Deficit Panel Puts Off Vote on Painful Recommendations Until Friday

[MineralMan]

Source: Politics Daily

No one ever said this wouldn't be semi-tough. The bipartisan deficit commission, rocked by criticism of painful draft recommendations by its leaders, has postponed for two days a vote on its report about how to address the nation's mounting budget problem.

The final report, unveiled Wednesday, calls for raising the age for Social Security benefits, sharp cuts in military spending and changes in tax law that would cost the average taxpayer an extra $1,700 annually, the Washington Post reported.

After working its staff into the wee hours Monday and Tuesday, the president's panel decided to stretch out its Wednesday deadline in an effort to find some consensus among at least 14 of its 18 members, McClatchy newspapers said. "It's all about making tough, difficult choices," said former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the commission.

Read more: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/01/deficit-panel-puts-off-vote-on-painful-recommendations-until-fri/

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There still has been no vote on this. The report has been released, but the vote has not yet been taken. It requires 14 or the 18 members to adopt this report.

[Javaman]

1. Ahhh the good old news dump friday...

Have a great weekend! because your monday will really suck.

[MineralMan]

2. Perhaps. Perhaps the vote will not support the report.

I don't know. I'm thinking they won't get the 14 needed to make this report official and headed for a vote in Congress.

[NorthCarolina]

3. That would be a best case scenario. Unfortunately, I am not that optimistic anymore. nt

[MineralMan]

4. I'm not competent to predict that vote, so I'm waiting to see.

I did email all the members of the Commission recommending a No vote, for all the good that will do. I hope everybody on DU did the same, but I'm hardly confident that very many even bothered. I recommended that action when the original draft appeared.

[Javaman]

5. Could you post the email links? nt

[MineralMan]

6. You can get them from the commission site. I don't

have the list handy, and I'm heading out the door.

[Javaman]

7. Will do. :) nt

[gratuitous]

8. But that's a violation of their announced procedure!

Oh that's right; nobody will give a shit. Just as nobody will give a shit when the report comes out with all kinds of recommendations that didn't get the required 14 votes of the commission members. Nobody will care about the process being observed or not observed, they'll just latch onto the most punitive measures to be taken on the underclass, and grant them a status slightly less holy than those tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai. In other words, they will be Commandments that Must Be Enacted or it will be the Doom of America.

Those measures will include raising the retirement age and cuts in social security benefits. Sure, that will be inconvenient for some of you losers who didn't have the good sense to be investment bankers, but it will be absolutely necessary. The alternative, raising the tax rates on those investment bankers, will be simply too horrible to contemplate.

[Igel]

28. So prosecute them and demand that the penalty for

violating the procedures be applied.

Except there is none. The only "punishment" would be for there to be no obligatory Congressional consideration of the report.

On the other hand, "Congressional consideration" wouldn't necessarily amount to much. It could mean having the report chucked to the appropriate subcommittee of the appropriate committee, where it's put on the agenda to be considered during the next subcommittee meeting held during this Congress; there being no "next meeting," the report would be duly archived during intersession and ignored.

Congress can be fast and nice. Or it can be a black hole from which some minimal information is theoretically likely to escape even though this escape of information has yet to actually be observed.

[gratuitous]

29. Oh, I think the punitive "recommendations" are going to get fast-tracked

Right now, deficit reduction is the Flavor of the Month, and all the Very Serious People are obsessed with it. When the Catfood Commission report hits, there will be an immediate stampede to enact the most punitive, least effective proposals, because it will show that our elected representatives are Very Serious about reducing the deficit. And because none of the proposals will involve any additional burden on the wealthy, all the millionaires in Congress, aided and abetted by the millionaires on teevee and radio, will rush to raise the retirement age, decrease future social security benefits, and permanently enshrine lower taxes for the affluent* all as a means to the Promised Land of Deficit Reduction.

*It will be presented as a "temporary" extension of lower tax rates, but the practical effect will be permanence. Meanwhile, to pay for the privilege of making the rich richer, all us peons can look forward to working a few years longer for lower social security benefits, and told that it's for our own good.

[ProSense]

9. Social Security cuts are part of deficit plan

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Divisions remain within President Barack Obama's deficit commission on politically explosive budget cuts and slashes in Social Security benefits, even as the panel's co-chairmen go public with a revised plan to tame the runaway national debt.

The new plan by co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, unveiled Wednesday, faces an uphill slog. Resistance is certain, not only because of the idea of raising the Social Security retirement age, but also because of proposed cuts to Medicare, curtailment of tax breaks and a doubling of the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline.

Though the plan appears unlikely to win enough bipartisan support from the panel to be approved for a vote in Congress this year or next, Bowles has already declared victory, saying he and Simpson have at least succeeded in initiating an "adult conversation" in the country about the pain it will take to cut the deficit.

The plan faces opposition from many commission members. House Republicans appear uniformly against tax increases, while liberal Democrats like Jan Schakowsky of Illinois appear unlikely to be able to accept big cuts in federal programs for seniors.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_deficit_commission_37

[still_one]

10. seeing the people he put on this commitee is that a surprise? Same bullshit he did with HCR. The

public option was off the table before the talks even started, in fact initially they excluded anyone who was for a public option or single payer

You dug a pretty big hole Obama, and I am not very optimistic

[ProSense]

12. The President appointed

six people to an 18 member commission. They need 14 votes, and as it stands right now, they don't have them.

As for health care reform, that was a good thing, and it's proving more beneficial every day. There can and will undoubtedly be improvements.

[still_one]

20. HCR remains to be seen. I will be paying 150 dollars a month more for healthcare at work for less

coverage than I was this year

God help you if you have a pre-existing condition. You will either have to wait until 2012 or until your state gets their "co ops" together, and hope that it is an affordable price, which from what I have seen in the states that do have it, is not affordable

The worst thing about the HCR is most of the benefits are backloaded, and there is no reason to assume that it will "undoubtedly be improved", especially since repukes control the house, and there are enough Democrats who have run away from it

[Jefferson23]

11. Go to hell bastards, a travesty if this passes with these measures.

And fucking Bowles, he goes on about how the doom of the deficit will lead to our inability to have the capital to fund our
precious military.

In contrast:

Rep. Schakowsky, Debt Commission Member, Introduces Proposal That Doesn't Raise Taxes On Middle Class
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/deficitreduction-panel-me_n_784266.html


Let's see who Obama fights for this time.

[QC]

13. How hopeful! n/t

[jwirr]

14. Not even a hint of raising taxes on the rich? Of course not, we are

set to give them an extension on their taxes. :sarcasm:

[Javaman]

15. Next up: what to do with the problem of seniors poverty...

the coming permanent poverty class. This was all the rage prior to SS being created. Seems as if this is the new plan for Americans.

No unemployment insurance, no more SS, Medicaid and medicare will be next.

What will happen to that money, our money, that was invested into these programs? Why, it will go to the military to create jobs, silly!

fascism with a happy face. Well, not all that happy. Grinning with dead cold eyes.

[displacedvermoter]

30. 100-year olds working at Wal Mart

That is what to do!

[mbperrin]

16. Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. Hell, the SURPLUS

in Social Security is several TRILLIONS that have been borrowed to meet the deficits!

Now, in the next 25 years or so, some of that will have to be paid back, so they are trying to get out of that by convincing me it doesn't exist.

FIND OUT why it's the third rail of politics, fuckers.

[NorthCarolina]

17. Cuts to Social Security have likely been they primary goal of the commission from the start. nt

[Fearless]

18. Social Security MADE the Democratic Party of the 20th Century...

And cuts will KILL the Democratic Party of the 21st Century.

[Historic NY]

19. JUST take off the salary cap.....already,

[elleng]

23. ...

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[hedgehog]

24. I'm with you !

[CLANG]

25. Fuuny how that seems to be "off the table".

[NorthCarolina]

26. Funny how the most logical solution to a problem that doesn't exist gets little,

if any, media coverage. Aside from KO or Maddow, how often do you ever hear the pundits mention raising the cap?

[PSPS]

21. "appear unlikely to be able to accept big cuts in federal programs for seniors"

The plan faces opposition from many commission members. House Republicans appear uniformly against tax increases, while liberal Democrats like Jan Schakowsky of Illinois appear unlikely to be able to accept big cuts in federal programs for seniors.

More of the weasel words from democrats. Obama against "permanent" tax cuts for the rich. Democrats against "big" cuts in federal programs for seniors.

[elleng]

22. Won't pass, and Schakowsky's plan will gain a vehicle for discussion,

THAT is the good part.

[No Elephants]

27. Meow, meow, meow, meow. Friday, meow..