United States Congress of Fail (Part 3)

[GrumpyGran]

4 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

That is pretty much what I have. What makes me so mad is that Tillis has been rambling on about how he wants to move towards a Congress where both sides work together and then he pulls this shit. I'm calling Monday and asking what happened to him wanting to work with the Democrats. 

He's always been a sleazy liar. Straight out of Charlotte, believe me those people aren't very politically savvy. They visited the fabulous Pat McCrory on the state.

When I moved there and discovered I didn't even have a Democratic candidate to vote for in 2014 running against Pittenger, I was apoplectic. The Art Pope mafia.

[Cartmann99]

17 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

I'd also love to see Texans get rid of Cruz.

From your lips to Rufus's ear!  I'm supporting Beto O’Rourke.

https://betofortexas.com

[formergothardite]

@GrumpyGran Have you ever watched Tillis' Facebook live Q&A's? He won't meet with people in real life because he is scared, so he does it on Facebook and he is so condescending and rude. It is unbelievable how he talks to the constituents asking questions. He is truly awful. 

[fraurosena]

26 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Sadly many American people have shown them that they are that gullible and stupid. And they are running with it. These people will elect a child molester, a rapist, an unqualified racist egomaniac looking for a fight. Anyone but a Democrat. They have been brain-washed and can no longer think for themselves. They are told that any negative result is the fault of the other side, even when this is impossible. But they believe it.

I do wonder though, how many is 'many American people' in actuality? Are there really that many of them? 

Yes, I realize there are enough of them to do damage. But surely, they are a minority? Right? 

[GrumpyGran]

11 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I do wonder though, how many is 'many American people' in actuality? Are there really that many of them? 

Yes, I realize there are enough of them to do damage. But surely, they are a minority? Right? 

Oh, yes, they are, but our electoral system takes care of that. The SCOTUS is suppose to be addressing the issue of district gerrymandering, we'll see how that works out. Hold out hope that Roberts will make the right choice.

[milkteeth]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I do wonder though, how many is 'many American people' in actuality? Are there really that many of them? 

Yes, I realize there are enough of them to do damage. But surely, they are a minority? Right? 

 

Yes they are definitely a minority since most people in America don't vote. However, thanks to both gerrymandering and the fact that the GOP is smart enough to play to their base while campaigning that doesn't matter at all. It also helps immensely that the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at almost every opportunity.

[GreyhoundFan]

13 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Is this fixable? If this monster of a bill passes(and I think it will), can we undo this if we get people with compassion and morals in office? Or are we just screwed for years? 

We are screwed for years, possibly decades.

[fraurosena]

Never mind. I wrote something that belongs in another thread. 

[formergothardite]

9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

We are screwed for years, possibly decades.

This is terrifying. I don't really understand the tax law stuff, but what is it that makes this so it can't be quickly undone when normal humans with souls get elected? 

[fraurosena]

38 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

This is terrifying. I don't really understand the tax law stuff, but what is it that makes this so it can't be quickly undone when normal humans with souls get elected? 

I can't imagine why any new tax law can't be changed once these corrupt Repugliklans and the traitorous administration have been ousted. I don't think it would be any more difficult than passing a new tax law undoing all the atrocities in the one they want to pass now. Because we shouldn't forget is that even though a tax bill proposal has been approved in the Senate, and a tax bill proposal has been approved in the House, they are two different proposals and an amalgamation of the two needs to be made that carries the consensus of both Senate and House before it can be signed into law. Tax law has not been changed as of yet. Things can still go awry. 

[Toothfairy]

This is what happens when we have idiotgreedy people running our country. At this point there will be no middle class. Poor people will stay poor and the rich will stay rich. This is a disgrace. 

If Medicare and SS are “entitlements” I’d like a full refund because I did not choose to pay into them.

[Cartmann99]

Okay Chuck, I solemnly swear to quit spending my days getting liquored up, chasing women, and going to the movies. 

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, formergothardite said:

This is terrifying. I don't really understand the tax law stuff, but what is it that makes this so it can't be quickly undone when normal humans with souls get elected? 

Because even if the Dems take control of both houses of congress in 2018, they won't have a supermajority. As has been obvious over the last several years, it's hard to get major legislation passed if there isn't a supermajority. Also, a Repug, be it Dumpy or Pencey, will be in the WH until at least 2020, so unless the Dems have enough of a majority to override a veto, there will be no major changes. Gerrymandering ensures that it will be exceedingly difficult to gain a supermajority.

Long-term, because wealthy people were the main beneficiaries of this atrocity, they will work to payoff any/all member of congress to ensure they don't lose the benefits they are gaining. Same goes for major corporations.

Frankly, in my mind, the best hope is to do what the Repugs did: play the long game, starting at the local level and working up. That may take until after the 2030 census or the 2032 presidential and congressional election to come to full fruition. The Repugs started with this approach in the 1990s and it came to full effect this year.

 

Edited to add: remember that we are still paying for the Repug tax cuts from the W years.

[AmazonGrace]

14 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Okay Chuck, I solemnly swear to quit spending my days getting liquored up, chasing women, and going to the movies. 

So Chuck Grassley thinks "people" are the same as "men" and "women" are basically hookers?  Something you buy?

 

[Howl]

 

Chuck Grassley: “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies."

Coded language much, Chuck? Because we know that all white people are thrifty, save money, and work hard, unlike, say, shiftless minorities who drink and watch Netflix all day. 

Of course, we don't have to worry about the estates of middle class people because there won't be anything left over after paying off college loans, and by then they are ready for medical bankruptcy from cancer, Alzheimers, Parkinson's, Type II diabetes, you name it.

Of course, he's not recognizing that heirs get something for nothing and often do spend every last penny of their inheritance on booze, women, movies and really bad investments.  This estate tax is a big gift-wrapped present for Trump, Jar-vanka, Jr., Eric, oh, and Tiffany, if Trump remembered to put her in the will. 

[AnywhereButHere]

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 9:53 AM, fraurosena said:

...

I can see only one silver lining. It's a tenuous one, but still. All the rot in American politics is being laid bare. Seeing that, acknowledging that, gives you the opportunity to tackle the problems and build a new system from the foundations up. It's a chance I hope will be picked up when the time comes and the repugs topple. I hope that it won't simply be a covering up of the rot with some slight changes, but that the rot is mercilessly carved out, and the wound cauterized to prevent further gangrene setting in. It's time for a complete overhaul of your political system and for America to drag itself into the 21st century, instead of clinging to rules and laws from a Constitution that was written out centuries ago and hasn't been updated to fit modern times. Your founding fathers were innovators in their time, but that doesn't mean that what they thought up and fitted perfectly for them then is flawlessly applicable to the current times.

So please, grab that chance. Vote wisely. Become candidates yourselves, if possible. Make sure that change happens.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything other than superficial change from either party. We are so thoroughly wedded to the idea that our system is the best and needs no change. Either that, or the thought of change breeds thought that our system isn't perfect, and I think too many people can't handle that. Innovators make waves and draw vocal support, but that fear weighs out in the ballot box. I'm not explaining myself very well, I know. I'd really like to blame lack of coffee, but considering I'm two cups into my day...

There are many things right about our country and government. We don't need to toss it all, but it does need updating for sure. It is sad that  our Founding Fathers considered the Constitution a living, breathing document, but we've gone and suffocated it.

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo did a great analysis of Grassley's dumbass comments: "Why aren’t you paying the estate tax? Maybe because you bought 311,000 bottles of whisky."

Spoiler

There have been a number of exotic rationales introduced in defense of the Republican tax bill that passed the Senate in the early hours of Saturday. None, however, sparked quite the same reaction as one introduced by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Talking to the Des Moines Register, Grassley argued fervently for a repeal of the estate tax, a tax that applies to a small percentage of high-value estates each year.

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley told the newspaper, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

The argument, then: If, instead of blowing your money on booze and “women,” you were to invest it, you too could have an estate large enough to qualify.

How much are we talking about? Well, in 2017, the estate tax applies only to estates worth $5.49 million or more. In the interest of providing life advice to our readers, we decided to figure out just how much you’d need to cut back on your booze and moving pictures to save enough to qualify for that tax.

Booze

The most popular liquor in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register, is Black Velvet Canadian whisky. (Note: The Post spells the name of the drink as “whiskey” unless it’s Canadian or Scotch.)

Local grocery giant Hy-Vee doesn’t list prices for the drink on its website, so we called a Des Moines-area Walmart. There, a 1.75-liter bottle costs $17.67. So we can do the math.

For an Iowan to save enough to qualify for the estate tax simply by cutting out her favorite liquor, she would simply need to buy 310,697 fewer bottles of it. If she usually goes through a bottle a day — an unhealthy habit, to be sure — she simply needs to stop doing so for 851 years to save the $5.5 million or so.

Or, if she is perhaps instead the generous type, she should cut down on giving out free shots to other people. How many shots? 310,697 bottles of Black Velvet generate about 12.3 million shots — enough to provide about four shots for every resident of the state.

Sorry, Iowans, you’ll have to buy four shots of whisky (or whiskey) out of your own pocket. This lady over here is trying to build an estate.

Women

Some people have questioned what, exactly, Grassley means by spending money on “women.” I saw one person on social media mention “escorts,” which I’m a bit confused by. If you wanted to, though, you could save for your estate by deciding against buying 2,501 used Ford Escorts near Des Moines — not to mention what you’d save on parking.

Let’s instead assume that Grassley meant that you should cut down on taking women on dates. (At no point in time did I describe my courtship of my wife as “spending money on women,” but who am I to judge?) We found a list of 25 date ideas in Des Moines, including a night at a restaurant called Django, which appears not to be a theme restaurant related to the Quentin Tarantino movie.

At Django, figure you would spend about $66 on two entrees, an appetizer and a couple of drinks, plus tax and tip. To instead have enough money in the bank to qualify for the estate tax, you’d simply need to go to Django 83,182 fewer times. If you usually go every weekend evening, just stop going for the next 800 years. Put that money in the bank, and then you, too, can pay the estate tax, assuming it doesn’t change between now and the year 2817.

(Don’t worry; we’re getting to the “investment” thing. One more cost savings to suss out, though.)

Movies

Let’s say that instead of saving for your estate, you want to see a movie. Let’s say that, in particular, you want to see “Justice League,” the 24th of 38 movies about comic books released in 2017.

If you live in Des Moines, you can see an evening showing at the AMC Classic Southridge 12 for $10.48. To have $5.5 million by the time you die, you’ll just need to avoid repeat viewings. About 523,855 repeat viewings, to be exact.

“Justice League” is just shy of two hours long, meaning you’ll have to forgo watching the film in theaters for 115 straight years. Or, if you are the generous type, just change your plans to buy out a 300-seat theater for the next 140 days, 10 hours and 8 minutes continuously. Sure, it would be fun to treat 299 other people to a comic-book movie with a 41 percent Rotten Tomatoes score for every minute between now and 9:03 p.m. April 23, but this is your future we’re talking about.

What about investment?

Grassley’s point, though, was that this money would be better used on investments, not that you could simply stop buying Ford Escorts and suddenly be rich enough to qualify.

So let’s say that you are a 30-year-old woman of average height and weight who drinks a bit (Black Velvet, in particular). Actuarial tables estimate that you’ll live another 51 years. One estimate for return on investment over the next few decades is 7 percent annually, assuming investments in large-company stocks. There’s no certainty of that, of course, but let’s use it for our example.

To have $5.49 million by 2068, the year the woman in our example sadly leaves us, she would need to invest about $174,500 in the stock market right now.

Meaning, in other words, that she needs to buy 9,875 fewer bottles of Black Velvet, or 2,644 fewer dinners at Django, or 16,651 fewer showings of “Justice League” or 79 fewer used Ford Escorts. Then, she has the $174,500 she needs to invest, sees annual 7 percent growth and qualifies for the estate tax at the end of her life.

Unless, of course, the estate tax limit goes up.

Update: The senator replies by email.

“My point regarding the estate tax, which has been taken out of context, is that the government shouldn’t seize the fruits of someone’s lifetime of labor after they die. The question is one of basic fairness, and working to create a tax code that doesn’t penalize frugality, saving and investment. That’s as true for family farmers who have to break up their operations to pay the IRS following the death of a loved one as it is for parents saving for their children’s college education or working families investing and saving for their retirement.”

Oh yeah, he wanted to blow away the estate tax for "family farmers". Everyone who believes that, please stand on your head.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Two ugly quotes from Republicans reveal the truth about their tax plan"

Spoiler

With Republicans well on their way to passing a dramatic overhaul of the tax code, they have presented to the public a sweeping, comprehensive vision not just of what taxes should look like, but also of what government is there for, what our obligations are to one another and even how each of us should think about our value as human beings. This is a moment of uncommon clarity.

We’ll get to how the tax bill itself fits into that picture, but first I want to present a couple of things influential Republican senators said in the past few days. Let’s start with Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, who made this comment on the estate tax:

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

Right now, the first $5.5 million of any estate is not subject to the tax. Because of that, fewer than one in 500 estates owes any tax at all. So Grassley is saying that 99.8 percent of Americans lead contemptible lives of waste and folly, while only that remaining sliver of the extra-wealthy have shown the virtue that should win their heirs the ability not to pay taxes on the fortunes bequeathed to them. The Senate bill would double the tax’s exemption, while the House bill would eliminate the tax entirely; depending on how the final version turns out, Eric Trump may finally be free of the fear that he’ll have to pay taxes on his inheritance.

Now let’s turn to Utah’s Orrin Hatch, who explained why, despite his support of a bill offering trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, we absolutely must start slashing the social safety net immediately:

“I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything.”

Grassley and Hatch are being criticized for these remarks, but we should appreciate that this isn’t one of those occasions when politicians are just spinning. There isn’t much political advantage in saying that if you die with less than $5.5 million in assets, like nearly all Americans do, that means you were lazy and self-indulgent, while only the wealthy have proved their moral worth by the size of their bank accounts. So when someone says something like that, you can be pretty sure he’s expressing his actual beliefs.

And that idea is woven through the Republicans’ tax bill. As Jared Bernstein points out, “The tax plan is written in such a way as to favor asset-based incomes, passive business investments and inherited wealth, and to penalize, once it’s fully phased in, those foolish enough to depend on their paychecks.”

Republicans would no doubt counter that any time you reduce taxes, you increase the incentives for work. But it’s important to remember that if you’re a regular wage-earning American, this bill is as likely to increase your taxes as decrease them. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ official scorekeeper on tax issues, every income group under $75,000 a year will on average see a tax increase by 2027. And while many of tax cuts that individuals at lower incomes might benefit from phase out over the course of the next decade, the cuts that most help corporations and the wealthy are permanent. All that is why, as Ryan Grim points out, while the bill has a net cost of $1.5 trillion, it actually cuts $6 trillion in some taxes but increases taxes in other ways by $4.5 trillion.

To be fair, the tax code already favors investments over work; Republicans merely want to reinforce and extend that characteristic. While they often lecture about the “dignity of work” when they’re proposing to take away safety net programs that aid those in need, they are doing little or nothing to change the tax code so that it does more to encourage work. Right now, wage income (i.e., money you work for) gets taxed at a higher rate than investment income (i.e., money you make when your money makes you more money). The salutary effects of labor on an individual’s spirit apparently only operate on the grubby lower classes, while the wealthy should be honored and rewarded for their ability to watch their portfolios grow.

Those are value judgments, rooted in how Republicans tend to view the worth of different people. They operate on the presumption that the economic system is fair, and the results of that system provide a measure of different people’s virtue. If you’re rich — even if you got rich by choosing the right parents — they presume that you deserve to be taxed as lightly as possible, while if you’re in need of the kinds of help we offer low-income people, then it reflects a moral failing. If we give you any help at all, it should be as grudging as possible, accompanied by stern lectures and even rituals of humiliation such as drug tests.

Their tax bill, and their upcoming assault on the safety net, will weave these principles more deeply into our laws. And these principles are their real rationale; ignore all the practical claims they make about the explosion of economic growth these tax cuts will supposedly produce, and how the benefits will trickle down to everyone, and how it will all pay for itself. Those arguments are transparently bogus. A recent survey of 38 prominent economists found that only one said the tax bill would significantly increase growth, and all 38 rejected the claim that the tax cut would pay for itself. Every model not constructed by partisan Republicans shows the tax bill producing at best a modest bump in economic activity, but nothing remotely resembling the skyrocketing growth that Republicans predict.

Confronted with this comprehensive debunking of their practical claims, Republicans are undeterred and undaunted. That’s because they’re driven by a moral imperative, one that says that no matter what effect cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations might have on the economy, it’s just the right thing to do. It rewards the virtuous, and you can tell who the virtuous are by how much money they have. If you’re asking why they wrote the bill the way they did, that’s just about all you need to know.

The last paragraph really sums it up.

[GreyhoundFan]

Another good one from Jennifer Rubin: "Republicans keep misrepresenting what they did on the debt"

Spoiler

Republicans will knock a giant hole in the budget with a tax cut of $1.5 trillion, most of which goes to the rich and corporations. Rather than acknowledge their hypocrisy on the debt, they choose to misrepresent the facts.

This was the exchange on ABC’s “This Week” yesterday:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the big questions is how much it’s going to cost. I know you believe the [sic] that this bill will eventually pay for itself. That is at odds with what the Joint Committee — Joint Tax Committee says and other independent analysts. I want to show that right now.

The Joint Tax Committee says this will be about a $1 trillion addition to the deficit, others say it’s even more. Even the conservative Tax Foundation says it will add about $500 billion to the deficit.

I know you believe it’s going to pay for itself, but what evidence do you have to back that up?

MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, let me point out there are a whole lot of economists who think that it will pay for itself. And let me tell you how that is done. The economy would have to grow 0.4 percent over the next 10 years to fill this gap that you’re referring to. That is not a dramatic improvement. We think you’re going to get a lot more growth than that. So, I’m confident this is not only revenue neutral to the government, but actually it’s very likely to be a revenue producer.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be your confidence, but it also may be misplaced. You know, we have seen those independent analyses. We’ve seen the official scorekeeper for the congress, the Joint Committee on Taxation, say it is going to add to it.

So what if you’re wrong?

MCCONNELL: Well, look. I don’t think we are wrong. And even Senator Corker, who ended up in the end being somewhat skeptical, along the lines that you’re talking about, had originally agreed to a budget with a $1.5 trillion deficit over ten years, but he was also convinced that a 4 percent growth rate was pretty darn achievable, particularly when you consider the way we are incentivizing businesses to grow and expand.

And we also, by the way, doing a lot the to keep our jobs from going overseas by making sure the business tax rates are competitive in this global economy. And of course we didn’t leave behind the middle class either. The average taxpaying family is going to get $2,200 tax cut. We double the standard deduction. We increased the child care credit. This is very much oriented toward not only middle class tax relief, but also making sure our jobs are still here, and the jobs are in the United States rather than somewhere else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except as you know, senator, many of those individual tax cuts expire after several years.

MCCONNELL: Well, that will depend on what the congress decides to do six years from now. Many of these tax relief measures, in my judgment, if there still a Republican government, will be extended.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if that happens, then the cost is even higher.

Then there was this over at “Meet the Press”:

CHUCK TODD: Alright, if the debt is unsustainable at $14 trillion, how do you, how did you make yourself comfortable voting for something that’s going to increase the deficit? This tax bill we’re at 20.6 trillion now and the best estimates saying it’s going to even the best estimates of dynamic scoring that we could still find still add half a trillion dollars to the deficit.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: Economic growth produces more revenue and that will help to offset this tax cut and actually lower the debt.

CHUCK TODD: Where’s the evidence? Where, explain to me. Find a, find a study that actually says what you’re claiming.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: Let me–

CHUCK TODD: It doesn’t exist.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: Let me do that. First of all if you take the C.B.O.’s formula and apply it four to four tenths of one percent increase in the GDP generates revenues of a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars. Even the joint committee on taxation has projected that the tax bill would stimulate the economy to produce hundreds of billions of additional revenue. I’ve talked four economists, including the Dean of the Columbia School of Business and former chairs of the councils of economic advisors and they believe that it will have this impact. So I think if we can stimulate the economy, create more jobs that that does generate more revenue.

CHUCK TODD: But why isn’t there a single study? I’m going to show you three studies that we have, sort of a liberal one, a centrist one, and a conservative one right up there. The most conservative one, the most pro-economic growth argument, still adds $516 billion to the deficit over ten years.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: Well, talk to economists like Glenn Hubbard and Larry Lindsey and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who used to be head of the C.B.O. And they will tell you otherwise. So I think you will find that economists just don’t agree on this.

I contacted Hubbard to ask whether he told Collins that the tax cuts pay for themselves. He insisted, “That isn’t what she said and isn’t what I said.” Actually, she said the bill would lower the debt.  He suggested she might have been referring to a letter Hubbard and other economists signed. But that said something else entirely: “Would the proposals raise current and future economic activity and generate federal tax revenue that would reduce the ‘static cost’ of the reforms? This letter explains why we believe that the answer to these questions is ‘yes.'” Hubbard reiterated to me: “I gave her my own growth estimates from the letter. I have not done a revenue estimate of the tax plan.”

Likewise, Douglas Holtz-Eakin told me that “we told her that pro-growth policy mattered, would help people and would offset (but not eliminate) the static budget loss.”

I asked Collins’s office whether the senator misspoke. Her communications director, Annie Clark, replied, “Senator Collins did not mean to state definitively that the tax cut would pay for itself — I can see why you would think that reading the transcript, and, to be clear, she does believe that the cuts could potentially pay for themselves.” To be clear, however, Holtz-Eakin and Hubbard didn’t tell her that — and that was wise, because it’s not in the realm of possibility.

The spokeswoman said that Collins just isn’t giving any “guarantee” about the cuts paying for themselves. Clark continued: “She does believe that growth needs to be our priority, and that tax cuts are an important part of a pro-growth strategy. She believes that growth from these tax cuts has the potential to offset the cost of the cuts — extrapolating the CBO numbers, only .4% of additional growth over the decade would add $1 trillion in revenue.”

Now we’re back to the lack of support for the tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves proposition. This raises the question as to whether Collins and McConnell misunderstand the advice they get, choose to cherry-pick what they are given or simply don’t want to fess up that they’ve abandoned fiscal sanity in search of a political win and to soothe donors. The most generous interpretation is that they are operating with unsupportable optimism that these cuts will do something no other tax cuts have ever done– pay for themselves.

The faux deficit hawks who voted for the bill may have convinced themselves of something that just isn’t so. Now, however, there is no excuse. It’s clear what the economists they rely upon actually believe. Lawmakers should redesign the bill in conference to make it truly tax-neutral — if they still adhere to their anti-debt beliefs. If not, they should have the nerve to admit that they are ladling a ton of new debt on the backs of future generations.

Yeah, sadly, the Repugs don't care. They'll profit and the heck with the deficit. Also, @Curious mentioned (in the Dumpy thread) about wanting to punch something when he tweets "obstructionist Democrats". I want to punch something every time I see McTurtle's smarmy-assed face grinning because he gave his billionaire buddies a major gift. Oh, and he's going to throw millions off their health insurance as a bonus. (there was a picture of him grinning like an idiot at the beginning of the article I just quoted).

[onekidanddone]

"Don't play nice boys, fight.  Just go on outside and fight".  One of things my dad said about Rethuglicans.

House conservatives returned to their old ways this week: Playing havoc with spending legislation

Quote

Since the spring, House Republicans have lived through a relatively calm seven months, a period lacking the drama and infighting that have come to define their majority.

That came to an abrupt end Monday night, when members of the Freedom Caucus tried to grind progress on tax legislation to a halt.

These hard-right conservatives had no quarrel with the tax plan — they almost all voted for it — but they were looking for a hostage to grab and knew that this one would get everyone’s attention.

Their real target is the 2018 spending bill for federal agencies, along with a clutch of other must-pass items that conservatives oppose.

Members of the Freedom Caucus have been down this road before. They believe year-end packages turn into massive Christmas trees littered with colorful add-ons. This week’s rebellion was meant to remind House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s leadership team how little faith the conservative wing has in it to negotiate a good deal.

“If they have a good strategy all the way through, then we can get behind the strategy, but the strategy of ‘trust me’ never works here,” said Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), a co-founder of the caucus.

First they tried to take down a procedural vote to move the tax bill into final negotiations with the Senate. Then they threatened to block a stopgap funding bill that, if not approved by Friday, would lead to a partial government shutdown.

The conservative flank is even threatening to force Congress into session immediately after Christmas to handle the spending provision in the week leading to New Year’s Day.

These lawmakers want to separate the timing between the final version of the tax bill and spending legislation. The first spending vote, on a two-week extension of funding, is supposed to come this week — buying time for larger negotiations on a two-year budget outline that would devote more money to defense and domestic agencies.

To some degree, the Freedom Caucus had been going along with the “trust me” strategy since the spring — ever since its members received the lion’s share of the blame for the failure in late March to repeal the Affordable Care Act, finding themselves on the receiving end of angry tweets from President Trump.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman, returned from the spring recess and struck a deal with GOP moderates that allowed Republicans to narrowly pass their version of the ACA repeal. Soon after, Ryan’s House approved a massive government funding bill with little fanfare.

In the summer, as the Senate failed to pass its repeal of the ACA, the House sped through all 12 of next year’s spending bills. In the fall, with surprising ease, Ryan ran up the score on his version of the tax bill.

Most lawmakers agree that the biggest reason for that run of success is that Trump, not Barack Obama, sits in the Oval Office. Trump’s standing among the most conservative voters remains strong. That makes it harder for rebellious lawmakers to defy Ryan if Trump is supporting a leadership call.

Freedom Caucus members have argued that Trump has tilted the terrain in their favor and made it easier for them to go along with decisions. “It’s good that we have a Republican president. We want to make sure that we help the country see that we’re getting things done, and I think that has a lot to do with it,” Labrador said.

But it was all probably too good to be true.

The most conservative House Republicans have traditionally opposed government funding bills, especially those coming at the end of the year.

Usually that does not matter, because those bills fund enough priorities — such as the Pentagon and other national security agencies, and the Labor and Agriculture departments — that a wide bipartisan majority supports the legislation.

The Ryan plan would involve passing a two-week extension of current funding to extend the deadline to Dec. 22, using the weekend before Christmas to force lawmakers to cut deals so they can go home for the holidays.

But House Democrats are balking at supporting even that “continuing resolution,” or “CR,” as the legislation is known, because they want to pass a bipartisan bill to protect from deportation up to 1 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Without Democratic votes, Ryan will need to produce a majority entirely from his 240-member caucus, meaning he can afford to lose just 23 votes and still approve the stopgap bill.

Enter the Freedom Caucus, with its roughly three-dozen members. Freedom Caucus members know they can hold that bill hostage as they try to impose their will in the bigger negotiations over a two-year spending outline. They fear that if the final tax vote occurs within days of the budget framework, that spending bill could get loaded up with Christmas gifts for lawmakers to lock down their votes on the tax bill.

“If they come at the same time, who knows what else gets added to what I expect is going to be an already bad spending bill? That’s our concern,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a senior Freedom Caucus member.

Leaving a morning huddle, a vast majority of House Republicans were convinced that wrapping up all their business before Christmas was the more prudent course — that returning the week before New Year’s was pointless.

By midday, however, talks were drifting, and no one was sure what the plan was. That’s because the Freedom Caucus was back to its old ways.

“They were testing us a little bit, whether we had the resolve to take things down,” Labrador said, “and now they know that we’re willing to do it if they don’t listen.”

Good to know doing their job and serving the American people is 'pointless'

[milkteeth]

49 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Good to know doing their job and serving the American people is 'pointless'

 

They've all ready done their job. They've passed a bill that will funnel more money into the hands of their wealthy donors and they've looted the remains of American civil society. They know that has always been their job...it's everyone else who believes that our politicians are there to serve the people like a bunch of suckers.

[GreyhoundFan]

A scary, but true, op-ed: "Republicans Are Coming for Your Benefits"

Spoiler

Republicans don’t care about budget deficits, and never did. They only pretend to care about deficits when one of two things is true: a Democrat is in the White House, and deficit rhetoric can be used to block his agenda, or they see an opportunity to slash social programs that help needy Americans, and can invoke deficits as an excuse. All of this has been obvious for years to anyone paying attention.

So it’s not at all surprising that they were willing to enact a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy even though all independent estimates said this would add more than $1 trillion to the national debt. And it was also predictable that they would return to deficit posturing as soon as the deed was done, citing the red ink they themselves produced as a reason to cut social spending.

Yet even the most cynical among us are startled both by how quickly the bait-and-switch is proceeding and by the contempt Republicans are showing for the public’s intelligence.

In fact, the switch began even before the marks swallowed the bait.

During the Senate debate over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Senator Orrin Hatch was challenged over support for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers nine million U.S. children — but whose funding lapsed two months ago, and has not been renewed. Hatch declared his support for the program, but insisted that “the reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore” — just before voting for a trillion-and-a-half-dollar tax cut that will deliver the bulk of its benefits to the richest few percent of the population.

He then went on to say, “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.”

So who, exactly, was he talking about, and which programs are consuming these billions and billions and trillions?

Was he talking about food stamps, most of whose beneficiaries are children, elderly or disabled? (And many of the rest are working hard, just not earning enough to get by.)

Was he talking about the earned-income tax credit, which rewards only those who work?

Was he talking about Medicaid, which again mainly benefits children, the elderly and the disabled, plus people who work hard but whose jobs don’t provide health benefits?

We can go on down the list. The simple fact is that big spending on people who “won’t lift a finger” doesn’t actually happen in America — only in Hatch’s meanspirited imagination.

Now, to be fair, there are some people in America who get lots of money they didn’t lift a finger to earn — namely, inheritors of large estates. Strange to say, however, Republican legislation would give these people much more — indeed, billions and billions of dollars — without requiring any additional effort on their part.

The House version of the big tax cut would eliminate the estate tax entirely; the Senate version would double the level of wealth exempted from the tax, to $22.4 million for a couple. How can this be justified if it’s supposedly hard to find money for children’s health care?

Well, Senator Chuck Grassley explained it all last week: “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

Hmm. Somehow, I don’t think limiting spending on booze, women, and movies (movies?) is going to be sufficient for the median American household — which had an income of $59,000 last year — to end up with a $22 million estate. And if you think of people who really will benefit from eliminating taxes on inheritance — people like, say, Donald Trump Jr. — one is not immediately struck by the notion that this is a reward for their fathers’ abstemious lifestyles.

The important thing to realize, however, is that the hypocrisy and contempt for the public we’ve seen in the past few days is just the beginning.

It has been widely noted that the tax bills enacted by the House and Senate are remarkably unfriendly to the middle class — in fact, the Senate bill, once fully phased in, would actually raise taxes on a majority of middle-class families. But that observation captures only a small part of what is about to happen to ordinary, hard-working Americans.

For budget deficits are going to soar thanks to Republican legislation — probably by even more than the official scorekeepers say, because the legislation creates so many new loopholes. And offsetting those deficits will require going after the true big-ticket programs, namely Medicare and Social Security.

Oh, they’ll find euphemisms to describe what they’re doing, talking solemnly about the need for “entitlement reform” as an act of fiscal responsibility — while their huge budget-busting tax cut for the rich gets shoved down the memory hole. But whatever words they use to cloak the reality of the situation, Republicans have given their donors what they wanted — and now they’re coming for your benefits.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Not that it matters, because we all know none of the Repugs on this list will do anything against Agent Orange:

[47of74]

Iowans are giving Grassley empty bottles of booze

Quote

Non-millionaire Iowans who clearly have wasted too much of their hard-earned money on booze, women and movies descended upon Chuck Grassley’s offices today to deliver empty bottles of alcohol to their esteemed senator.

Actually, it was a protest organized by several progressive groups to express voters’ outrage over Grassley’s recent insulting comments aimed at working people. Iowa Citizen Action Network, the Main Street Alliance of Iowa and Americans for Democratic Action Iowa held rallies outside of the senator’s offices in Des Moines and Waterloo this afternoon. Attendees brought empty bottles of booze to mock Grassley’s quote on what the working class spends money on.

The senator’s comments printed in the Des Moines Register about those who weren’t affected by the estate tax waste all their “pennies” on “booze or women or money” spread like wildfire through the state and national press. Iowa social media churned over the weekend as people became infuriated at Grassley’s implication that the working class couldn’t afford estates worth $5.5 million or more because they were wasteful with their money.

“We’re like millions of Iowans and Americans who just don’t quite have enough pennies to amass a fortune, but we work hard, we love our families, and we are proud to spend some of our pennies on booze and women and movies,” said Sue Dinsdale at the event in Des Moines.

 

[milkteeth]

On 12/3/2017 at 4:14 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Edited to add: remember that we are still paying for the Repug tax cuts from the W years.

Those tax cuts were made permanent under Obama with a democrat controlled House and Senate, so maybe we shouldn't hold our breath thinking that things will go any differently in 2018.