It doesn’t look like Alan Simpson had much luck in killing the cow with 300 million teats.
Here is the most important fact about the proposal released by the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: It is not the commission’s report. And here is the second most important fact to remember: The commission itself does not have any actual power. So what we’re looking at is a discussion draft of a proposal to balance the budget authored by two people who don’t have a vote in either the House or the Senate. In a town thick with proposals for balancing the budget but thin on votes for actually passing such proposals, it’s not clear what the purpose of this one is.
Sue
‘it’s not clear what the purpose of this one is’
It was proposed and implemented by Obama, and will therefore be used to hammer him, from all sides and for every possible reason.
That may not have been the original purpose, mind you.
Linda Featheringill
And I have been looking for the phone number to order my cat food. Hmmph!
So when does the real report of the commission come out?
General Stuck
simple. For Simpson to show us his and the wingnuts he represents ass. At least on SS, Alan was smart enough not to swallow that bait on SS, proposing changes when about everyone living won’t be.
Plus events have made the entire catfood comm. enterprise moot. Wingnuts now have formed their own commission. It’s called the House of Representatives.
freelancer
Jaysus, what an exercise in tautalogical DC masturbation.
The result of the commission’s final report will be that the resulting report will be the final one.
Culture of Truth
So what you’re saying is, we should definitely freak out.
BGinCHI
Five bucks says there’s no consensus and they are pushing this out front to try to coerce the other members of the commission.
Weak sauce. Anyone know what these chumps get paid to do this?
Suck It Up!
I have been saying this since the panel was dubbed the catfood commission and someone always comes back with the SS panel that Reagan put together. I still stand with Ezra.
Maude
If it shuts up Repubs for even 2 days, it’s worth it.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
You mean the Professional-Left has been throwing a big hissy fit since April for no reason at all?!?
I’m Shocked! I’m Shocked!
Ash Can
OK, I was afraid to click on this post when I saw the title.
::isn’t eight but remembers when she was::
Suck It Up!
@Sue:
how is this different from any other day?
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
Since Simpson and Bowles decided to jump the gun and release their draft before the rest of the committee even reviewed it, I’m guessing the final report will be coming out somewhere around the 10th of never.
ETA: If you like fish, I would recommend ordering the Soulistic cat food from Petco for yourself. Reasonably priced with no additives. :-)
BGinCHI
Scenario: the House passes huge SS and Medicare cuts, which also pass the Senate.
Old and almost-old people freak the fuck out.
Only Obama’s veto can save them.
He vetoes and the old people still all vote for Palin in 2012.
Suck It Up!
@Linda Featheringill:
2-3 weeks.
Suck It Up!
@BGinCHI:
coerce them to do what? its not getting positive reviews so if their intent was to force other members to jump on board then its a FAIL.
Suck It Up!
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted):
Ezra’s post won’t stop them. Its already at full scale at the usual sites.
Culture of Truth
The commission deadlocked a while ago.
Rivlin-Domenici comes out next Wednesday.
DougJ
@Suck It Up!:
I regard Sully’s embrace of it as a bad sign for its future.
freelancer
And of course it decimates SS so Sully is squeeing about it this very minute.
Nothing says populist like shredding programs Americans now consider to be their birthright. I think I’m gonna puke.
Come get me when he’s done gratifying himself to furry porn and internet memes.
Zifnab
See, everyone railed on Obama for forming this commission. And they shouted and screamed about how it was clear he was selling out Social Security. But I’m just not seeing it.
Obama got some of his biggest critics and put them in a room together and told them to pound sand. And they did just that. The Republicans have their ideas and the Democrats have their ideas and this commission isn’t a member of either party, last I checked, so their opinions don’t count.
This will just be something for both parties to wave in the air while they scream at each other on the House floor.
General Stuck
Nancy the Great planted a liberal grenade in the works of this commission a long time ago with a few hard lefties from her picks. This was nothing more than a show me yours, and I’ll show you mine misadventure.
PS – wonder if Jane is drowning her sorrows in a bottle of Evian for the big let down? Somebody should check on her.
drkrick
@DougJ: Anything that distracts him from Sarah Palin natal narratives is OK in my book.
BGinCHI
@Suck It Up!: I assumed that with Simpson at the helm it was already a fail. My guess is this is his genius attempt to get them in line.
Is Bowles any better? He’s a Dem but that’s about all he has going for him. Election loser and financial guy.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Culture of Truth:
How can that be, I was told repeatedly Blue-Dog-Muslim Obama had stacked the commission with Blue-Dogs because Obama is a secret republican sent back in time by Wall Street to kill Sarah Connor and Franklin Roosevelt.
Linda Featheringill
@Mnemosyne:
It probably has taurine in it and therefore tastes horrible. [I taste everything. Drove my mother wild. Drives my daughter nuts.:-)]
Culture of Truth
Oh yeah cutting taxes for the rich and corporations is “populist” and focuses on the “truly needy.”
Ash Can
Maybe they did it to try to get the new legislature to tip its hand — throw together something that includes cuts to just about everything, and see who applauds and who flips out, and about what.
fourlegsgood
@Culture of Truth: We should all run down the street screaming, “Die TORY DIE!!”
BGinCHI
Sully is lucky he went to Uni when it was still nearly gratis.
Anyone know his reaction to Cameron’s proposed education cuts?
Chyron HR
Hey now, they published several manifestos in children’s book form.
Suck It Up!
@General Stuck:
let down? no. she’ll just cherry pick certain parts to prove she was right all along.
fourlegsgood
Oh, Sully loves it does he? He also seems to like the idea of taxing us all and then just giving the benefits to POOR PEOPLE!!
Good heavens. That sounds suspiciously like income redistribution to me… or maybe, SOCIALISM!!!! EEEEEKK!!
Tim I
This commission was always a bit of a farce. I think appointing Simpson was a fabulous idea. He managed to propose a plan that will really piss off everyone in America who earns less than seven figures.
Raise the retirement age.
Reduce SS benefits over time.
Cut back on veterans benefits.
End the mortgage deduction.
Slash farm support programs.
I guess Erskine Bowles wouldn’t go along with privatizing Medicare.
If Obama and the Dems can just say “Hell No” they might regain their majority in 2012.
Culture of Truth
Rivlin bolted and created a shadow dogfood commission with Pete D.
It will go after Medicare and suggest increasing the SS retirement age to 62.
Dexter
Apparently, the commission report can only be approved if 14 members (out of 18) votes for it.Do we have 5 reliable lefties in that commission?
BGinCHI
TPM reporting that they released it to “get ahead of leaks and start spinning it” (paraphrase).
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/debt-commission-chairmen-seek-to-head-off-leaks-put-positive-spin-on-report.php?ref=fpa
Money quote from Bowles: “But what I’m positive of is that we have laid a predicate: We have put a serious plan out there.”
Yeah, you laid a predicate all right.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
Yep, all cat food has taurine added since it’s an essential nutrient for them. But I’m sure that if you tell yourself it tastes just like sushi, you’ll be able to get over it once the Catfood Commission takes away your Social Security check. ;-)
Culture of Truth
Obama’s actual panel will probably say very little.
bcw
So it means nothing that a commission established and appointed by Obama has proposed Draconian cuts to social security and Veteran’s programs?
I’m sure it will boost faith in Obama and the Democratic party.
Just like the oil spill burnished BP’s green credentials.
Citizen_X
@BGinCHI:
Oh, is that what you call it?
taylormattd
OK, I’ll say it:
Dexter
predicate? I think I need a plain English translation of the above sentence.
taylormattd
Also, reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrISBMoUJJU
freelancer
Esquire’s online editors just posted a comparison of what the Catfood commission would accomplish versus what their Budget Proposal would be. Catfood loses. Hard.
Fuck, I hate Washington for stuff like this.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
Iraq Study Group Redux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20061206_d-0257-2-515h.jpg
Culture of Truth
The panel will not get 14 votes. That’s why the Simpson-Bowles report was created.
Maude
@bcw:
You’re at the wrong blog.
Go down the road a bit and make a left.
You’ll be right at home.
Culture of Truth
So it means nothing that a commission established and appointed by Obama has proposed Draconian cuts to social security and Veteran’s programs?
It means nothing since that did not happen.
Mnemosyne
@bcw:
The commission has proposed absolutely nothing. Two members of the commission held a press conference with their own personal recommendations, which are not the recommendations of the commission.
When the actual commission proposes something, we’ll let you know.
Calouste
@BGinCHI:
__
IGMFY? I’d think that was the obvious one.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@Tim I:
ya know ending subsidies to ungrateful teabaggers who scream about big government wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
MattR
@freelancer:
So basically Sully has no idea if any of the proposals are realistic either financially or politically, yet he knows that they are “honest, real and vital”.
Just shoot me.
Roger Moore
Yes it is. The point of this is to get media exposure for the authors and their proposal. Now they’ll get invited to talk to all the Very Serious People on Sunday morning talk shows, and their version of the plan will be the one everyone is talking about. This is media whoring 101.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@MattR: The steroids have rotten his brain.
ruemara
Slightly OT: Does anyone feel a marked reduction in their desire to hit up GOS? I’m wondering if my malaise is just me.
Culture of Truth
I will amend my statement to say it’s possible they’ll get 14 votes for something weak like let the tax cuts expire.
geg6
@BGinCHI:
There is literally nothing that Cameron has proposed that Sully doesn’t like. Sully polishes Cameron’s knob about 20 times a day.
jake the snake
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
Not all farmers are teabagger, or vice versa.
However, that being said, the answer would be keep the gummint outa my farm subsidies.
BGinCHI
@Calouste: That was my guess, but gosh, I’d hate to jump to conclusions.
Roger Moore
@bcw:
No. It means that a couple of members of a panel appointed have come out in favor of a variety of cuts. The best guess is that they’re publicizing their proposal because the commission as a whole can’t reach consensus on anything. IOW, Obama gave the Republicans the deficit reduction committee they demanded, but managed to set it up so that it wouldn’t actually accomplish anything. I’m not sure if that constitutes 11 dimensional chess, but it shows decent tactical skill.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
FTFY.
Suck It Up!
@ruemara:
You are not alone. Just stay here and maybe push back the curtain once in a while, but don’t get sucked in.
BGinCHI
@geg6: Figuratively, you mean, on the knob polishing.
SteveinSC
Is it possible for a modern industrialized (sic) nation to devolve into a feudalistic agrarian society? Maybe wealthy corporation owners, hereditary masters with droves of service sector peasants serving them. Apparently the only source of money for retirement and health care is becoming the largess of the wealthy, niggardly given. We once made things with workers and (hated) unions. We sold these things in international trade and created a dollar with value. From the worker’s sweat we collected money that was built on hard currency, the dollar. Now the dollar is just an IOU to China. Soon the dollar will be as useless as Weimar Marks. Social Security and Medicare will be impossible. Hence the return to an agrarian model of grow your own food, barter with the doctor for health care, etc. Families can move back to be together and generations live in the same house. Retirement would consist of older generations cared for by the young.
The Jeffersonian dream come true.
As a side note, remember the old adage that the optimist learned Russian and the pessimist learned Chinese? It looks like the pessimists won.
Mnemosyne
@SteveinSC:
Not if corporations own all of the good farmland.
Calouste
@BGinCHI:
__
Just as I am not checking if the sun comes up in the East, I’m not checking if a libertardian says IGFMY.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted): Yup, I’ve been thinking of the Iraq Study Group all along too.
I said in one of the other threads that I wondered if the point was precisely to establish and quantify how hard it is to do something like this, in order to refute the idea held by many people–especially “independents”–that all you have to do is put representatives of both parties in a room and clonk their heads together and they’ll “cut the bullshit” and arrive at something “in the middle,” which you then, like, do.
Corner Stone found implausible my WAG that the point of the commission was potentially to sandbag its own mandate.
El Tiburon
If by ‘not clear’ you mean crystal-fucking clear then okay.
FlipYrWhig
@Suck It Up!: But Democrats need to get a spine, and that’s the same as being liberal, so why don’t they just do it?!1 Obama wants to make gay people eat cat food and only Keith Olbermann can save us! Rrarrr!
There was a guy in the comments today who literally kept saying that he considered all acts of compromise losing. Sigh.
Mike Kay (Expletive Deleted)
@FlipYrWhig: there has always been a bias against obama by the professional left (Edwards Cultists). therefore they buy into any negative narrative.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: It’s crystal clear! The purpose was to create a set of terribly unpopular, laughable recommendations that couldn’t even pass muster with the membership of the commission itself, then ??????, then, um, Obama hits anyone who signed a petition for the public option with a drone attack!
geg6
@BGinCHI:
Well, yes. But if he had the chance to do it literally, he would.
Suck It Up!
@FlipYrWhig:
How do these people get through life? Are these people in relationships?
BGinCHI
@geg6: Filming that could raise some much-needed revenue for British coffers.
FlipYrWhig
@Suck It Up!:
Does unhealthy count?
SBJules
So how many jobs are created by a smaller budget?
Jethro Troll
I bet the phrase “catfood commission” was coined by the same people who came up with “death panels”.