Supercommittee Dems push for stimulus to be part of deficit deal

[WillowTree]

Democrats on the congressional supercommittee this week presented Republicans with a plan to cut the deficit that included billions of dollars in stimulus spending, aides told The Hill.

In a private meeting of the deficit panel Tuesday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, presented a proposal backed by a majority of Democrats on the panel that includes trillions of dollars in tax increases. The revenue would partially cover stimulus spending for the economy, aides said.

More than 50 percent of the deficit reduction in the plan would come from tax increases, one source said.

The plan from Democrats approaches the $3 trillion in deficit reduction that was included in the "grand bargain" that lawmakers debated over the summer.



Supercommittee Dems push for stimulus to be part of deficit deal - The Hill's On The Money













Tax and spend demonRats. there will never be enough taxes to satisfy these assholes. 50% of us pay Federal Taxes and the other 50% pay zero and scream for MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE.

 

[ba1614]

lol, it's shocking that these "aides" leak info about proposed tax increases like obummer and his merry band of idiots are pounding the streets with.

 

[waltky]

Granny says dem politicians is gettin' ready to play kick-the-can-down-the-road again...

Supercommittee struggles to reach deficit-cutting deal
16 Nov.`11 WASHINGTON – With deficit hawks urging them to go big and think long term, a congressional "supercommittee" is struggling toward a minimum agreement that would cut deficits barely a fourth of the $4 trillion in long-term reduction experts say is necessary for long-term government solvency.

The forces holding back a bold agreement get stronger by the day, even though some argue a bigger deal is more politically palatable than a smaller one. With the 2012 presidential campaign starting, is it too late? Americans could know the answer by next Wednesday. That's when six senators and six members of the House of Representatives, appointed after Congress failed to reach a comprehensive deficit-reduction agreement in August, are required to approve a plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion from deficits over the next decade. More than 100 members of the House and 45 senators have signed letters urging the committee to "go big."

Dozens of them attended a news conference Wednesday in which Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., argued that a big deal "says to the world, 'we get it.' "Going bigger is easier politically," Durbin said. ". . . When you start putting enough on the table that both political parties, House and Senate, realize that this is historic, it is worth the political risk, and if we stand together and lock arms together, we can achieve something as a group which no single individual can achieve." But he is not part of a majority, and one is hard to find as another crisis moment approaches. If Congress fails in this latest round of negotiations, the August agreement would force automatic budget cuts beginning in 2013. That is after the next election, which critics said is another case of politicians pushing the problem down the road.

Economists and budget experts say a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction agreement, on top of $1 trillion agreed to in August, may avoid another short-term meltdown and political recrimination that led to a downgrade of the U.S. bond rating, but it won't produce sustainable budgetary conditions. Deficit reduction closer to $4 trillion, however, would signal to financial markets and allies that the United States was serious about avoiding crises that have stricken Greece, Italy and other European nations.

That $4 trillion target was roughly what a presidential commission chaired by former Bill Clinton adviser Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming recommended almost a year ago. Roughly two of three dollars would have come through spending cuts, the rest from higher revenues. But after that bipartisan recommendation, Congress and President Barack Obama returned to political trench warfare, each protecting turf considered essential for their re-election in 2012. With Iowa's caucus-goers about six weeks from making the first mark on the Republican primary field, the impetus to get closer to the $4 trillion target diminishes by the day.

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[waltky]

Defaulting to the next financial disaster...

US deficit ‘super committee’ stalled as deadline looms
Mon, Nov 21, 2011 - Both sides of the US Congress’ deadlocked “super committee” held separate talks on Saturday, but formal negotiations remained stalled, reaffirming gloomy predictions that the deficit-fighting panel might fail.

With a deadline of midnight on Wednesday fast approaching, the panel’s six Republican and six Democratic members were still far apart on how to attain a goal of finding at least US$1.2 trillion in budget savings over the next 10 years. The Republican members held a Saturday morning conference call among themselves, but details about what was said on it were not immediately available, aides said. Having rejected the latest Republican offer, the six Democrats were holding only private conversations this weekend, with no group meetings planned, aides said. In a telling remark, Republican Senator Jon Kyl, a super committee member, asked by reporters on Saturday about the No. 1 point of compromise now, said: “Well, I’m not sure there is one.” At the same time, he said: “Nobody wants to quit until the stroke of midnight.”

The corridors of Congress were largely empty on Saturday. While most super committee members were in Washington, only Kyl was seen by reporters in his Capitol Hill office. In marked contrast to the secrecy that has surrounded much of the committee’s deliberations, six panel members were set to have appeared yesterday morning on television political talk shows. In recent days, both sides have engaged in a blame game, positioning themselves for the fallout that could result from failure.

The super committee was born out of last summer’s bruising debt ceiling battle between Republicans and Democrats, which brought the world’s biggest economy to the brink of default and cost it its “AAA” credit rating from Standard & Poor’s. Given unusual powers to tackle the US government’s budget deficit and debt, which topped US$15 trillion on Friday, the committee was seen by many as the best chance, in the near term, for the US to get control of its deficits. Financial markets, focused on the European debt crisis, have low expectations for the panel. Some analysts are already looking beyond it to the expiration of economic stimulus measures at the end of this year, such as payroll tax cuts, fearing that the end of these could damage the fragile US economic recovery.

Then there are next year’s November elections and a battle over tax cuts from the administration of former US president George W. Bush that were extended through next year. Some analysts said partisan positioning ahead of those fights has undermined the super committee’s efforts. “There’s still a chance of a deal, but nearly the entire Washington community is rooting for failure,” said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist think tank. A stock market rally could well result if the super committee defies the odds with a last-minute deal, but markets were unlikely to swoon if no pact emerges, analysts said. Automatic budget cuts, evenly split between domestic and military spending, are set to kick in in 2013 if the committee fails to reach an agreement. However, Congress could try to rework or undo the legislation mandating the cuts before then.

US deficit ?super committee? stalled as deadline looms - Taipei Times

 

[driveby]

Obama needs a larger slush fund for his re-election bid......

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey like a buncha drunks onna spending spree...

Obama 'Actively' Made Supercommittee's Job 'More Difficult,'
November 22, 2011 - Not only did President Barack Obama refuse to help the supercommittee as it attempted to reach an agreement on reducing the federal budget deficit -- the president complicated things for the committee, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on Tuesday.

"The president actively made our jobs more difficult," Toomey told Fox & Friends. "He issued veto threats. He said...Obamacare had to be off the table, despite the fact that over time, that's a multi-trillion-dollar, extraordinary waste of money -- a very ill-conceived program. He came in and said that we ought to -- in addition to everything else we were working on -- we ought to find a way to pay for his latest $500-billion stimulus bill. The president was not helpful." Toomey was one of 12 lawmakers on the panel that announced Monday it had failed to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction -- a failure that will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts in 2013.

Supercommittee Democrats refused to consider Republican spending cuts unless Republicans agreed to a trillion-dollar tax hike, Toomey said. But Toomey and other Republicans say a trillion-dollar tax hike would have been "devastating" to the economy. "The problem is a spending problem," said Toomey, noting that Democrats -- when they controlled all three branches of government in 2009 and 2010 -- went on a spending binge. Toomey said it's important to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts -- but he said the mandatory cuts, as they are configured now, are way too heavily weighted towards Defense.

"I think you'll see over coming months, we're going to offer proposals that would be alternatives to these cuts," Toomey told Fox & Friends. But President Obama on Monday flatly refused to allow any changes in the automatic spending cuts, which are divided equally between domestic spending and defense spending. "I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending," Obama said. "There will be no easy off ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise -- not turn off the pressure."

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See also:

Conservatives to Washington: End Your ‘Drunken Spending Spree’
November 22, 2011 – Conservative leaders challenged congressional Republicans to continue to hold the line against tax increases and urged them to further cut federal spending. They also congratulated the GOP for opposing Democratic proposals to raise taxes in the failed congressional supercommittee.

“Today we applaud the Republicans on the supercommittee for not caving in to any disastrous taxes,” said ForAmerica Chairman L. Brent Bozell III at a Washington, D.C. news conference on Tuesday. “We applaud grassroots conservatives and the Tea Party members who made it clear to Republicans in Congress that raising taxes is absolutely unacceptable.” Congressional liberals killed any meaningful debt reduction because they were unwilling to admit that spending is the problem. "Only in Washington do we think it's appropriate to solve a spending problem by raising taxes, which does nothing but increase the spending problem," he said.

In addition to his position at ForAmerica, Bozell is the president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com. Bozell said that while Republicans had successfully held the line against tax increases in the supercommittee, they needed to continue to push for real cuts in federal spending. He also hit hard at Republicans for allowing the spending to go up. “[T]he Democrats are not the only ones to blame here. Since Obama took office, he’s added $4 trillion to the national debt and Republicans have done next to nothing to stop this runaway spending train, so it’s their debt too,” said Bozell. “Americans are simply demanding that Washington end its drunken spending spree,” he said.

Bozell further said, “This is certainly not the last time the GOP will be pushed into a corner and pressured to raise taxes. If Republicans ultimately cave to liberal Democrats and support tax increases, the results in 2012 will be devastating. When Republicans campaign and govern as conservatives, distinguishing themselves from liberal Democrats, they always win. But when they campaign as conservatives, then govern as Democrat-light, they alwayslose.” Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, said that the GOP faces a “moment of truth” on taxes, stressing that congressional Republicans must continue to oppose raising taxes on any American and “genuinely” cut spending.

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