Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We will not go back.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

You are here: Home / Super-Sized Nothingburger

Super-Sized Nothingburger

by | 44 Comments

This post is in: 

The Super Committee isn’t getting anywhere, and it turns out — surprise — that it doesn’t have to:

The supposed across-the-board cuts aren’t slated to go into effect until January 1, 2013. Put more simply: They might not ever go into effect.

The automatic cuts — known as sequestration — are often discussed in Washington as if they’re certain, an inevitability that Congress won’t be able to prevent. But on the same day those cuts would go into effect, the Bush tax rates, which President Obama extended for two years, are set to expire, leading to an “automatic” tax hike that is treated in Washington as anything but inevitable. (That the two coming policy changes are approached so differently — cuts are expected; expiring tax breaks for the wealthy are brushed aside — is a window into Washington’s priorities.)

Pushing the real deadline to 1/1/2013 put those cuts squarely in the sights of a lame duck Congress and President Obama, who will either be prepping for another four years or waiting on the movers. Either way, it’s a completely different dynamic than a 1/1/2012 deadline.

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  1. 1.

    Ash Can

    Wasn’t the Super Committee one of the main bones thrown to Republicans and blue dogs at the time of the budget deal?

  3. 3.

    Bulworth

    This can’t be true. Why, there was weeks and weeks of media coverage to the debt deal that gave us this supercommittee and our political pundit class assured us this debt deal and the supercommittee were Very Serious.

  4. 4.

    Phil Perspective

    Cleek:
    You are wrong. Why? Because if taxes on the rich don’t go up, people will still be PO’ed. Look at the date of that HuffPo article. It was before the Occupy movement took off.

  5. 5.

    RoonieRoo

    Wait, I think I need someone to dumb this down for me.

    So, if the supercommittee doesn’t come up with any agreement then the across the board cuts happen automatically. I got that part.

    The expiration of the tax breaks is at the the same time. But the expiration of the tax breaks isn’t tied to the supercommittee, right? Couldn’t the nitwits extend them again?

    I’m definitely missing something here.

  6. 6.

    Bulworth

    @Ash Can: Yes, yes it was. So the Blue Doggies and teabags got nothing from the deal. Zippo. Nada. Except a lot of coverage and international scorn. Our pundit class couldn’t see that, but that’s what happened.

  7. 7.

    Culture of Truth

    K-THUG:

    I read David Brooks citing the Tax Foundation this morning, and I thought he must have misread them. They couldn’t possibly have compared one year’s take from higher taxes on the rich with the total stock of debt, could they? They can’t possibly be that stupid, or think that their readers are that stupid, can they?

  8. 8.

    Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill

    @RoonieRoo:

    the expiration of the tax breaks isn’t tied to the supercommittee, right?

    Correct. This is the downside of using the reconciliation process, and exactly why you’d want to avoid it for any legislation you want to have a long-term impact.

    Couldn’t the nitwits extend them again?

    They can, in theory, do anything. But what will happen will depend strongly on the election. The bigger the GOP fall (and associated media narrative), the less willing will they be to obstruct.

  11. 11.

    wilfred

    The irrelevance of the Committe explains why its members are receiving big donations:

    “Members of the congressional committee charged with making one of the most sensitive economic decisions facing America, a $1.2tn cut in the federal budget, have received a series of donations from the defence, pharmaceutical, oil and other industries, figures have revealed. The Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan organisation aimed at greater transparency in government, published donations to 10 members since they were appointed in August to the congressional super-committee with responsiblity for recommending cuts and possible tax increases over the next ten years. Their decisions, due to be announced by 23 November, could be worth millions of dollars to the specific industries.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/06/super-committee-donations-defence-oil

  12. 12.

    Rafer Janders

    The automatic cuts—known as sequestration—are often discussed in Washington as if they’re certain, an inevitability that Congress won’t be able to prevent. But on the same day those cuts would go into effect, the Bush tax rates, which President Obama extended for two years, are set to expire, leading to an “automatic” tax hike that is treated in Washington as anything but inevitable.

    Budget (read service and safety net) cuts considered as certain by Washington, while tax hikes are considered as anything but certain. Uh huh, we see how this works….

  14. 14.

    jayackroyd

    @Ash Can:

    The deal was political cover for the blue dogs and the GOP. They aren’t going to cut spending. They never cut spending. No republican congress, no republican senate, no republican president, post-war, has passed a budget smaller than the budget the year before.

    It’s a lie. This exercise demonstrates that it’s a lie. All they ever do is promise to promise to cut spending sometime in the future. This has been true ever since Reagan and Stockman balanced the budget “in the out years.”

    Same shit, different day.

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Well speaking as a drone in the military-industral complex not facing a 50% cut in the defense budget and social security is a nothing burger I want.

  16. 16.

    Lockewasright

    So we wind up with no significant cuts to demand in the economy and a referendum on tax policy. Jeez, it’s almost as if the president knew what he was doing or something!

  17. 17.

    geg6

    @Bulworth:

    This. And it was pretty obvious from the start, if you are willing to read fine print and hold more than one thought in your head at a time.

    Which, obviously, means that the media had no idea.

  19. 19.

    MBunge

    @Lockewasright: “Jeez, it’s almost as if the president knew what he was doing or something!”

    I figured out a while ago that Barack Obama is the first President of my adult life who is genuinely a lot smarter than me. Considering how many folks in our information age build their entire self-worth on being the cleverest person in the room, it becomes easier to understand the reactions people have to him.

    Mike

  21. 21.

    Joey Maloney

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:

    The bigger the GOP fall (and associated media narrative), the less willing will they be to obstruct.

    I wish I could believe that, but I’ll take bets the reverse will be true. The worse they do in elections, the more they will dig in their heels. Defeat just makes fanatics more determined.

    The only thing that will stop their obstruction is if they end up with such a small minority that they are not capable of using any of the choke points in the political process. And then I’d expect more violence.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:

    But on the same day those cuts would go into effect, the Bush tax rates, which President Obama extended for two years, are set to expire, leading to an “automatic” tax hike that is treated in Washington as anything but inevitable.

    You forgot to read the excerpt in the post, m_c.

  24. 24.

    Linda Featheringill

    IIRC, we discussed the impotence of the Super Committee back when it was set up. The MSM didn’t seem to understand that. Does that mean that we’re smarter than they are?

    Yep.

    @MBunge:

    I agree. The Prez is smarter than I am, too. :-)

  25. 25.

    El Cid

    The Teabirchers really are the old paranoid anti-Communist anti-fluoride screamers.

    No, really: the Pinellas County, FL tea party activist leader Tony Caso said that the fluoride was a Soviet-style plot to control our minds.

    For too long, we patriotic Americans have allowed winos and crystal meth addicts and backwoods yokels with no access to city water or modern dentistry to appropriate the prestige that comes with jagged, decayed teeth and the subsidiary whiff of rotten breath.
    __
    Finally, after a contentious three-hour public hearing last week, the Pinellas County Commission confronted the bright white shining truth behind healthy teeth and fluoridated smiles: Local governments have given into the world-wide conspiracy to drug us into submission.
    __
    “Fluoride is a toxic substance,” declared Tony Caso of Palm Harbor. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Caso, a fervid tea party activist, warned Pinellas commissioners:

    “This is all part of an agenda that’s being pushed forth by the so-called globalists in our government and the world government to keep the people stupid so they don’t realize what’s going on.”

    Caso had constructed an utterly unassailable argument. It was stupid, sure, particularly to someone who doesn’t subscribe to worldwide conspiracy theories. But that’s obviously because Caso has been pumped full of toxic fluoride designed, as he said, “to keep people stupid.” His very stupidity proves his stupid premise.

    “This is the U.S. of A,” Caso reminded the commissioners, in case they had misplaced their world atlases. “Not the Soviet Socialist Republic.”

    Perhaps under the stupefying effects of fluoride themselves, four of the seven commissioners voted to stop adding fluoride to the county’s water supply, rescuing 700,000 from the commie plot to control their minds, even while saving their teeth…
    __
    …Gen. Jack D. Ripper, the rogue military base commander in Dr. Strangelove, developed an acute case of fluoride paranoia long before the existence of the Internet. “You know when fluoridation first began?” Ripper asked in the 1964 movie. “Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946… How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.”

    Thankfully, we have true red-blooded American heroes like the Tea Party to keep Americans from being stupid.

    This is a thing that is real. This is a thing, which actually happened.

  26. 26.

    catclub

    @Bulworth: No, they _might not_
    get something, if a later congress decides to ignore/overturn the automatic cuts, which they always can do.
    Of course, no one had the courage to actually vote for draconian cuts in the present tense, so this is not surprising. The only popular cuts are future ones.

    I predict idiots on both sides will claim that the other side ‘rolled our lousy negotiators’.

    ETA: Jayackroyd @ 14 beat me to it and said it better.

  27. 27.

    El Cid

    The Teabirchers really are the old paranoid anti-Communist anti-fluoride screamers.

    No, really: the Pinellas County, FL tea party activist leader Tony Caso said that the fluoride was a Soviet-style plot to control our minds.

    [And the County actually voted to end water fluoridation. It’s not just Tea Party rhetoric. The county actually is going to stop fluoridating water because of Tea Party Bircher insanity.]

    For too long, we patriotic Americans have allowed winos and crystal meth addicts and backwoods yokels with no access to city water or modern dentistry to appropriate the prestige that comes with jagged, decayed teeth and the subsidiary whiff of rotten breath.
    __
    Finally, after a contentious three-hour public hearing last week, the Pinellas County Commission confronted the bright white shining truth behind healthy teeth and fluoridated smiles: Local governments have given into the world-wide conspiracy to drug us into submission.
    __
    “Fluoride is a toxic substance,” declared Tony Caso of Palm Harbor. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Caso, a fervid tea party activist, warned Pinellas commissioners:

    “This is all part of an agenda that’s being pushed forth by the so-called globalists in our government and the world government to keep the people stupid so they don’t realize what’s going on.”

    Caso had constructed an utterly unassailable argument. It was stupid, sure, particularly to someone who doesn’t subscribe to worldwide conspiracy theories. But that’s obviously because Caso has been pumped full of toxic fluoride designed, as he said, “to keep people stupid.” His very stupidity proves his stupid premise.

    “This is the U.S. of A,” Caso reminded the commissioners, in case they had misplaced their world atlases. “Not the Soviet Soshullist Republic.”

    Perhaps under the stupefying effects of fluoride themselves, four of the seven commissioners voted to stop adding fluoride to the county’s water supply, rescuing 700,000 from the commie plot to control their minds, even while saving their teeth…
    __
    …Gen. Jack D. Ripper, the rogue military base commander in Dr. Strangelove, developed an acute case of fluoride paranoia long before the existence of the Internet. “You know when fluoridation first began?” Ripper asked in the 1964 movie. “Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946… How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.”

    Thankfully, we have true red-blooded American heroes like the Tea Party to keep Americans from being stupid.

    This is a thing that is real. This is a thing, which actually happened.

    This is so fucking stupid that if you write the word “soc-ia-list” you get moderated.

  28. 28.

    lacp

    I don’t think Republican leadership contains the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they probably knew what the score was, too, and realized that their mouth-breathing base wouldn’t catch on.

  30. 30.

    Kristine

    Doesn’t anyone else recall the statement that someone close to the Obama camp–reporter, advisor, possible even Obama himself–made around the time of the election that one way a “community organizer” would deal with thorns in their side would be to put them on a committee? I can’t find a link and I can’t recall the details of the article, which I know makes it damn near impossible to follow up. But it stuck with me so that every time Obama requests the formation of a committee, I figure he’s just trying to get some PITAs out of the way while he goes ahead and does what needs doing. The downside of this approach, as I see it, is that if it plays out in the public eye, the public gets the idea that Obama’s committees don’t work. The mechanics may work in the long run, but the optics are bad. I hope I’m wrong about the optics part.

  33. 33.

    EconWatcher

    I read something recently suggesting that federal support for unemployment benefits would need to be reauthorized by Congress at the end of this year. Is that true? If so, the Rs have a chance for a huge additional hostage scenario, very soon.

  34. 34.

    Elie

    @lacp:

    I suspect Boehner et al knew they had to slime this past them to get the deal done and “save the republic”…

    Nothing is ever over for sure, but that was the best escape they could figure given the corner they had painted themselves into.

    Not to say that a hostage situation can’t happen again, but you will note that the two or three theatenned government shutdowns since then were quietly resolved. Doesnt mean it will continue that way, but still worthy of note

  39. 39.

    priscianusjr

    @Lockewasright:

    So we wind up with no significant cuts to demand in the economy and a referendum on tax policy. Jeez, it’s almost as if the president knew what he was doing or something!

    No, that can’t be. Obama had to have fucked up somehow. It’s the narrative, stupid!

  40. 40.

    priscianusjr

    @Elie:

    Not to say that a hostage situation can’t happen again, but you will note that the two or three theatenned government shutdowns since then were quietly resolved. Doesnt mean it will continue that way, but still worthy of note.

    Are you suggesting that in politics things are not always what they seem?

  41. 41.

    Paul in KY

    @El Cid: Yeah, that too.

    I had an Uncle (since deceased) who looked & sounded alot like Slim Pickens, especially Slim as he sounded in ‘Blazing Saddles’.

Comments are closed.