Senate Democrats Work on Own Debt Plan (updated)

[chill_wind]

Source: Roll Call

Senate Democrats Work on Own Debt Plan

By Meredith Shiner
Roll Call Staff
July 24, 2011, 7:43 p.m.

Updated: 10:55 p.m.

With just more than a week left to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, Senate Democrats prepared Sunday to release their own debt plan that would include $2.7 trillion in savings with no added revenues, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

The move from Democrats to offer their own plan, as opposed to waiting for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to send them a package of his choosing, follows a Saturday night meeting where Reid “offered a range of possibilities” for raising the debt ceiling in two steps — an approach favored by Boehner — only to be rebuffed by the Speaker, according to Democratic sources.

The news of a separate track, and the potential for dueling bills in the week leading to the Treasury’s Aug. 2 default deadline, came mere hours before an Oval Office meeting among Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Barack Obama. The president received an update on the negotiations, and the three reaffirmed their opposition to a short-term debt limit increase, according to a White House official. A Hill Democratic source seconded the leaders’ opposition to a short-term deal while adding that the pursuit of Reid’s $2.7 trillion plan “looks likely.”

Reid confirmed Sunday night that he was working on a plan, details of which had leaked out earlier in the day. In a nod to Republicans, the measure would equal the size of a debt limit increase through the end of 2012 and would not include revenues, Reid said in a statement, while top aides said it would make minimal changes to entitlement programs.



http://www.rollcall.com/news/senate_democrats_work_on_own_plan-207625-1.html

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/news/senate_democrats_work_on_own_plan-207625-1.html

---

See the rest. Senate aide goes on to say a commission could still be part of it, if that's what it will take to get the GOP on board.

TPM article from a little earlier tonight said the Reid plan was essentially the plan outlined by Nancy Pelosi a couple days ago:

Pelosi Outlines Revenue-Free Path Forward On Debt Limit Fight
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/pelosi-outlines-revenue-free-path-forward-on-debt-limit-fight.php

[ProDem4]

1. Sound's Exactly Like The R's Plan

WTF No Revenue The Compromise must have been Let Harry put his name on the plan,

[chill_wind]

3. Pretty much. And we still haven't ferreted out what constitutes

"minimal cuts in entitlements." Don't know about Reid's plan, but this from the Pelosi plan still doesn't spell it out. From the TPM article on the Pelosi outline (link in OP.)Italics NOT mine:

Pelosi reiterated her insistence that Democrats will oppose cuts to entitlement benefits as a tool of deficit reduction. And she established a rule of thumb for how much help Boehner can expect from her party.

"As far as the number is concerned, the bigger the cuts the fewer the Democrats," she said.

But this again leaves open the question of what individual Democrats count as a benefit cut, and how well they'd take to the idea of a plan that didn't include agreed upon revenue increases, or guaranteed revenues in the future.

Yeah, Barney Frank goes on in the article to say what his own position is on various cuts (SS COLA, means testing etc) but Pelosi has said more than once not all her colleagues necessarily view the Chained CPI change as a "benefit cut", but rather, a "technical adjustment", so I don't know if any of this tells us where we are with that particular thing, still.

Just have to believe, in the face of all else at this point, that really will be off the table.

[Fearless]

5. "Technical adjustment" my ass. I guess the Berlin wall was just a "mild inconvienance" or something

[neoralme]

8. Fearless?

[Fearless]

9. Yes?

[neoralme]

13. No.

[chill_wind]

11. Old as the hills. Both parties tried to call it that in 1995. WH liked it, too.

Kennedy's Quick Win for Social Security

By Dean Baker - August 26, 2009, 12:10PM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=612538&mesg_id=612634

[Fearless]

41. +1

[JDPriestly]

15. Barney Frank's proposal is good.

If a person is receiving Social Security and has an income of $100,000 a year, the Social Security benefit should be taxed at 95%.

Excellent way to "reduce" the benefits without eliminating a person's right to the benefits should the person become impoverished or lose a great deal of income -- something that can happen to anyone.

The government is still breaking a promise that it made to retirees way back when they were kids in their first jobs. But it won't hurt the poor quite so much.

[neoralme]

19. Horseshit. The money was collected from paychecks. It cannot

be denied. 95%? Are you a Republican?

[JDPriestly]

23. No. I don't like this either, but it is better than cutting Social Security

for the poor. I don't think it will fly though because it would be a tax hike.

[Fearless]

42. Don't tax the SS tax the income.

[bornskeptic]

26. Did he not mean 95% of it should be taxable?

That would be reasonable. Currently up to 85% is axable, which means that a person in the 35% bracket pays 35%*85%=29.75% of benefits in taxes. If 95% was taxable, that person would pay 35%*95%=33.25% in taxes.

[Proletariatprincess]

2. wish we had a two party system...at least.

[PSPS]

4. "With just more than a week left to raise the nation's debt ceiling..."

That first line says it all. Another manufactured "crisis" to hurry through a bill, only this time it will be to "IMF" the US with the acquiescence of both parties as well as president milquetoast, who apparently wants this to happen because he feels it will help him politically.

Here's an interesting read:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/taibbi-obamas-not-pretending-he-doesn

[Fearless]

7. +1

[chill_wind]

10. And what's interesting, is that even if you went along with

drop-dead dates, the Treasury checked the sofa cushions unexpectedly and may have found themselves an extra week-

Greater-than-expected tax receipts might give the U.S. Treasury an extra week -- until Aug. 10 -- before exhausting its borrowing authority, analysts with New York-based Barclays Capital said yesterday. The government has collected about $14 billion more in tax revenue since July 14 “than we were expecting,” the analysts wrote.

That was in Bloomberg yesterday. And Huffpo had something on it, too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/debt-ceiling-august-10_n_907480.html

The August 2 deadline has never been set in stone. When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced in May that the federal debt limit had been reached, he said that the government could use "extraordinary measures" to extend borrowing authority until August 2 -- and that this date could change “based on government receipts and other factors.”

And as the Financial Times pointed out earlier this month, researchers at Nomura have already predicted that the Treasury won’t run out of funds until August 9.

I doubt Wall street driven MSM/Cable has been very anxious to point that out in the last day or two, though.

Thanks for the CrooksandLiars link.

:hi:

[JDPriestly]

17. The IMF. Do you know where Geithner worked before he went to

the NY Fed? The IMF, that's where.

And, in case you haven't read one my posts on this before, guess who was in charge of the committee that picked Geithner up from the IMF and put him in charge of the NY Fed just in time to let the banks fail under Geithner's watch? Pete Peterson who is a big financier of the anti-Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid effort.

So, Obama's appointment of Geithner was pregnant with a meaning that I for one totally missed.

[No Elephants]

28. Kissinger's protegee and a registered Republican, Timmeh was, when Obama approached him for Treasury

And head of the NY Fed during the time brokesters and banksters were crippling the global economy.

That was all I needed to know, but thanks for the IMF/Peterson nugget.

[kimsarah]

6. Tax holiday?

I may have missed this, but does anyone know if our scummy leaders are planning to include a corporate tax holiday into the debt ceiling agreement?
What I read from Matt Taibi at Rolling Stone scares me, if that is part of the little-known plan: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/holiday-in-scambodia-20110720

[freshwest]

12. How close can they get to this one, which is the solution to it all...

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70

Without repukes in their group, it should work. We have technically have a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Dem POTUS. Can half of one branch of the government push the nation over the brink without any recourse?

Of course there will be NO media coverage of this common sense budget on that link...

[chill_wind]

14. That was strangled in its crib early on, sadly

with help from our own.

Progressive Caucus "Peoples Budget" Voted Down. 108 Democrats in House vote against it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=899976&mesg_id=899976

[freshwest]

16. Mine's not on the No list. But we always get outvoted on everything.

[chill_wind]

18. I could weep

every time I look at the cross-section of endorsements at the bottom of the website's page.

[chill_wind]

20. Meanwhile, Warner is still pushing the Go6 Plan

Warner calls for vote on Gang of Six plan
By Alicia M. Cohn - 07/24/11 03:51 PM ET

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) led members of the bipartisan “Gang of Six” group of senators Sunday in recommending their deficit reduction plan as a “way out” of the deadlocked debt-ceiling negotiations.

Warner recommended a bipartisan push to vote on his group’s “relatively meager” deficit-reduction package, which drew broad bipartisan support upon its release July 18. “Let's have a vote on our plan,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We're still the only bipartisan effort in this town,” Warner said of the Gang of Six, which recently reunited to release the plan. The group’s plan would slash defense spending and raise nearly $1 trillion in revenues by ending a variety of tax breaks, adding up to savings of $9 trillion over the next decade.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/173157-warner-calls-for-vote-on-gang-of-six-plan

[libmom74]

21. All cuts and no increases in revenues?

With "Democrats" like these who needs Republicans?

[emulatorloo]

22. Per NYT, Reid's plan does not touch entitlements. (no cuts)

At least that is how I am reading it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4934444&mesg_id=4934444

Nyt article in that thread:

"Mr. Reid, the Senate’s top Democrat, was trying on Sunday to cobble together a plan to raise the government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion through the 2012 elections, with spending cuts of about $2.7 trillion that would not touch any of the entitlement programs that are dear to Democrats or raise taxes, which is anathema to Republicans. . ."

[chill_wind]

44. Thank you emulatorloo. I guess I would like them to say in outright

explicit terms "no cuts" means no ambiguously described "technical adjustments", either.
(ie SS Chained CPI cola cuts). I hope Reid and Pelosi get pressed very specifically on that, and I really truly hope that's the case.

[jerseyjack]

24. Where is the shared sacrifice from the rich?

[chelsea0011]

25. No added revenues?????????????????? Huh?

[fascisthunter]

27. you fucking bastards! You pay our SS surplus back!!!!!

[No Elephants]

29. A Democratic proposal with NO REVENUES. Way to give away the store before

the kleptomaniacs even arrive there.

[chill_wind]

30. This one is FULL of win!

for GOPhers. :-(

[elleng]

31. Rival Debt Plans Being Assembled by Party Leaders.

Source: nyt

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, were preparing separate backup plans to raise the nation’s debt ceiling on Sunday after they and the White House were unable to form a bipartisan plan that would end an increasingly grim standoff over the federal budget. . .

Mr. Reid, the Senate’s top Democrat, was trying on Sunday to cobble together a plan to raise the government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion through the 2012 elections, with spending cuts of about $2.7 trillion that would not touch any of the entitlement programs that are dear to Democrats or raise taxes, which is anathema to Republicans. . .

At the White House on Sunday evening, Mr. Obama spent about an hour meeting in the Oval Office to try to hash out details of the Democratic proposal with Mr. Reid and the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi. . .

Mr. Obama and the Democratic leaders had resolved to hold firm against any short-term agreement that did not raise the debt ceiling beyond next year’s presidential elections.






Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/politics/25debt.html?_r=1&hp

[Iliyah]

32. NO TOUCH SSI, Medicare, Meciard

and the rich don't share sacrifices, still in the same situations - huh

[Hardrada]

33. It is rather comical seeing Obama try to give away the New Deal social programs

and the blind and befuddled Tea Party congresspeople refusing to take them!

[No Elephants]

38. The guy who tried to associate himself with FDR, JFK and Lincoln.

Sometimes, I love irony. Sometimes, I don't.

[Fearless]

34. Any politican who votes to cut any social programs loses my vote, time, and money.

[neoralme]

35. Not remotely comical. It is the biggest act of

Party traitorism in history, and it was planned to a T.

[elleng]

36. ...

:thumbsdown:

[neoralme]

37. Yeah, right....Maybe he'll run a bunch

of bulldozers into some SNF's. That would be cool.

[No Elephants]

39. Sadly, you're probably correct.

[neoralme]

40. It's ovah. And it's not coming back.

[exelwood]

43. Maybe it's time to rethink Social Security..

SS is comforting but it's also limiting. Most of us on this board will receive amounts based on what we put in. In my case, it ain't much. What if SS was reformatted to pay out what you have paid in plus 10% or so and after the money runs out there is a new program, Old Age Assistance or something, that looks at senior care in a new way.

What if OAA was a "whole care" system, cash, housing, health, everything if you need it. If you are living in a 500K house with company retirement, income investment then losing the SS payment is not going to affect your lifestyle. You have gotten everything you have paid in plus a nice interest so no complaints there. There are millions of people in this category, all collecting SS until they die.

You either go on OAA or you don't. If you are self sufficient you cannot go on OAA, Medicare will protect those people from catastrophic illness but they will pay a reasonable amount for this insurance.

What this does is target income to those who need it but reduces overall costs by eliminating benefits for those who don't.

Just thinking folks, don't rip my head off.