Here’s the new “deal” the teatards are pushing:
Turning right with a vengeance, Republicans will bring to the House floor Tuesday a newly revised debt-ceiling bill that is remarkable for its total absence of compromise at this late date, two weeks before the threat of default.
The action comes as President Barack Obama and the GOP leadership continue to pursue some middle ground and two persons familiar with the talks confirmed that Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor had an unannounced meeting with the president Sunday at the White House as part of these discussions.
Final revisions made Friday submerge conservative demands to reduce all federal spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product — a target that threatened to split the GOP by requiring far deeper cuts than even the party’s April budget. But Republican congressional leaders still want a 10-year, $1.8 trillion cut from nondefense appropriations and have added a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that so restricts future tax legislation that even President Ronald Reagan might have opposed it in the 1980s.
About now is when someone like Doug Mataconis will just throw up their hands and shout both sides do it or the system is dysfunctional rather than point the finger at the problem- the Republicans. Here are some more details:
Statutory caps would drive spending down to 19.9 percent of gross domestic product by 2021 — a $1 trillion difference with Obama in that year alone. At the same time, Pentagon appropriations are assumed to grow even as Supplemental Security Income payments for the elderly and the disabled would be exposed to future sequesters to enforce the caps.
I’m surprised they didn’t throw in ending the estate tax.
Trollenschlongen
Freaks.
Dave
Not only is the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill ill-considered and chock full o’ stupid, but it (obviously) has zero chance of becoming law. And guys like Boehner know this. And yet the House will waste a week with this shit while the debt limit looms. Oh yeah, and still not one fucking jobs bill from the House.
We’d be better off letting a horde of rabid ferrets run the House.
dmsilev
4tehlulz
Thanks for giving them the idea, asshole.
Bobby Thomson
Don’t give them any ideas.
Bulworth
I’m surprised they didn’t throw in making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Zifnab
Fuck it. Let’s just start billing everything as a military expenditure. Scrap the F-35 and build “military bridges”, “defense highways”, “army rail”. Scuttle a few aircraft carriers and turn the Department of Education into a branch of the armed services. Why even fuck around anymore?
Han's Big Snark Solo
There is a reason Obama keeps hinting that the Republicans are behaving childishly…
General Stuck
Tea Party => Killer Klowns From Outer Space
alwhite
@7 – did you know that the largest single school district in the US is the DoD?
Maybe we are making a mistake at trying to limit the damage these assholes want to inflict. Maybe we should give them exactly what they are asking for. either the results will be so horrific that people will be repulsed & demand the government put things right or we will just go down the drain. But we are already going there & until we get this sickness out of our system the only choice seems to be quickly or slowly?
Guster
Are there 30 House Republicans who’d consider voting with the entire Democratic caucus in order to save the country and the world from economic meltdown?
Trollenschlongen
what the hell is the logic behind military kids having their own schools on base? Why don’t they go to public schools in the area like normal kids?
Davis X. Machina
Meh. It’s the House. They may be Constitutionally privileged insofar as they get to originate money bills, but they’ve never passed one on their own yet.
The House GOP caucus is engaged in the parliamentary equivalent of deciding which sound system to have installed in the new car they’re not getting.
4tehlulz
@Guster Are there 30 House Republicans that don’t quake in fear of the teabaggers?
I can’t really think of any.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I doubt it. The better question is if there is any way to drive a wedge between the teabaggers and the rest of the GOP. I’d say no, not yet at least. If the next election goes horribly wrong for the Baggers though, the answer is maybe.
JGabriel
John Cole:
The House Republicans are saving that for later revisions.
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Mike in NC
The typical teabagger is a 70-year-old white male angry about how his life turned out. He wants Big Government off of his back and the damn kids to keep off the damn lawn!
They’re pissed off enough to burn the house down, just so long as they can get to flee the fire in their government-funded motorized scooters. Absolutely crazy nihilists.
Guster
4tehlulz: Yeah, I figured that deserved a SATSQ. But I’m amazed how monolithic they are. And how little they care. Still naive, after all these years.
joes527
The child in me wants the Democrats to say: “You know what? OK. We’ll do it. We’ll give you everything you are asking for. Welcome to your worst nightmare.”
yeah yeah. collateral damage. bad idea.
MattF
So… should I put all my assets in yen or in euros? Ha ha. This little dilemma, btw, is probably the reason that bond markets haven’t yet melted down– it’s tough to choose which side of the boat to jump off of.
JonF
It’ll die in the senate, they’ll agree on the McConnell plan+1.5 tril in cuts/loophole closures.
JGabriel
@Trollenschlongen:
Nah. Freaks are non-sequiturs — weird and unpredictable. The House Republicans are sociopaths, predictably fueled by their own self-interest and ideology, the pain and suffering of others either a pleasure or a non-issue.
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Citizen_X
They’re demanding that a Constitutional amendment get passed in the next two weeks? Well then, while they’re at it, why not ask for unicorns for everybody? Made out of Reardon metal.
DZ
@MattF:
Euros
Comrade Mary
Right. I’m moving the last bit of my RSP from mutual funds to cash tonight. Way to blow up the world economy you illiterate innumerate slackjawed mouthbreathing goatfucking shitwits.
General Stuck
OT
Wingnut Nirvana straight to Wingnut Hell
Teehee
Stupid White Person of the day
PaulW
Wingnut Nirvana = A Randian libertarian utopia where civil rights, sexual privacy, consumer and worker protections are all eliminated, and privatized and deregulated social services dominate: thanks to the destruction of the federal government. I wonder why it’s been taking so long for everyone else to figure that out.
JGabriel
AS bad as the House Republicans are right now, I keep thinking, these guys have only been in office 6 months.
What are the next 18 months going to be like? Are they blowing their wad now, or will they get crazier? Is that even possible?
.
arguingwithsignposts
@Zifnab:
I like the cut of this jib. Anyone over 65 is now a member of the armed services – emeritus. Suck it, wingnuts! Why do you hate America?
Punchy
1.8 trill in 10 years? That’s….uh…180 bill/yr. Since senoirs won’t let you touch Medicare or SS, that’s like a lot of schools out of biz and a LOT of bridges collapsing in disrepair. Welcome, Americans, to the Soviet Union.
Stillwater
…and have added a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that so restricts future tax legislation that even President Ronald Reagan might have opposed it in the 1980s.
Ronnie wouldn’t stand for this shit. Fucking deficits. Of course they matter! That’s why he ran 8 years of surpluses. What, you didn’t know that?
These guys are shameless.
PeakVT
@Trollenschlongen: AFAIK bases don’t pay local property taxes – which is generally how schools are funded in the US – for on-base residents.
ETA: Also, too: overseas bases.
murbella
Even Douchehat says the conservatives have lost.
the conservitards will cave. just watch.
and please, Cole. They are ALL teabaggers. A “libertarian” is just a teabagger with a 4-year college degree.
Loneoak
When faced with a crisis that could cripple the US economy for decades, Republicans decide to spend a week discussing and voting for an entirely symbolic and lunatic bill. Is anyone surprised by this?
Culture of Truth
I hate the pop-in!
Han's Big Snark Solo
I remember seeing video of one of the earliest Tea Parties and it seemed one of their biggest beefs was all the brain washing.
Specifically, they worried loudly that the cable set top boxes (the DVR/box you connect to your cable/satellite to get reception) was actually a brain washing device.
Also too, college is a brain washing scam, as are most books.
Maybe if we promised to stop using cable set top boxes and college to brain wash the teabaggers children they wouldn’t insist on the absolute destruction of the US economy?
I get why they are so upset about the brain washing. Their children, those few that are accepted to an institute of higher learning, go to school knowing all the right stuff. But when they get home it is all the kids can do not to laugh in their parent’s faces.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@joes527:
Part of me feels the same way. One thing I hate about the ‘death by 1,000 cuts’ is that people will adapt to the new lows when the changes are slight and phased in. People are still going to hurt but it won’t be all at once. Kind of like someone with a car that has a problem, they adapt to the problem and then it isn’t a problem any more!
Until it fails for good, many times catastrophically. Then the problem costs even more to repair than it would have if it would have been maintained properly. That’s why I lean to the ‘let ’em burn it down’ side of things at times. If the Repubs are going to get their way anyway, then give them the whole hog and let the cards fall where they may. People will bitch about any cuts now but the pain will come on so slowly that it just won’t piss off enough people to matter.
Let it burn and you can bet there will be a hell of a lot more people affected and willing to pay immediate attention to the problems at hand.
JGabriel
@Trollenschlongen:
They move around a lot, and many of the bases are in countries where English is not the language of instruction.
I suspect that under those conditions, it’s more sensible for the military to maintain their own schools with a standard curriculum, so that a student who moves from one base to another will be able to pick up right where they left off.
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Dexter
Wall Street down by 167 points because of debt ceiling worries. A couple more days like this and Boner won’t get his daily quota of booze.
homeruk
DZ, Matt F – it’s a tricky one. The Euro is very near to collapse right now – there is a possible Lehman style collapse here and if that happens, the world ends, so I am reliably informed by my banking friends. US default of debt will look like a tea party in comparison. Pun intended.
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT: The DoD’s own schools tend to be in foreign countries. In the US, the DoD will make impact payments to local school districts when service members’ dependents make up a good chunk of a school district’s student body. Brunswick and Topsham ME both did well from having Brunswick Naval Air Station in their region.
NobodySpecial
Fixed.
themann1086
The RNC has gone all-in for the Balanced Budget Amendment [ETA] according to my email from Reince Priebus. The Republicans have officially Lost It; even my libertarian friends think that’s the dumbest idea ever.
Judas Escargot
Awesome metaphor.
The market’s tanking this morning, and gold going crazy, so apparently “sell stock! buy gold!” will be the consensus view as to how to ‘save one’s assets’ over the next few days.
Until China, Italy, the UK or the US decides to sell a few tons of gold one afternoon…
Woodrowfan
they DO. These are for overseas and areas where the base is so remote that there is no local school available.
gbbalto
DOD operates schools for 16,000 students in just a few states – other military kids go to local schools, though some are on post.
catclub
PeakVT at 32 I think you meant local property taxes, not local income taxes.
Yes, but I remember various questions at the start of school which were designed to figure out how much money the school could ask for, based on the student body characteristics.
I imagine that ‘is either parent a member of the armed forces’ could be easily added to the list.
El Cid
Wait — suddenly the right is interested in the relation between the size of federal spending and the GDP?
Because they sure as hell were dismissive of it when it’s shown by those appreciating “Keynesianism” (i.e., rational economic policies called by its intellectual advocate) as not being serious related to other crisis periods.
Culture of Truth
kdaug
@Trollenschlongen: There’s a word. Starts with indoc. Ends with tranation.
Han's Big Snark Solo
Anybody who doesn’t see the coming gold crash isn’t paying attention. Look at the graph of gold, it’s been going up for a very long time. What’s that word we used to use for the over inflation of assets? Bubble?
I don’t know when it will pop, but history tells us it will eventually.
Corner Stone
I just posted a question about the possibility of default to my local online message board. I’m in wingnut central so the responses should be awesome. If they reply at all, they may all be out stocking up on ammo and freeze dried food. And grinning about it.
Catsy
@alwhite:
This is insane. It’s like being held at gunpoint by someone threatening to shoot if you don’t give them what they want, and thinking, “maybe I should jump this guy. Either I’ll succeed and he’ll go down, or he’ll shoot me and I’ll be dead–but either way it’ll be over.”
The problem is that there’s another possibility: that you’ll get shot and survive, but spend the rest of your life crippled and in horrible pain. That’s the unexamined possibility in your scenario: we give the Republicans what they want, it cripples the country, but Republicans dodge the blame and America muddles through a generation of hell and becomes Colorado Springs writ large.
No thank you. Fuck these criminals masquerading as politicians and their economic terrorism. They need to be defeated and their ideology discredited, not given everything they want because we’re sick of fighting to make them act like adults with responsibilities.
Bulworth
Austerity Now, Austerity Now!
Seriously, this would be a pretty crappy deal, a bunch of cuts AND the stupid three-vote scenario.
RalfW
Dow is down 109 points at noon EDT. The market seems to be taking the GOP threat at least somewhat seriously.
Via CNN.com “Jul 18 11:47am:
U.S. stocks fell Monday, as uncertainty over the U.S. debt ceiling and worries about European debt kept investors on edge.”
DZ
@homeruk:
I don’t see the Euro as close to collapse. Major [problems, yes, collapse, no. And this from someone who just made a tidy profit shorting Euros. If the U.S. defaults, I see a $0.10 increase in the Euro vs the dollar in 10-15 days.
JGabriel
@MattF:
Yuan, probably. It’s known to be undervalued due to Chinese manipulation — which means a likely instant profit once its allowed to float. IF that ever happens, which is an admittedly big if.
.
Corner Stone
@MattF:
No way in hell I’d put it in Euros. Maybe .22 ammo bricks?
There just isn’t going to be a stable form of portable wealth available on the market.
Culture of Truth
Indeed we may end up with a crappy deal – there’s a GOP House, after all – btw, thanks again, America.
Peter
They want a constitutional amendment…in two weeks.
I’m not sure even the hackiest pundit can possibly spin that as being Very Serious.
Loneoak
I have a well balanced portfolio of boner pills, insulin syringes, and canned beans and franks.
Han's Big Snark Solo
That is SO not true. The GOP has been working on an alternative for a long time. Last year Nevada’s Sue Lowden was nice enough to detail it for us:
Forget about paper money, forget about gold, no-sir-eebob, the currency of the future will be chickens.
You can see why this appeals to the teabaggers so much, right? Who has the infrastructure in place (in their yards mostly) to profit from our new “Chicken System?”
El Cid
Maybe we should do for the entire budget what Bush Jr. did one year for the AMTRAK budget: propose zero dollars.
Just propose it.
See what the TeaTards do.
Martin
They’re out planting their apocalypse gardens.
Whoops. Insiders/Teatards. Close enough, I guess.
And the correct answer to the investing question is to put all your money in gold. No way that could be a bubble, and as soon as the teatards win this, it’ll go up in value 11 billion percent because next to the gallows after the debt limit is fiat currency.
Loneoak
I have a well balanced portfolio of boner pills, insulin syringes, and canned beans and franks.
Catsy
@Corner Stone:
In one of my favorite sci-fi novels, a common form of compact, portable wealth is a block of RTS–room temperature superconductor.
As much as I love the idea, this was obviously written before the advent of our modern cycle of obsolescence.
The Moar You Know
@ Trollenschlongen: I don’t know. Believe me, the students would like to. I went to base school. No fun. Although, very, very, very safe and decent quality, there’s this whole weird officer’s kid/enlisted kid divide (you can’t hang out with each other, it’s not a formal rule but a very powerful unwritten one) and a bunch of other weirdness, all depending on how your parent ranks. I’ll say this, though – one good thing about the base school is you’ll never have a student disrupting class; fuck up badly enough and they’ll call in your dad’s commanding officer and then you are in some seriously deep shit.
catclub
Bulworth @ 54 “Seriously, this would be a pretty crappy deal, a bunch of cuts AND the stupid three-vote scenario.”
I think it was well known on November 5 that various shit sandwiches were coming. This is unlikely to be the last.
Trollenschlongen
I did not know that. Overseas bases I get, but the domestic arrangement just seems needlessly clunky. Why does the pentagon want to be fooling around with school administration, for god’s sake. Plus, the inherent isolation/ghettoization of the military kids seems like bad policy on its face. Seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out how much adjusted tax of some kind a base could pay to its locality to offset the cost of its children being in public schools.
Oh well…I’m asking for rational policy from the pentagon/congress. Please.
JGabriel
@Han’s Big Snark Solo:
Frank Perdue.
.
Culture of Truth
Put your money in News Corp. When Murdoch resigns it will soar.
Culture of Truth
Money-wing of the GOP, on the Tea Party:
“Any more such victories and we are finished.”
Elie
–This is just face saving distraction as they back out the door. They lost the debt ceiling fight (thank God), not that they will ever admit that their gambit to control the country through this attempted coup didnt come out quite as they would have liked. They looked like and are of course, reckless Klowns. (I wonder whose bright idea it was to use the debt ceiling to take over the governing agenda). Clearly, these folks know squat about strategy or much about what the debt ceiling was really about and how like idiots they would look trying their little take over this way. Turns out at least a few of them still had their heads in reality…Lord help us when those folks leave their party….
The Moar You Know
I cashed out my 401k and put it all into guns, ammunition, cigarettes, cheap high-proof booze and some old print porno.
That’s a diversified portfolio, fuckers!
JGabriel
@Catsy:
There are many, myself included, who think this already happened in 2000.
.
Captain Haddock
I am agreeing with Elie. They are throwing this out there because they know they are losing – they can go back to the nutjobs and say they tried.
There is no freaking way this would pass. Just theatrics for the idiots.
Corner Stone
@Captain Haddock:
President Obama in his presser IIRC on Friday said he was sure there would be a couple votes for political reasons and then we’d get the nut of what the deal would look like.
I tend to agree with him on the political cover part, not so sure about when the actual deal will be set.
quannlace
And reinstate the gold standard.
Hungry Joe
GOP position: “Everything you guys want is off the table. Now let’s talk about how much of what we want you’re going to give us.” There’s no way to negotiate with people like that, because that’s not negotiation. All you can do at this point is kick over the table, say, “Call us when you’re serious,” and walk out of the room. With any luck the coffee that was on the table will end up in their laps.
RalfW
WSJ headline 1 hour ago
Gold Powers To New High; No Signs of Top Close at Hand
Sound anything like the news a few years ago about house prices?
.
Catsy
@JGabriel: It did. Nothing says you can’t get shot more than once.
The Lost Decade is what we ended up with.
JGabriel
@RalfW:
Quick! Hurry up and buy gold while it’s still expensive!
.
Corner Stone
@Culture of Truth:
Actually, I read Bloomberg this morning and an article there discussed the “Murdoch Discount”. How the stock is undervalued by some metrics up to 60% of where it should be. One analyst said from $15 to about $25 if Murdoch was not there.
One reason is because shareholders have no faith Murdoch will make the right business decision instead of “just doing whatever he wants to”.
The knives are definitely out in all quarters.
Ah, here’s a link to it
RalfW
“With any luck the scalding McDonalds coffee that was on the table will end up -in their laps- on their balls.”
JasonF
I hate, hate, hate the McConnell “compromise,” which is nothing more than a way for Republicans to have their cake and eat it too. I hate that it may wind up being the only way to save the country, and I hate that, as the only responsible adult in the room, President Obama is probably going to have to let them get away with it.
fasteddie9318
This pretty much sums up how FUBAR this whole situation is. Because the Republicans are losing the battle over the optics right now, but if they walk out of the debt ceiling negotiations with $1.5 trillion in domestic discretionary cuts, no revenue increases, yet another catfood commission, and the chance to embarrass Obama over the debt ceiling three more times before the election, then they will only have “lost” according to the completely insane standard of purity insisted upon by the teabaggers. To anybody else looking on, that deal is chock full of Republican win.
Corner Stone
@RalfW:
I’m waiting for a magazine cover with something like a picture of a golden bull idol and a headline like, “Can anything melt this golden god?”
And then shorting the short out of gold, asap.
bill
Somebody’s probably said this already, but the DoD “school district” consists of American schools overseas where its non-remote bases are located (e.g. Germany and Japan). I don’t think the DoD has any schools in the U.S. Dependent children of GIs stationed stateside attend the neighborhood schools along with the local kids.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Corner Stone:
That’s a version of what I call the “Cab Driver Metric.” When people who don’t know anything about anything start insisting to strangers that they must invest in X, it is time to sell X.
All those ads you see on TV or hear about on the radio about gold replace similar ads about real estate, which in turn replaced ads about the internet, etc…
catclub
Corner Stone @ 82 Tempting.
I would investigate very carefully how the VOTING stock is distributed. I would not be surprised if Murdoch has voting rights far out of proportion to actual ownership share.
So even if he left, he is still in charge.
Buh, buh, but that goes against one share one vote democratic purity. Who would be, who could be THAT evil?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Hell, why not make reaching the age of 65 with less than $1 mil in the bank a capital crime? Ditto anyone who is permanently disabled.
My guess: They couldn’t figure out a way to spin that.
Stay in view please.
artem1s
@arguingwithsignposts:
well, considering Eisenhower got the modern highway system built mostly so we could move around the military more efficiently, its probably the only thing that is going to get us a decent rail system in this country.
Tone In DC
Comrade Mary – July 18, 2011 | 11:58 am · Link
Right. I’m moving the last bit of my RSP from mutual funds to cash tonight. Way to blow up the world economy you illiterate innumerate slackjawed mouthbreathing goatfucking shitwits.
___________________________________________________________
Oh, AYUH.
Between Sarah the Proud and Mary, I has lulz today. Thanks for that.
Culture of Truth
I take it back. Buy organge juice futures.
Or, depending on how the Murdoch thing plays out, popcorn options.
Steeplejack
@Trollenschlongen:
They do, in the United States; the DOD schools are overseas, so that when your father (or mother) gets posted to some far-flung outpost of empire you can continue your American education instead of sitting in some local school where you don’t know the language and will probably be gone in two years anyway.
ETA: Graduate of a DOD high school. Kubasaki ’69!
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know:
Maybe it has changed, but when I grew up as an Air Force brat I always attended local schools when we were stateside. The only time I went to a DOD school was when we were overseas. And when we were in England I went to a local school there.
JGabriel
@Comrade Mary:
Word of the Day. Thank you, Comrade Mary.
.
Mike G
The teabaggers across the street have an ostentatious sign in their front window declaring their rejection of “cancer meters”. Smart electrical meters are apparently the fearful luddites’ bugbear of the week.
Hungry Joe
@RalfW:
Lawsuit — call Jackie Chiles! This is where GOP reverses its position on tort reform.
Elie
FastEddie @ 86 — Yes, there is always the spin, but I don’t think that in fact that they will be in the strong position that you state… they are too crazy and have blown every opportunity to actually do anything but modify on the edges of policy — always of course with the most loud opposition and melodrama, but THEY are being moved along in the wake of progress. If you look dispassionately at what has been accomplished in the last two years in a poisonous current climate and coming from an era of complete right wing excess, you just have to see that. You might not, of course, and many of our FDL/PUMA folks definitely won’t — the media of course will down play any success. But for my part, given all that has happened and all that we have had to endure, our side is kicking some ass. Just me — my take ..
Steeplejack
@bill:
I did some checking on this, and there are 60 stateside schools administered by the DOD’s Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS) Department. They are in seven states–Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. I note that all of those states are part of the former Confederacy except New York, which is on the list only because there is an elementary school and a middle school at West Point.
DOD has another department that runs the overseas schools.
I am feeling sorry for my middle brother, who lost at school roulette and ended up graduating from Biloxi (MS) High School. He would have been better off if there had been a DOD school there.
Steeplejack
@bill:
I did some checking on this, and there are 60 stateside schools administered by the DOD’s Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS) Department. They are in seven states—Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. I note that all of those states are part of the former Confederacy except New York, which is on the list only because there is an elementary school and a middle school at West Point.
DOD has another department that runs the overseas schools.
I am feeling sorry for my middle brother, who lost at school roulette and ended up graduating from Biloxi (MS) High School. He would have been better off if there had been a DOD school there.
ETA: FYWP! Sorry for the double post. Apparently roulette is another word FYWP doesn’t like.
NR
How so? How is $1.5 trillion in cuts with no revenue increases a victory for our side?
Elie
NR — Oh — that is what is written in stone? That is the final agreement? Must have missed that, PUMAboy
Elie
NR — Oh — that is what is written in stone? That is the final agreement? Must have missed that, PUMAboy
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
[Test for echo.]
Joel
@Ralf, Corner Stone
Intriguingly, gold is surging (52-week high) yet silver and platinum are sitting right at their yearly averages. No volatility there, either.
Alex S.
I’m getting this ominous feeling that something big is going to happen.
Cain
@joes527:
Why would you think any of that shit would stick to the Republicans? The media will nod their head sagely as the republicans blame the Democrats for what is happening and demand more tax cuts and more cutting of spending.
Corner Stone
@Alex S.:
Like the actual Godzilla is just offshore of NYC? Or something more mundane like an eradication of the social safety net?
Triassic Sands
I’m sure it was an oversight. Once the Republican austerity package is in place and unemployment is at 0.002%, we’re running a gigantic budget surplus, poverty is eliminated, and old and poor people are all paying for their own health coverage (which is practically free since tort reform was enacted), then the Republicans will eliminate the estate tax.
PeakVT
@Trollenschlongen: I was mostly wrong about the domestic arrangements. See the subsequent comments addressed to me.
Ken
Han’s Big Snark Solo @15: Unfortunately we don’t run on a parliamentary system. If we did, the fact that Boehner can’t promise to deliver his coalition* would force a vote of no confidence, and if he lost we might see a new majority coalition forming from the Democrats and a couple dozen Republicans.
* It must be a coalition; so many people have assured us that the Tea Party is an independent grassroots movement, not part of the Republican party. Although by that metric, the Democrats have the plurality of seats and really should have been given the first chance to form a coalition.