And there’s a consensus in this country about our obligations to the most vulnerable. Those obligations are beyond dispute. The real debate is how best we can meet them. It’s whether they are better met by private groups or by government – by voluntary action or by government action.
Think about this approach for a minute. Ryan begins from the premise that the free market will if left alone solve most social and economic problems; you don’t even get into the discussion of a public role until we’re talking about “the most vulnerable.” And once we are there, the conservative side of the argument is to press for “voluntary action” by “private groups”–i.e., public abandonment, perhaps with a tax credit and hearty good wishes, but abandonment all the same.
Is that what you get when you peel back all the numbers and look for Ryan’s “principles?” I guess so, since the numbers themselves are actually pretty opaque. Why won’t Ryan specify the impact his spending assumptions would have on non-defense discretionary spending? Why won’t he address what happens to the Medicare “premium support” payment if all the market magic he’s assuming does not radically reduce health care inflation? If his “vision” is that federal support for and regulation of the program we now call Medicaid is to whither away, why not say so? Why go through the subterfuge of a “block grant” if the idea is that states would eventually liberate the poor from dependence on this program as they compete to cut costs and reduce eligibility?
And why, in the third iteration of his budget, why does Ryan remain unwilling to specify the content of that vast magic asterisk he identifies as “tax reform?”
Sure, all these evasions can be justified on Machiavellian grounds, but I thought we were talking about a bold expression of “conservative principle,” a “vision” here, not some mendacious effort to sneak “principle” through the bedroom window!
But this should come as no surprise after a 2012 campaign in which Ryan outdid Romney in posing as the maximum champion of Medicare because he opposed reductions in provider payments even though he included those same reductions in his own budget, and is doing so again today. What “principles” did that Medagoguery reflect? What “vision” are we supposed to glimpse? A world in which wealthier people over 55–which also happen to be the most pro-Republican group of people in the electorate–are insulated from any budget cuts while mothers with children under the poverty line are asked to make “sacrifices?” Spell it out, Paul Ryan!
It’s not just Ryan, of course. Republican pols generally are reluctant to tell us how they envision the country’s future. This is why when they occasionally let the mask slip and attack the New Deal or “government schools” or the very idea of income taxes or popular election of senators or any limitation on property rights or any concept of reproductive rights or any “entitlement” to public resources among those people–they are greeted with a feral roar of recognition and joy from the activist base for telling it like it is.
That is precisely what Paul Ryan won’t do. So love him or hate it, but let’s have less sanctimonious talk from him and his conservative fans about his “principles” and “vision.” He’s hiding both.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March 14, 2013
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