(Get Fuzzy via GoComics.com)
I am informed that I ought to Have Thoughts about the new budget deal, but I would rather watch ten hours of a dog running into a screen door — heck, I’d rather be a dog running into a screen door — than pretend this ‘drama’ makes me anything other than cranky. So here is a link to Margaret Hartmann in NYMag, and you can go ahead and have your own thoughts in the comments, assuming that’s your idea of a good time:
If October’s 16-day government shutdown left you yearning for more dramatic brinksmanship from our lawmakers, you’ll be disappointed to learn that House and Senate negotiators have reached a two-year budget agreement. After weeks of negotiations, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray unveiled a modest deal Tuesday night that would partially replace sequestration cuts, avert another shutdown on January 15, and end the budget wars of the past two years (though there’s still the potential for debt ceiling squabbling). As New York‘s Jonathan Chait explained last week, while the automatic cuts were intended to be equally objectionable to both parties, Republicans are reluctant to give up something Democrats hate so much. So while the plan has the backing of party leaders on both sides of the aisle, conservatives are blasting the proposal.
The deal calls for a $63 billion increase in spending in 2014 and 2015, which would be paid for with higher fees for airline travelers, and changes in federal employee and military pension programs. It includes permanent changes to other programs that would end up reducing the deficit by $22.5 billion over the next decade…
Apart from kabuki theatre, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Baud
I don’t think Obama should stop with the selfie. He should leave Michelle and marry the Prime Minister of Denmark. It would unite our two kingdoms and finally give us complete control over Greenland.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: I think the marriages have been consummated. The chances of annulment are slim. The failure to produce a male heir excuse isn’t going to fly in this day and age.
amk
aka another gobinment shut down
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Mitt Romney could have done it. /mormonpolygamyjoke
Cermet
So, Fed employee’s take another hit, yet again. Nice how Fed workers like thugs in congress hate all Fed employee’s but themselves … asswipes.
Baud
It is for this reason that I thought liberals bemoaning the sequester, while honest, was a
strategictactical mistake. If we had been cheering the military cuts the whole time, this may have ended a lot sooner.ETA: I always get strategic and tactical mixed up.
Mustang Bobby
Re: Obama and Castro — it was a handshake, not a hand job. Grow up, wingnuts.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: yeah. But try saying “thank god those unemployed aren’t getting extended benefits” and “head start? Good riddance!” I don’t think folks would find the outrage plausible.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I do love how the only consideration from the hard right on this is the Democrats don’t like it. Their entire theory of governance has degenerated down to being the political equivalent of on line game griefers.
I can see GOP tweets now:
“Budget sukz – were are the LUZ bro?”
tjmn
Military pension changes–my husband is going to retire in 18 months with 33 years in the Navy. I hope they don’t make the changes to be retro-active.
This will hurt recruiting and morale.
Schlemizel
I don’t know Patty but if Ryan is involved I have to assume this deal sucks large ugly goat balls.
Sure it saves the poor beleaguered military who has seen its budget devastated by all the previous cuts it has had to endure but it does so by fucking over retirees who have had it too good for too long. Lets all hop on board this brilliant plan.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Well, what you’d say is, “I don’t like the cuts to social programs, but it’s worth it to finally deal with our bloated military budget.”
But still a tough con to keep up.
OzarkHillbilly
Meanwhile, up in St Louis, somebody does the right thing. Not at all surprisingly, the individual at question is a man convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm while in the furtherance of a drug crime. He was facing 130 months in a Federal prison when he was accidentally released by local police. He turned himself in.
JPL
According to TPM Cruz walked out of the memorial service, while Castro was speaking. He knew that Castro was speaking so why did he attend the service, if he felt that strongly. His father was not jailed by Castro but by the Batista government, btw.
kindness
Are Democrats in Congress bad negotiators or are they pod people?
Frankly the pod people thing would be the only OK excuse.
Betty
Yeah, couldn’t put any more burden on the 1%, say with a tax on Wall Street trades, but can hit the little people with pension cuts and air travel fees. No one in Congress is on the side of the ordinary folks.
Baud
@Betty:
Ordinary folks need to stop voting for a party that refuses to raise taxes on the 1%.
OzarkHillbilly
@kindness: When negotiating with terrorists, one generally counts any result where the hostages survive as a success. This does not mean one forgoes bringing the terrorists to justice, just that it takes one step at a time. There is an election in 2014. GOTV.
Gypsy Howell
@JPL:
Aha. Now it all makes sense to me why Cruz would go to the memorial in the first place (I knew it couldn’t be African American outreach).
The ONLY reason he went was so he could walk out of Castro’s speech.
zattarra
Just saw Morning Joe and Senator Tom Coburn oppose the budget deal so I’m thinking it is probably an OK deal. The tongue job the Morning Joe folks were giving Sen. Coburn was pretty gross. Nichole Wallace is particularly shameless.
Kay
This is the bottom line:
During the shutdown fake-crisis, Murray’s overarching goal was to not let Republicans set a number lower than a trillion to start negotiations for a longer term budget. She wanted the Senate number, which was 1.058 trillion, and it looks like she got 1.014 trillion.
Napoleon
@Gypsy Howell:
That has to be it. What an a-hole.
Violet
Does anyone else use Yahoo Mail? I can’t access my email account at all–been a problem since Monday. Wasn’t a huge deal yesterday since I spent most of it in planes, but I still can’t access my Inbox today. I can log in okay, and my password must not be the problem because it knows it’s me when I log in. Just says my inbox is unavailable due to “Scheduled Maintenance”.
Both the Yahoo Mail Twitter and Facebook last posts are about this mail outage and judging by the number of comments under the Facebook one, a lot of people still can’t access their email. Yahoo claims you can access it via smartphone or tablet. Uh…no. This sucks.
Linda Featheringill
@Violet:
I can get into my Yahoo mail through my PC. I haven’t tried to send anything, but I can open messages to read them.
Good luck.
raven
@Violet: Yahoo report says it’s up.
Ash Can
Didn’t they have an agreement last time too? What are the chances of the House blowing this one up too?
Poopyman
@Baud:
They already did. That’s why voter turnout is so damned low.
Both sides!
Violet
@raven: Yeah, I’ve checked those too, but look at the user reports and you’ll see plenty of people can’t access it. Server being up isn’t the same thing as being able to access your mail.
If you check Yahoo Mail’s Facebook page, you’ll see their last post is about the outage and it’s up to almost 1,400 comments on that post. People can’t access their email and they’re pissed off.
Violet
@Linda Featheringill: Thanks. I think not everyone is affected, but for those who are. Grrr….
danielx
It’s fifteen degrees outside, and it’s supposed to be down to THREE degrees tonight. Tired of winter already, and technically it’s not even winter for another week and a half.
Baud
@Poopyman:
A Republican House tells me otherwise.
Botsplainer
@Violet:
That’s the thing about free email. It kind of blunts any whimpering when there is a screwup.
I generally laugh when I see lawyers with Gmail, ymail and hotmail accounts.
Paul in KY
@tjmn: Might need to speed up that retirement date. I certainly hope not, but you need to check out any ramifications.
Paul in KY
@Violet: Use Yahoo Mail. Accessed account this morn.
Violet
@Botsplainer: Yahoo has an annual fee option that offers more features. They’ve offered it a long time. A lot of people who are affected are paying customers.
lurker dean
@Violet: i’m a sucker who pays the annual fee, which i need for larger size attachments. more importantly, the little bit i pay gives me better standing to b*tch about service problems to them. i haven’t had any complete outages recently, but the recent update sucks. it’s 2013, yahoo, about time to get your email working. and it’s not just us having problems.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/no-one-at-yahoo-wants-to-use-yahoo-mail-1471217846/@maxread
C.V. Danes
Synopsis:
Republicans: We want to kick the poor.
Democrats: Can you compromise by wearing slippers instead of combat boots?
Republicans: Oh, all right!
Republicans and Democrats: Bipartisanship lives!
Jack the Second
I’m glad the one thing we could come together and all agree needed to be cut from the bloated defense budget was pensions, because, you know, to hell with veterans.
A trillion dollars for monuments, but not one red cent for pensions.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly: Well said.
Cervantes
@zattarra:
I agree, but she does occasionally amuse — as when, discussing her novel about a mentally ill vice presidential candidate, she said it was inspired by her experience on the McCain-Palin campaign.
MomSense
In case anyone else needs a mental health break this morning, here is a cute video of cats who have taken over the dog beds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovWqEtVVUFs
Dennis
Is there any remotely reasonable justification for funding general government spending with user fees on airline travelers? This is so broken.
Suffern ACE
@Dennis: well, they could try increasing the corporate tax rate, but since that isn’t likely in a budget bill, well have to settle on a tax of a service businesses use.
Dennis
@Suffern: User fees are an inequitable and inefficient way to raise money.
How about treating all wage and cap gains income equally for tax purposes? This would raise far more money and greatly simplify the income tax. Most abusive shelters figure out how to turn ordinary income into cap gains.
It is the ONE thing Reagan did right. And then Clinton undid it. Argggh!
Suffern ACE
@Dennis: the middle classes do not want to pay income taxes. Period. They do want the wealthy to pay higher income taxes. While its not efficient, a user fee on something like air travel avoids the political fallout from raising middle class income taxes.
Roger Moore
@Mustang Bobby:
Are you sure? I think we need a special prosecutor to investigate.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
So he could please his wingnut constituents by making a big show of walking out while Castro was speaking. SATSQ.
Cervantes
@Dennis:
On the one hand one could argue that the TSA budget ought to be funded by air-travelers (at the moment the “airport security fee” covers less than half of it).
On the other hand it’s true that the proposed increase in that “fee” — Ryan wants to pretend it’s not a tax — is to be deposited in the general fund — so that Ryan can pretend it will be used to reduce the deficit.
Dennis
@Suffern ACE: Actually, the proposal to treat cap gains like ordinary income has strong popular support.
See: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/poll-partisan-split-over-tax-policies/
By 54-36 percent, people polled favored cap gains be taxed either like ordinary wage income, or higher (2%, but I don’t support that position.)
We don’t have equal tax treatment because our representatives are more concerned about the views of wealthy donors than about anybody else.
catclub
@Baud: “I always get strategic and tactical mixed up.”
I bet is from a certain dingbat’s use of the word strategery. Or Will Ferrell is a genius.
catclub
@Cervantes: Airline passengers are well above average income.
Progressive taxation. I also have little problem with user fees for drawbridges.
Gypsy Howell
@Dennis:
It’s not even that complicated.
Where do you think most of their own income comes from?
beergoggles
“changes in federal employee and military pension programs. “ This is the kind of shit that makes me root for teabaggers to shut down government. Dysfunction is better than coordinated destruction.
tjmn
@tjmn: Might need to speed up that retirement date. I certainly hope not, but you need to check out any ramifications
I’m sure my husband is paying close attention to this. I am so tired of politics for the rich.
kindness
@Suffern ACE: Bullshit. I’m middle class and I have no issue with paying income taxes.
What I resent is people who make way more than me pay a lower rate.
LaserDLiquidator
I think paying taxes is a must;
and paying as low as you (legally) can is smart.
However – paying lower taxes “OFF” shore – is an absolutely Dumb, Dumb, Stupid program.
What “genius” decided to give incentive to take money OUT of the economy;
and reward parties for so doing?
Villago Delenda Est
Does this budget deal include the public beheading of the vile shitstain called Paul Ryan?
No?
Then it’s not acceptable.
That asshole’s head needs to be displayed on a pike.
Neldob
Why are these right wing extremists called “conservative”? Is this some kind of horrible joke? The last thing they are is conservative.