“Standing With Mitch”: Is Rand Paul A Secret RINO?
Rand Paul (R-KY) was one of the 18 senators who voted against the deal brokered between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that ended the government shutdown and raised the debt limit — but that deal would likely never have happened if not for Paul’s alliance with McConnell.
Less than four years ago, Paul easily defeated Secretary of State Trey Grayson, McConnell’s choice to replace Senator Jim Bunning, in a GOP primary. The minority leader quickly moved to make amends with Paul as the Tea Party favorite cruised to a win in the general election.
Since 2010, the two men have formed a relationship of equals that’s worked to the advantage of both. “You know, I think when we call people a ‘mentor,’ I think that overstates,” Paul said when asked about the nature of their bond earlier this year. “We are colleagues, and I do respect him.”
McConnell backed Paul’s “drone” filibuster of future CIA director John Brennan. Paul has not only endorsed McConnell’s re-election, he’s lent out his campaign manager Jesse Benton to the senator. A hot mic caught the two senators discussing tactics for how to avoid blame for the government shutdown.
It’s impossible to imagine McConnell being able to swoop in at the last moment to negotiate a deal if he weren’t leading his primary opponent — Tea Partier Matt Bevin — by as much as 40 percent. And it’s impossible to imagine McConnell crushing a hardline opponent so handily if Paul had decided to back said hardline opponent.
In the wake of the McConnell-Reid compromise, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has gotten most of the grief from the Tea Party. You can get a sampling of the vile things he’s being called on his Facebook page from this Tea Party Insult Generator. The Speaker is much more deserving of grief because he let the shutdown happen and refused to even hold a vote on the “clean” continuing resolution that McConnell let pass the Senate.
However, Sarah Palin said on Thursday that she’s ready to fight in Kentucky in order to “shake things up in 2014.”
McConnell has already said there will not be another shutdown over Obamacare. He also refused to comment on the ascent of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). To those who have embraced the junior senator from Texas as the new leader of the conservative movement, this makes the minority leader a member of the “Surrender Caucus.”
It used to be a big deal when a former member of a national Republican ticket threatened to support a primary challenge to the GOP’s leader in the Senate. But that was back when Republican congressmen didn’t accuse former GOP standard-bearers of being in league with al Qaeda.
Palin’s threat would be a much bigger problem for the senator if Rand Paul weren’t standing with Mitch. And if you’re wondering where Paul’s loyalty is coming from, ask the man both men have employed — Jesse Benton. If he doesn’t know he’s being recorded, Benton might tell you, “I’m sorta holdin’ my nose for two years, cause what we’re doin’ here is going to be a big benefit for Rand in ’16…”
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, October 17, 2013
“A Love Story For The Ages”: Republicans And The Sequester
The deal allowing the government to reopen today included a mandate that the House and Senate engage in a new round of budget negotiations, with the lawmakers involved facing the unenviable task of reconciling the different tax and spending plans passed by each respective chamber. One contentious issue right off the bat is whether or not to preserve the spending levels under the so-called “sequester,” which were a byproduct of the 2011 debt ceiling debacle.
To review, when Republicans took the debt ceiling hostage two years ago, the deal crafted to avoid default – known as the Budget Control Act – mandated the creation of a “supercommittee” that was supposed to come up with a budget compromise. The sequester was meant to be the stick that would force a deal, as it included cuts that were supposedly so painful to each party that they would have no choice but to agree on something else.
Except that’s not what happened. The negotiations fell apart where they always fall apart: with Republicans refusing to accede to one dime in new revenue. The sequester went into effect and is now cutting an indiscriminate path through the budget.
Democrats, then, have made some noise about undoing the sequester, for at least a short period of time, during this new round of budget negotiations. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made clear on the Senate floor yesterday that he is not interested in such an idea.
“I’m also confident that we’ll be able to announce that we’re protecting the government spending reductions that both parties agreed to under the Budget Control Act, and that the president signed into law. That’s been a top priority for me and my Republican colleagues throughout this debate. And it’s been worth the effort,” McConnell said. “Some have suggested that we break that promise as part of the agreement. … But what the BCA showed is that Washington can cut spending. … And we’re not going back on this agreement.” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called sequestration, “one of the good things that has happened” and “an important thing that we have achieved.” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, even threatened another debt ceiling standoff in the new year should Democrats try to undo the sequester.
But when the sequester first went into effect, Republicans did everything they could to blame it on Obama. They even tried to call it the “Obamaquester.” In fact, here’s what McConnell had to say about the sequester back in February: “Take the Obama sequester as just one example. The president had a chance last night to offer a thoughtful alternative to his sequester, one that could reduce spending in a smarter way. That is what Republicans have been calling for all along.”
So in just eight short months, those spending cuts went from “the Obama sequester” to a “top priority” for the GOP. How the times change.
During his floor speech, McConnell also excoriated Obamacare for “killing jobs.” Not only is that false, but if McConnell wants to see a real job killer, he needs to look no further than his precious sequester spending levels. As I noted last week, the sequester has not only been gutting important programs, but is slowly strangling economic growth. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the spending levels under the sequester will cost up to 1.6 million jobs through fiscal year 2014.
Of course, the GOP to this point has been impervious to the mountain of evidence showing that cutting spending in a weak economy just makes for a weaker economy. So perhaps it’s best that McConnell and co. are just owning up to the fact that the sequester is something they desire and admire. It’s a love story for the ages: the sequester, once spurned, is now the one thing Republicans want to ensure will be staying around forever.
By: Pat Garofalo, U. S. News and World Report, October 17, 2013
“Unnecessary And Replaceable”: It’s Time To Take The Debt Ceiling Gun Off The Stage
There’s long been an expression that’s common in theater: if there’s a gun on the stage, it has to go off. It’s a loose translation of something called “Chekov’s Gun,” and I’ve long believed it’s a helpful metaphor for the debt-ceiling law.
The debt ceiling is a gun that’s been on the stage for nearly a century, and from time to time, we’ve seen lawmakers pick it up, play with it, wave it around, and even make threats with it, though thankfully it’s never gone off. But if we want to make sure no one ever pulls the trigger, there’s really only one logical course: it’s time this gun leaves the stage once and for all.
Now that Congress has approved a “clean” debt-ceiling extension, Democrats hope they’ve re-established a governing norm: extortion schemes using the full faith and credit of the United States will no longer be tolerated. When President Obama said last night, “One of the things that I said throughout this process is we’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” I took this as a subtle reminder to GOP lawmakers: this particular gambit is over.
Whether Republicans intend to hold the debt ceiling hostage again remains an open question. Last night, Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) conceded, “I’m going to commit candor here: I think we’ll have less leverage on the next CR & the next debt limit.” Around the same time, however, a Senate Republican leadership aide told a Washington Examiner reporter that the party has “no intention of allowing the next debt limit hike to be ‘clean.’”
Let’s consider that sentence, pause for a moment, and collectively bang our heads against our desks.
Policymakers can end the extortion, the economic uncertainty, and the threat of economic calamity by taking this gun off the stage – or at least unloading it. Josh Green recently talked up one of the more sensible solutions.
Back in 1979, the Democratic House Speaker, Tip O’Neill, handed the unhappy job of lining up votes for a debt-ceiling raise to Representative Richard Gephardt, then a young Democratic congressman from Missouri. Gephardt hated this, and, realizing he’d probably get stuck with it again, consulted the parliamentarian about whether the two votes could be combined. The parliamentarian said they could. Thereafter, whenever the House passed a budget resolution, the debt ceiling was “deemed” raised.
The “Gephardt Rule,” as it became known, lasted until 1995, when the new House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, fresh from the Republican triumph of the 1994 midterms, recognized the same thing that Tea Party Republicans recognize today: The threat of default could be used to extort Democratic concessions. Gingrich abolished the Gephardt Rule, and within the year the government had shut down.
Long story short, under the Gephardt Rule, Congress maintains its power of the purse and approves federal spending. If expenditures are greater than receipts, as they nearly always are, it’s simply automatic that the Treasury will have the borrowing authority to pay the nation’s bills. Gingrich ended the practice, but there’s no reason contemporary policymakers can’t bring it back.
If Congress doesn’t like the Gephardt Rule, there are other alternative solutions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for example, floated a related idea in 2011 in which the debt ceiling would remain in place, but the legislative burden would shift – the White House would have the authority to extend Treasury’s borrowing, and instead of going to Congress for permission, Congress would only have the power to proactively block Treasury. In other words, instead of needing a “yes” from Congress, lawmakers would only have the ability to say “no.”
There’s also the possibility of a constitutional challenge – there’s a credible argument to be made that the debt-ceiling statute itself violates several provisions of the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, so it should be struck down in the courts. If not, University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner recommends a constitutional amendment to prevent disaster in the future.
There are options. The point, though, is simple: the status quo shouldn’t be left in place.
It doesn’t even have to be seen as a partisan issue – Dean Clancy, who works on policy for the far-right FreedomWorks group, recently endorsed scrapping the debt ceiling, too. Everyone from Tim Geithner to Warren Buffett to Alan Greenspan has reached the same conclusion.
Most modern, industrialized countries don’t have a statutory debt limit for exactly this reason – it’s simply too dangerous. It’s time for the United States to catch up and eliminate this weapon before someone – which is to say, us – gets hurt.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 17, 2013
“Divided And Uneasy”: There Must Be Some Kind Of Way Out Of Here, Said The Joker To The Thief
In the middle of this last night, the intrepid inside chronicler of the Republican Party’s hostage crisis, National Review‘s Robert Costa, allowed as how GOPers are “divided and uneasy:”
Late Sunday, Republican staffers from both chambers were scrambling to reconcile the competing Republican strategies in the House and Senate, but communication has been sporadic. Senate GOP insiders are unsure of whether Senate Democrats will even negotiate unless Republicans cave on sequestration, and House insiders are unsure of whether Speaker John Boehner can keep his fragile conference united.
If things fall apart, Senator Lindsey Graham tells me he’s going to “object” to any deal that doesn’t include a vote on whether congressional employees should continue to receive federal contributions to their health-care plans. For Graham, the effort would be a final attempt to make Democrats endure an uncomfortable vote, should Republicans stumble.
Meanwhile, GOP enthusiasm for the showdown, from both conservatives and grandees, is waning. Members are spending considerable time calling one another to lament, and they’re worried about fading public support. “We can’t get lower in the polls. We’re down to blood relatives and paid staffers now,” said Senator John McCain on CBS’s Face the Nation. “But we’ve got to turn this around, and the Democrats had better help.”
In case your attention has drifted during this manufactured crisis, House Republicans forced a government shutdown and threatened a debt default in pursuance of a series of demands that changed almost hourly but never failed to smell to high heaven of hubris. Accompanying this attempted stick-up was an equally audacious fallback: a p.r. campaign to convince the public (and many more-than-willing journalists) Democrats were at least equally to blame for the crisis because of their refusal to make immediate concessions. Now that this half-a-loaf strategy seems to have failed, too, GOPers are demanding at least a few concessions so that they don’t have to admit failure to a puzzled and angry “base” that had been told a crushing victory over the evil president and his satanic health care law was in clear sight. And I’m sure we are just hours from a batch of op-eds urging said evil president and his party to show their “wisdom” by throwing John Boehner and Mitch McConnell life-lines to a face-saving “compromise” that will probably include both overall funding concessions plus some Obamacare nicks, and quite likely a fresh opportunity to go through the same extortion effort not too far down the road.
I’m not responsible for the health of the U.S. economic system, and I can only imagine the pressure the White House is feeling as it watches the minutes tick down to the opening of the New York Stock Exchange this morning after the high expectations on Friday of a quick deal faded over the weekend. You can even make an argument that Democrats need to proactively prevent the humiliation of Boehner and McConnell because their successors would be so much worse. But it remains outrageous that those who resisted this whole unnecessary nightmare have an obligation to reward its chief perpetrators, who will then try to preen and strut before the “base” about how they tricked the godless liberals into surrender.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 14, 2013
“Was It Worth It?”: Republicans Are Now Competing With Shingles And Herpes For Popularity
Remember back when this government shutdown started and the Republicans had so many ambitions? They were going to defund ObamaCare, or at least delay the individual mandate for a year. They were going to introduce a “conscience clause” that would allow employers to deny their workers access to contraception. They were going to compel the administration to bypass the deliberative process at the State Department and preemptively license the Keystone XL pipeline. They were going to gut coal-ash regulations and expand offshore drilling. They were going to get fast track authority for tax reform legislation based on Rep. Paul Ryan’s principles. They were going to cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and rip apart the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. They’d means-test Medicare and finally get tort reform. They had these dreams and many more besides.
But where are we now? All the various deals and negotiations have collapsed, and it’s down to a one-on-one between Reid and McConnell.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, spoke cordially by telephone but remained deadlocked. The stumbling block is over spending levels, the length of a debt ceiling increase and how long a temporary spending measure should keep the government open until a longer-term budget deal can be reached.
Translation: the talks are about how much new spending will be added to the sequester, how much the borrowing limit will be expanded, and how much time will be covered under the continuing resolution.
Further translation: the Republicans aren’t even asking for anything on their wish-list anymore.
Which is as it should be, because they never offered the Democrats a damn thing in return.
Republicans reacted with frustration over what they saw as the shifting demands of a Democratic leadership intent on inflicting maximum damage on adversaries sinking in the polls and increasingly isolated.
“The Democrats keep moving the goal posts,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a lead negotiator, said Sunday. “Decisions within the Democratic conference are constantly changing.”
But Democratic aides said a deal taking shape among a bipartisan group of senators offered Democrats nothing beyond a reopening of the government and temporary assurances that the government will not default in the coming days. Those should be seen not as concessions but as basic obligations of Congress, they say.
How many times have I heard this president be criticized for giving the store away? I think all that talk is almost as delusional as the ambitions the Republicans took into this showdown. Back in 2011, during the last debt ceiling fiasco, the Republicans had the ability and the motivation to cripple the economy to such a degree that the president probably could not have been reelected. Would they have actually done it?
I guess we’ll never know, but who can blame the president for being unwilling to hand that decision to his political opponents? All he ever asked was for a balanced approach that included some new tax revenue, and his opponents have not yet ever come close to taking ‘yes’ for an answer if it required violating their pledge to Grover Norquist. What we got instead was sequestration. That was the only way the Republicans could keep some of the president’s concessions without making any of their own. In order to get the president to give away the store, they had to eschew most of what they said they really wanted and appropriate with a sledgehammer that removed all discretion, wisdom, and values from the system.
And where has it gotten them?
Now they are competing with shingles and herpes for popularity. Now they are hopelessly divided and business leaders are furious with them. And they’re back to square one, facing budget negotiations that will no longer allow them to pocket gains without making concessions. They will have to spell out what they want, which appears to be to diminish the value of their base’s earned benefits in return for agreeing to raise their base’s taxes.
Good luck with that.
By: Martin Longman, Washington Monthly Ploitical Animal, October 13, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 