Because I keep seeing belligerent demands for the Democrat’s PLAN on Medicare cost control, I figure it’s time for a recap of the Medicare cost controls contained within the Affordable Care Act.
Here’s Ezra Klein, with an earnest and serious review:
Democrats don’t just have a proposal that offers a more plausible vision of cost control than Ryan does. They have an honest-to-goodness law. The Affordable Care Act sets more achievable targets, and offers a host of more plausible ways to reach them, than anything in Ryan’s budget. “If this is a competition betweenRyan and the Affordable Care Act on realistic approaches to curbing the growth of spending,” says Robert Reischauer, who ran the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995 and now directs the Urban Institute, “the Affordable Care Act gets five points and Ryan gets zero.”
The Affordable Care Act holds Medicare’s cost growth to GDP plus one percentage point, which makes a lot more sense. It’s the target Ryan’s Medicare plan originally used, back when it was called Ryan-Rivlin. But the target is not really the important part. The important part is how you achieve the target. And the Affordable Care Act actually includes reforms and new processes for future reforms that would help Medicare — and the rest of the medical system — get to where the costs can be saved, rather than just shifted.
Conservatives, you’ll all remember, were having some sort of nervous breakdown running around in circles and screaming at House members, so skipped the whole discussion.
I don’t know what that was all about, and I’m not sure why it’s the job of liberals to direct them to readily available information that was endlessly debated and discussed prior to passage, but what the hell.
When they ask, read this to them.
Just Some Fuckhead
ZOMFG! Death Panels! Soshulism! Big Government!
Kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
God. We have to relive that whole horror-show, and explain the whole thing again.
Do you remember how heavy it is?
I had put it behind me.
arguingwithsignposts
Because libs are the teachers in the classroom of life, and the
2 year oldscons can’t seem to remember 2+2=4, even though it’s written on the board.Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts:
Adjusted to reality. Even Fox reported at least some of the truth about what was in it.
jl
Very unfair to Ryan.
Since when is gradually killing off more and more old people because the value of their vouchers won’t keep up with health care inflation, or they can’t get a policy because they are high risk, or they have no bargaining power to get reasonable quotes for procedures, not a plan for controlling costs?
It sure as hell is a plan.
Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Edit: Actually, it is the best thought out plan in the whole proposal.
kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Too many pages!” Remember that?
I need flash cards.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kay: STOP TRYING TO KILL MY GRAMMA YOU HEARTLESS COMMIE!
Xecky Gilchrist
@Yutsano: You said it. This is part of the modern wingnut playbook – deny stuff that’s right in front of your face. e.g. “Why haven’t any Muslims denounced the 9/11 attacks” and “Why won’t Obama show his birth certificate”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jl:
I love the whole vouchers thing, BTW. I imagine they could be like trading cards old people could barter with in nursing homes and rec centers.
Yutsano
@Xecky Gilchrist: Sigh. It used to not be like this. Then they got a network that catered to their world view and the Internet allowed them to choose their information sources. We end up in a mishegas like this.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kay: The best part was the Democratic plan was “Okay Republicans, since you have enough money to kill anything sensible, we’ll pass the plan you and the health care industry wrote in 1994 as an alternative to ‘HillaryCare’.”
ZOMFG! Death Panels! Soshulism! Big Government!
Martin
@jl: True it is a solution. You know who else had a solution?
kay
Okay, Klein has given someone a good question for Ryan.
Now we just need an….interview.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Yutsano: True, but it’s not just choosing information sources. It’s that the news people report it as “some say that no Muslims have refudiated” etc. etc. or go with the wingnut version because they’re also wingnuts.
SBJules
I wondered when someone was going to bring up the law that lowers the debt and was actually passed! I don’t remember Sully getting the vapors over it.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“I’ll give you two hemiarthroplasties for an aneurysm coiling.”
“And the colonoscopy by the rookie GI doc?”
“And that.”
“Throw in the bubblegum and you got yourself a deal!”
sukabi
@jl:
they should just tack on some warehouse sized oven “retention centers” to complete their plan…
kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I looked for HillaryCare once, like 6 months ago. I found it, but I just got so exhausted reliving that horror that I couldn’t gather the strength or will to read it.
Andrew Sullivan was right in that mess too, promoting that horrible women with the big binder who later appeared in Obamacare.
I wonder how many times we have to do this.
jl
Speaking of lying, that brings up Mr. Speaker Boehner, who has been almost teary eyed in denying that goofus policy riders have anything to do with the deadlocked budget talks.
But Reid says ’tis so.
So who is lying, Reid or Boehner?
Well, Pence is loudly braying that if the Democrats want to shut down the government to protect federally funded abortions at Planned Parenthood, he will go ahead and shut it down himself, and the American people will know who to blame. (Not sure what the means, but it’s Pence)
And less reactionary and more reasonable GOPers (with political survival skills) are urging Boehner to drop the demand to defund Planned Parenthood.
And the GOPers hold a presser where no one is willing to even say the words ‘Planned Parentood’ despite repeated questions about it from the press.
(See today’s TPM for stories.)
I’d hate to think that nice Mr. Boehner would be lying (again). If he is caught out, maybe he will hold a press conference surrounded by dozens of women, and he will cry up a storm. That will fix it all up.
Call them all TeaGOPpers from now on.
If there is no deal and a shutdown, I think Obama should hold a press conference and ask that the House GOP elect a new Speaker they trust to do actually negotiate, or at least show up and state authoritatively that they will not negotiate on their demand to kill more women in this country through lack of access to decent medical care.
Bulworth
When am I submitting my Medicare cutting package? Never. Is that soon enough for you?
arguingwithsignposts
According to tweets read by The Somebody, there’s apparently some movement on the shutdown in the House. Reid has delayed a presser from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. i don’t have any further info, but it seems the assholes want to keep their powder at least a little bit dry.
kay
@jl:
I haven’t followed the shut-down fake-crisis, but I did today, and IMO they’re just a mess. They’re all over the place.
This isn’t going to end well for them.
Calouste
@jl:
—
Fix’t.
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay:
There is a percentage of Americans that is so deeply stupid that nothing will ever take hold. We know this – it’s the 27% or 28% number. The only thing that will ameliorate it is for another stalwart conservative like Bill Buckley to come along and marginalize them. We don’t have any chance of getting through to them because we are the enemy. It has to be someone on their own side who has enough money and stature to drown them out.
jl
@Calouste:
You are right. I was too fixated on the Ryan ‘first, kill all the elderly’ Medicare cost cutting plan, which will reach far up into the working and middle class in the old people that it gets rid off through preventable premature death.
eemom
sorta OT, but “there’s a law”-related, OMFG — check out the track record of the woman who “found” those 7,000+ votes in Wisconsin:
thenation.com/blog/159789/strange-politics-fitzwalkerstan-gop-clerk-finds-votes-reverse-defeat-conse…
All the other crazy shit has driven this out of the news today, but this should get really interesting.
Joel
sad news, looks like Prosser will retain his seat.
Martin
@jl: Well, when I saw Coburn telling Boehner to back down, that pretty much settled it for me. When the Oklahoma senators are tell you to back down on a culture war issue, then you’ve gone too far.
Boehner is totally full of shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
Exactly.
However, how does Boehner “back down” if the nutbaggers in his caucus won’t deal? Can he and Pelosi find a majority without them?
jl
@Martin:
I don’t think Boehner has control of his caucus. If that is the case, Coburn was really telling Boehner to do a deal, whether he had authority or not, and they will worry about scraping up the votes later.
If true, that would indicate total and complete disarray in the Congressional GOP.
General Stuck
The voucher mentality of the wingnuts is actually a fairly clever tool to dupe folks into thinking they can buy their way into a higher class of person. Especially when it comes to something like education, where I have heard even good liberals praise them as an extra ladder to climb the socioeconomic ladders to upper crust of American society.
Which means the republican, jeebus loving, mostly white affluent crust, at the expense of creating separate worlds between rich and poor, with separate truths, and separate solutions.
But extending this tactic to seniors is a bridge too far and laughably stupid and politically suicidal for wingers. Old folks don’t give a shit about what crust of society they are in, or were in. They are all in the same aging and leaky boat, kept afloat by the wonders of medical science and it’s jagged little pills.
When my granny used to get the local paper and immediately turn to the obit section, I would ask her wtf do you do that? And she would tell me, when you get my age, it’s the best place to find out what your friends are up to.
Seniors won’t do with tickets to their last hurrah’s. They just want to know whether they will suffer more or less in their final days. Anything that makes them spend precious energy on, like will my voucher cover this or that, or if it will run out, brings out the beast in them. And they will take no prisoners making it to the voting booth with a spring in their steps.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Yeah, it’s going to epic. I doubt the election will be resolved in time for anyone to take the spot on the bench on August 1.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Martin:
I don’t think this is Boehner. This is his caucus. Coburn can urge Boehner all he likes, but unless he can convince the Tea Party caucus to yield, it won’t help.
jl is right that we need someone from the House Republicans who can actually negotiate with the caucus behind him. The problem is that I don’t think that there is such a person. If you let the tea partiers do the actual negotiating, you’ll start to lose people in the center.
It’s a scary concept, but I think John Boehner is the best possible Republican spokesman at the moment.
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@jl:
Of course Boehner doesn’t have control of his caucus, but he’s talking to the press as though he does and that the problem is that Dems won’t deal. If it becomes clear that the problem was the House GOP (which is probably why he was demanding the full 218 on his side) then its game over – the Dems are going to roll them until 2012.
General Stuck
@eemom:
I read that earlier today. Can you imagine if the tables were turned, and it was a dem finding just enough extra votes to avoid a recount with this woman’s dubious past? Malkin would be screaching like a scalded dog to wake the dead..
Martin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
It is Boehner. If you can’t speak on behalf of your caucus, then don’t speak on behalf of your caucus. This is the big leagues.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@General Stuck: Fortunately, it wasn’t enough to clear 0.5% of the votes, so the state will be paying for a recount, pending any changes that come from recanvassing.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
so, what does that mean for the fate of Gov Kochsucker’s union-busting law?
MikeJ
@eemom: The woman who wrote her very own vote counting program in microsoft access?
PurpleGirl
@kay: …promoting that horrible women with the big binder who later appeared in Obamacare.
Ah, yes, her… Betsy McCaughey Ross (IIRC), former Lt. Governor of NY and shill for the medical companies among other wingnut institutions (Manhattan Institute and the Hudson Institute). She gets the credit for the term “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I get the feeling that Boehner really isn’t ready for prime time. He is not a wartime consigliere and, what is more, I think he knows it.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@eemom: But she’s not a Democrat is she. Luckily the people of Wisconisn are fired up enough that there will likely be a complete recount and auditing to make sure her numbers are accurate. The 29 hour wait after she discovered the error seems odd, to say the least.
jl
@Martin:
That Boehner was not in control, had been stripped of real negotiating authority, and was putting on a front has been exactly the impression I have gotten over the last day.
For sure this morning, when I hear Reid and the Democratic Senators very specifically, with no room for backtracking, pounce on the Planned Parenthood issue. Followed by vague teary gobbledygook from Boehner.
Pence’s hilariously incoherent brags, threats, whatever it was, later today was delicious icing on the cake.
I hope you are right that enough of the GOP will panic and blink that their political extortion plots will fail.
If this blows up in their faces, one would think they would learn something. But then people like Pence come to mind.
Let’s hope no shutdown, we don’t decide to kill more women through lack of access to medical care than we do now, and the GOP pays a political price both with its nut base and the independents. That would be best outcome.
Uloborus
Gosh! Are you saying that the ACA contains cost controls when people STILL show up here on a daily basis to assure us that it doesn’t? And it’s an expert economist like Ezra Klein saying it, who is considered an authority even by those people?
IMAGINE!
Ahem. Sorry. I just want people to remember that this article exists and Ezra’s list of cost controls the next time this comes up. Because it will.
General Stuck
@Martin:
I think Boehner is trying tightrope the explosive rifts now in his caucus. I suspect the majority of his caucus are really nervous about closing down the government over a social wedge issue, even if they believe in it.
But the 50 or so tea tards now there want the government to shut down, and always have, and have insisted on keeping these poison pill policy riders, especially PP in any deal, to either cause the dems to cave on one of their foundational issues, or more likely for the government to shut down.
Poor Boehner, the weasel has a tiger by the tail and is scared to let go, and just as scared to hold on to it. If he lets go, then those 50 votes cannot be counted on nor controlled by him into the future. And they are enough to block anything he tries to do that is sane. I think he would rather shut the gov down for awhile than face that prospect. But the more he feeds that tiger, the more it will demand in the future. The dem senate might as well go on vacation and remain in pro forma for the foreseeable future, because there will be little they can work with a House like the one we have.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: In my view, there is no way the case gets to the supreme court by August, even with an expedited schedule. The briefing schedule in the trial court doesn’t end until May 23. Link.
ETA: Hell, the defendants have not even filed an answer yet. The current fight is still over the TRO, whether some of the defendants are immune, and other preliminary matters.
sukabi
@Martin: not to mention that IT’S HIS JOB AS SPEAKER to speak for his caucus… where’s his whip to get his caucus in line?
it’s his job to push the cart of crazy to the checkout line… but he’s letting that one sticky, stubborn, non-cooperative wheel maintain control of the whole thing… if he can’t steer the cart, he needs to turn it over to someone who can…
FWIW, this is a good thing for the D’s and everyone else…
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@General Stuck: The reasonable or not-so-lunatic Republicans could try working out compromises with the Dems in the absence of Tea Party support. Okay, I don’t know the numbers in the House, but that could work.
Villago Delenda Est
@PurpleGirl:
The irony is, that’s exactly what her unholy masters would do (convene private commissions to allow some to die for lack of medical care, because it interferes with scared profit) and they most certainly would pull the plug on Grandma, for precisely the same reason.
magurakurin
@General Stuck:
All this is very true. And that is why the Brave Sir Ryan purposely left today’s old people out of the cuts. And if old people go for it, I say, Damn them, Damn them to Hell…
jl
The cheap two bit hood Johnny ‘Bones’ Boehner reminds me of one of those wise ass gunsels in a Bogart or Cagney movie that look like they own the place in the first scene, but are gone before the second reel. Or at least reduced to a humiliated gofer for some bigshot.
I can smell the old time copy now:
“It was a nice sweet ride while it lasted, eh Johnny?. But short, way to short for a class guy like you. Life just aint fair that way sometimes, Johnny, it just aint and that’s a crying shame.”
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: What’s the take in WI on this? The reports I have read suggest that the county clerk is clearly incompetent but the question of fraud seems more circumstantial than anything with real evidence.
General Stuck
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
It would seem that would be the only future path for the less insane wingers there to move to, in order to not become a completely irrelevant body of a House. The problem is the less insane wingnuts there, are still insane and nearly as far from reasonable as you can get without walking on knuckles full time, and the tea party has become strong enough to be an essential electoral force in the GOP. It is kind of fascinating, and will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Rock and a hard place for the GOP, And us, and the rest of the country itself.
MikeJ
@jl:
You think he’s gay?
Gunsel doesn’t mean gunman.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: Not to defend Boehner or anything, but would anyone be capable of successfully leading this particular GOP house anywhere but off a cliff?
sukabi
@jwb: how is being granted immunity on a previous voting case being “incompetent”? and that’s just ONE of her flaws…
jl
@magurakurin: If I were over 55, I would not bite. From what we have seen of the TeaGOPpers, you cannot trust them at ALL.
Cripes, sure, I would be guaranteed all sorts of stuff, today. The TeaGOPpers have been reckless and revealed too much of their methods. Too many people are thinking about ‘first they came for the DFH, and I said nothing…”
sukabi
@jwb: well they could employ the Delay method of control and use blackmail… I’m sure there’s lots in their dark, repressed closets they don’t want seeing the light of day…
jl
@MikeJ: I believe it means a small time criminal gunmen, in slang, who does whatever he is told. I looked it up once, for whatever that’s worth.
I think it is not baseless, since I have heard the word ‘gunsel’ applied that way in old gangster movies.
Might be a connection?
Anyone know?
Omnes Omnibus
@jwb: The Government Accountability Board sent people over to Waukesha today to start looking into it. Everyone that I have talked to is pissed and very skeptical. The timing, the contact with right wing bloggers before notifying the GAB, the convenient total, and the clerk’s history just make it look bad. I predict lawsuits, investigations, lawsuits about investigations, investigations about lawsuits, lawsuits about investigations of lawsuits….
OzoneR
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
There are 87 tea party members, perhaps 150 really, so that would work, except there’s probably 100 Dems who won’t vote for a budget with cuts, so now you’re fucked.
JCT
@General Stuck: This was the first thing I thought as well — just imagine the screaming (ACORN, Black Panthers, ahhh).
Meanwhile the shouting about voter fraud from the Republican side just melted away…. remarkable.
I’m not usually much of a conspiracy type — but gee, what a “coincidence” that the number of “found” ballots just seemed to hit the magic number that would require Kloppenburg to pay for the recall (though it looks like they just missed). Hmmmmm. Given this woman’s background, something is definitely fishy.
OzoneR
@jwb:
No, and I actually feel bad for Boehner. I think it’s going to end up being a disastrous Speaker and he knows it…and it isn’t even his fault
sukabi
@jl: gunsel
jwb
@General Stuck: I don’t know. Ever since the WI election, which showed me just how highly motivated the stupid remains, I’ve had a really bad feeling about this. I fear this shut down is going to happen, it is going to go on for a long, long time, and it may well take the debt ceiling with it.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
In other words, good pickens for shithouse lawyers.
MikeJ
@jl:
etymonline.com/index.php?term=gunsel
magurakurin
@MikeJ:
This is why I love this fuckin blog. I’m always lead down these crazy lanes and learn lots of interesting,if useless, shit.
Word Origin & History
DELETED see above…I was too slow, but interesting as hell
Calouste
@jwb:
Well, the turnout doesn’t seem to be significantly larger than the previous few elections in the same town. But the previous elections the same clerk was in charge. So it could be either no fraud or fraud that has been going on for quite a while.
General Stuck
@jwb:
Nothing will surprise me at what the GOP and it’s mad hatter tea party ally will wrought on all of us. Up to and including societal collapse. I think that is not likely, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it. If I had a ranch.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
oh stop….STOP. It’s too beautiful. Yer gonna make me cry.
Returning to your previous post — it sounds like the most pressing, practical real-world issue is whether the TRO will be converted to a PI and stay in place until the whole freak show is over….?
Status quo, baby. Status quo.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@sukabi:
I don’t think that there *is* anyone who can. That’s the problem. In a better governmental structure, they’d just split into two parties. Unfortunately, the way American institutions are set up, that’s not a viable option.
I’m increasingly of the opinion that the Founding Fathers made a mistake in setting up a presidential system and just got lucky for 225 years. Well, except for that one incident in the 1860s.
Valdivia
A million times what Kay said. Thanks so much for posting this, I’ve been screaming my head off saying to those idiots asking for an alternative that Obama’s alternative is already law, and CBO approved unlike the Ryan Fairytale.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: The clerk seems incredibly incompetent—so incompetent that I wonder if she would be capable of pulling it off, which suggests to me that if she did try something the fraud will show up almost immediately. Well, I assume we will be finding out soon enough—presuming an honest investigation is possible.
MikeJ
@magurakurin: And I hope that nobody thought I was being a dick about it. It wasn’t my intent.
Once I read that story it stuck in my head and that word pops out at me now. I knew there were word freaks here who might appreciate it.
eemom
@magurakurin:
hey, aren’t you the dude in Japan? How’re things with you and your family?
Mnemosyne
Geekery: if you wanted to continue the great B-J tradition of pop culture headlines, you could call this post “There’s A Law For That.”
This probably would have been funnier a bit earlier in the thread.
eemom
and as for Orange No-Boner, ya gotta totally know what he’s crying about — that he got his stupid ass into this high-stress gig in the first place, and he’s not sucking down martinis in a cool, dark, smoke-filled bar this Friday evening as the good Lord intended him to do. bwaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaa
sukabi
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): there used to be a seniority system in the senate / house, yes? The “veterans” would do the talking, and the freshman would learn the ropes and keep their traps shut until they had something real to contribute.
That seems to have gone out the door in the last election or 2… the freshman teabaggers are busy smearing their diapers all over the walls while their “parents” are standing idly by watching, or encouraging their behavior…
JMY
Anybody watching The Last Word? Wow…powerful.
sukabi
@eemom: +10 for finding the silver lining…. lol!!!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@sukabi: I’m good with the demise of the seniority system. I thought it did a lot more harm than good. Congressmen are elected to represent their constituents, and that’s what they should do.
I’m also not sure that the seniority system went all the way to corralling votes. Senior members were more effective at persuading freshmen, but that had at least as much to do with the fact that they were chairmen and could award more pork.
sukabi
@jwb: once is incompetent, she’s got quite the long history of this type of behavior… read the link I posted to you earlier… lots of information all sourced.
quit making excuses for her.
JPL
Boehner is missing happy hour because of his own incompetence. He did say he would not bring a bill before the House unless he could 218 republicans voted for it.
Elia Isquire
#winning…? :/
Mark S.
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
But Boehner loves his lunatics:
This was a couple days ago, so it might just be posturing. It’s a completely ridiculous manner of leadership.
Valdivia
Ezra did an interview with Rivlin yesterday and she totally evicerated Ryan and stood up for ACA. Worth a read.
Mark S.
@JPL:
Oh, I think our Speaker has provisions in case of such emergencies.
sukabi
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): that may all be true, but do you think anyone envisioned a bunch of barely literate, constitutionally illiterate, determined to drag us back to the 18th century — oh and while they’re at it, sell us all into slavery to the corporations — fanatics being elected in large numbers to either the house or senate?
at the very least there should be classes and tests for these bozos that they have to pass (ohhhh, standards testing) before they can muck up the works.
JPL
@Mark S.: I hope he doesn’t plan on get ice from the cafeteria this weekend.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: I would expect the TRO to become a PI following the hearing once the briefs are in. As you said, status quo.
Villago Delenda Est
@sukabi:
18th Century, my ass.
Try 12th.
JPL
OMG.. Boehner has already run out of ice..
The leadership meeting in Speaker Boehner’s office just broke up, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) told reporters that the entire House GOP conference will meet at 9:45 p.m. ET, presumably to discuss the pending budget deal, TPM’s Brian Beutler reports from the Hill.
I must credit TPM..
Mark S.
@Elia Isquire:
Wow, if that’s the final deal, the Dems got played.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@jwb: Funny how Republicans, who detest government, always manage to hire incompetent people to fill crucial positions. Almost like they need these bumbling idiots to make their pronouncements about government’s ineffectiveness and inefficiency come true. I keep wondering why they run for office at all; why become part of the government you claim to despise?
sukabi
@Villago Delenda Est: I was being generous…
MikeJ
It’s a pity we don’t have an open thread, or I’d ramble about how good Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night is with your second martini.
Since we don’t have one, you’ll be spared that.
sukabi
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): so they can destroy it, and pick the carcass clean. Haven’t you read the financial rags??? They’re always slobbering over the next disaster, beating off on how much “good this will do for the economy”… their personal economies is what they mean while they place their bets on which industries will clean up.
Valdivia
So actually closing the govt is better? Really?
Yutsano
@MikeJ:
Tough day?
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Actually, not too bad, for not having an active project. In other words, it should have been worse, but I decompressed. And try not to actually listen to the lyrics and just enjoy the groove, which there is aplenty.
stuckinred
@MikeJ:
Livin’ on the edge of night
You know the sun won’t go down slow
You don’t know which drug is right
Can’t decide which way you wanna go
I feel the way you feel
‘Cause not so long ago
It had a hold on me
I couldn’t let it go
It wouldn’t set me free
It wouldn’t set me free
No more, no more, no more.
General Stuck
@Valdivia:
Dems could not give up their golden eggs on policy, like defunding PP, nor messing around too much with the EPA,
Other than that, if the supposed new offer raises the dem number from 38 to 39 bill for a deal, then that is a little more than half way dems met wingers who were asking for 60 bill, and originally 100 bill they were demanding in cuts.
All the mental gymnastics by the FDL’s and those who only care about points scored or lost to the wingers will look at any compromise as a loss. But the cuts aren’t in crucial dem policy levels, and are minor when compared to an overall 3 trillion dollar budget. So to answer your question. NO, closing the government is not better, with all it’s unknowns, especially on the econ recovery Obama and dems are counting on continuing. But this is just a dustup to bigger fights in the near and extended future with the nihilistic GOP House of Reps. The fact is, they did win an election, so it is not out of bounds politically for dems to meet the GOP halfway, in a reasonable way.
MikeJ
Ok, I’m going back to St Etienne covers now.
MikeJ
@General Stuck: I really wish that Reid had said, hey, 99% of your stuff isn’t germane in a budget and therefore can’t go in a budget bill in the senate.
I would love to see germanitude (germanness? titoitude?) swung as a big axe, but both sides might suffer so I doubt it will ever happen.
stuckinred
There’s only a few hours left before all of America is plunged into John Boehner’s Pap Smear Armageddon or whatever, and Matt Yglesias has video of Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) straight-up poetry-slamming the House floor with the lyrics of “Effect and Cause” by the White Stripes?
Corner Stone
@Valdivia: Yes.
Valdivia
@General Stuck:
Thanks for that answer. I just think all day today the Reps were getting ripped and they backtracked. I’m glad the shutdown won’t happen.
Corner Stone
With the extension of the Bush Tax Cut Deal for everyone, and now this “deal”, we’ve ceded the floor to the Republicans.
Tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for the poor. That’s what makes a budget purr.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Nothing else could be done.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
I can’t help but think you’re the exact kind of person who trumped the “devastating and extreme economic and employment consequences” of the GOP’s $100B cuts plan, but will now be mysteriously mum about the consequences of the super duper administration-approved $79B cuts plan.
Hmm. Curious.
General Stuck
@Valdivia:
I wouldn’t yet count on a shutdown not occurring, the GOP is going to be split on this thing, and who knows what will happen. Cornerstone is whackjob, but you may already know that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bob Loblaw: You just gotta give it to Jesus when it comes to Stuck. He’s a fucking idiot and he ain’t changin for you.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
You are the stoopid motherfucker recommending cutting off poor folks from food stamps and welfare in Appalachia, so don’t you fucking dare lecture me on consequences of cutting services to the poor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: Where do you get $79 billion? 39 is the number I have seen.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Look what crawled from under the rock. Horowitz democrat fuckhead. Dumb as a brick of shit.
You loblaw and cornerstone have enough for a threesome circlejerk tonight. Show us what you got.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
He’s been reading the pretzel logic of the mental giants over at FDL, or some other fetid left wing fever swamp. They have their own numbers, like Malkin does.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: What were we supposed to do? The maths demanded it!
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
There was already $40B “cut” between the 2010 and 2011 FYs. So the GOP offer was a new $60B (2011) + $40B = $100B overall.
The compromise plan is thus $39 + $40B = $79B.
So either 79/100 or 39/60, both are valid frameworks/comparisons. You can use one or the other.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Nothing is possible. You remember how impossible everything was when Democrats controlled the entire legislative branch and the executive branch?
It only got more unpossible when Democrats lost one portion of that.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Always so angry.
I don’t give a shit about point scoring. You want to declare victory at every turn, go right ahead. I’m just pointing out the inconsistency.
If the GOP’s preferred plan is economically ruinous, at the potential cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs (according to public and private forecasters), then a compromise plan that comes in at 65-75% of that, it should be seen as 65-75% as ruinous. Which seems a rather ill advised outcome.
jl
@MikeJ:
@MikeJ:
Thanks. Mystery solved. I stand corrected.
“The cheap two bit hood Johnny ‘Bones’ Boehner reminds me of one of those wise ass gunman…”
My apologies to Johnny Bones (not that there is anything wrong with that), the penny ante ward heeler.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Don’t confuse dismissal and dislike for anger. And I don’t know which GOP plan you are talking about. What we are dealing with tonight is haggling over a few billion dollars to keep the government running for a few months and not shutting down. If you are talking about the wingers new budget plan, then that is another topic than this one. Those are future fights.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: I see.
At this point, I would not count on any agreement being approved by the teahadists. I still would not be surprised at all if the shutdown happens.
jl
If there is a deal for no shutdown, and the GOP gets caught out in disarray, with their House leader bald face bad faith lying, and the House GOP caucus ready to shut down the federal government to deny women access to health care, it will be one of those tactical wins that the beltway press just loves to slobber over.
But, I agree, the hit on fiscal stimulus is not something we can afford. It will be another hit pushing the economy to a double dip recession (or at least a double dip employment recession).
Suffern ACE
@General Stuck: Oh it is getting hard to keep these things straight. I keep forgetting that once this is done, Congress next needs to take up the 2012 budget. Or is this the 2012 budget. Or the debt ceiling.
General Stuck
Actually, I am not that kind of person. I am the person that recognizes the wingnuts won the last election and elections have consequences, and them demanding an amount for cuts, and dems responding with a figure, the one I already used at the 39/60 bill ration, that meets about half way, is the way a democracy is supposed to work. Compromise in a democracy is a feature, not a bug. Just so long as is reasonable compromise. Defunding PP was not reasonable, and was ideological, not budget related.
General Stuck
@Suffern ACE:
It’s the debt ceiling in late May or early June, though they will also be dealing with the 2012 budget as well. But it won’t be the next Waterloo slugout until the next fiscal year rolls around. We may be in trench warfare by them, or hording hardtack in our personal bunkers. Who knows?
eemom
@General Stuck:
Good General. If you keep that shit up fuckie and stoner are gonna have to break out the Viagra way earlier than they usually do.
Elia Isquire
Yeah, I’m sorry but I’m not buying the argument that this was a good showing by the Dems because the gov’t didn’t shut down — it’s a false choice. And I’m especially less inclined to listen to it when it’s part and parcel of an argument that states that by definition FDL must be wrong about everything. I don’t think they’re worthless just because I often disagree with them…
This reminds me a lot of the tax cut “deal.” I don’t know how many times Obama’s going to fail to handle a clearly looming issue, then scramble at the end and pull out a bad compromise instead of a terrible one, and argue that this is an example of political skill or fealty to the principles of democracy (puh-leaze). I acknowledge that in a large sense all subsequent fuck-ups have flowed from the enormous fuck-up that was November 2010, but it still seems to me like the White House — despite its spin — is just never-ever-ever planning ahead.
OzoneR
who was out demanding Congress vote on his tax cut plan in September 2010?
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
No, it isn’t. If one side is pushing a policy proposal that is empirically wrong, pushing a counterproposal that is fractionally less wrong isn’t sensible at all. It’s still wrong. The point is to push a counterproposal that is right, defend it, believe in it, sell it with everything you’ve got, and force the inevitable compromise as close to your values as is humanly possible.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR:
Who?
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw:
Is the budget the President agreed to going to cost jobs? Yeah probably, but it wasn’t the budget Democrats would’ve passed if Republicans didn’t have the House, as can be seen in the previous two budgets.
Midnight Marauder
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
If it is his caucus, then this is Boehner.
I do not remember a time when the actions of Pelosi’s caucus did not reflect on her leadership abilities.
Mnemosyne
@Elia Isquire:
I’m really not sure how you’re supposed to plan ahead for Republicans to decide to completely defund Planned Parenthood and the EPA. Be honest — did you really think that even the teabaggers would be so crazy as to shut down the entire federal government over birth control and clean air?
I blame the Democratic idiots in Congress who insisted that not passing a budget would help their re-election for this ungodly mess. If they had done their fucking job, we wouldn’t be having to make these stupid deals. Unfortunately, per the Constitution, the executive branch can submit a budget, but if the House and/or Senate balk, it’s not like the executive can just implement it anyway. Congress holds the purse strings in our system.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Well, you and I agree that the policy proposals the wingers have are very wrong, but our democracy runs on one man one vote as a general principle for elections and governance. The way to win over the wrongness of your opponents position is to convince more citizens to cast their votes with your version of good policy. The other side won the last election and has some pol capital. The fact that you and I know they are full of shit, does not change that reality. And all of this is set against the backdrop of our swing voters who do expect dems to compromise, and they will likely be deciding the next election. It is a dynamic, not a power play, unless you don’t care about what your audience thinks, the voters.
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
This guy
cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/15/politics/main6869842.shtml
blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/09/president-obama-on-the-tax-cuts-wrestling-match.html
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw:
In a democracy, it doesn’t matter what’s right or wrong, it matters what the people want, and the people register what they want through the votes.
The people voted for “wrong,” so they’re going to get some level of “wrong” If they don’t like or regret what they voted for, they can register their dislike in the next election.
I’m not a big fan of democracy either.
Elia Isquire
I can respond to Mn now while I read Ozone’s cited piece: yes. I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to think otherwise, but from the start I thought the Tea Party group was going to go for a gov’t shutdown; and while I didn’t think that, specifically, PP and the EPA were going to be put under the gun, I did imagine they were going to do everything they possibly could to take us to or over the brink.
I don’t think they’re all chuckling or anything, though, cause I’ve heard that Boehner’s having to sell them pretty hard on it. I just think they’re honestly super, super, super fucking extreme — and they also think they have this enormous mandate to basically undo liberalism entirely.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: Well I’m godsdamned sorry that guy then made a deal for the Bush Tax Cuts to be extended for all brackets.
Crying fucking shame, that is.
Elia Isquire
@OzoneR: This isn’t really an accurate depiction of that whole series of events.
Pelosi wanted to have the vote in the summer — before it got so close to November that nothing whatsoever would get done in the House. Hoyer didn’t want to because he thought the Rs would use it to portray the Dems as class warriors (that’s the most generous assessment of his motivations).
If I recall, the White House came down on Hoyer’s side, not Pelosi’s. I don’t think it’s because Obama didn’t think letting them expire was a good idea; I just think he seems congenitally unwilling to ever initiate a confrontation.
Corner Stone
@Elia Isquire: Nick doesn’t exactly do “accurate”. He has an agenda.
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
Yes, it is a crying fucking shame that his “allies” in Congress told him to go fuck himself. Too bad those conservative bastards Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold were too chickenshit to raise taxes on the rich right before the election, but that’s Obama’s fault.
Elia Isquire
whitehouse.gov/live?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
He’s talking soon, apparently. Over/under on references to suffrage/abolition movements: 1.5
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire: Wow, this is the first time i ever heard this sequence of events. The WH didn’t want a vote in the summer, but did in September? Really? You got proof on that or is that just another story some nut is telling to not have to admit he actually did fight for something and then lose.
The vote never too place because the votes weren’t there in the caucus, specifically in the Senate because all 41 Republicans promised to filibuster a bill that didn’t extend the tax cuts. Pelosi even admitted this later on.
The propensity for the left to rewrite history is astounding.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: Yeah, it’s too fucking bad the tax cut deal came from the WH.
Bob Loblaw
@OzoneR:
Seriously, why are you posting as OzoneR now?
Did you really think avoiding the phrase “center right country” would be enough to throw us off the trail? That your distinctive emo disdain for democracy would go unnoticed?
For fuck’s sake, you’re a child.
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
After several months of fighting for ANOTHER deal that Congress refused to vote on.
OzoneR
@Bob Loblaw: Excuse me?
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: Nobody made him do it. Fuck you Nick. Obama sold that tax cut deal and there is no re-writing it.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@eemom:
sometimes, i think, you hate men.
Elia Isquire
@OzoneR: I don’t think you’re actually interested in having a discussion so much as yelling at people for noticing that the President is fallible, too. But I’m glad we’re having this conversation, because I think in general we’ve moved this comment thread onto more earnest ground.
Mnemosyne
@Elia Isquire:
Until the past couple of months, I didn’t think they would tackle it immediately. I thought they would wait for the debt ceiling to go balls to the wall on a shutdown. I also thought they would stick to their usual budget shenanigans and not start demanding that entire departments be defunded (other than the new stuff like ACA or consumer protection).
But once we had the new Republican governors marching in lockstep to kill unions, that was when I started to get a really bad feeling about it.
You recall incorrectly, but Hoyer had the support of the Blue Dogs and managed to wrangle a majority to his side, so he got his way.
ETA: I don’t think the president is infalliable, but I get annoyed when his critics seem to think that they are. As soon as someone (not you) says, “It was all so simple …” I know I can tune them out.
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire:
The President is fallible…he wasn’t on the tax cuts. The problem is the left criticizes him when he doesn’t deserve to be criticized.
The guy went out and made the argument for ending tax cuts on the rich and it went nowhere. He did exactly what the left asked him to do. It didn’t work.
Criticize him when he deserves it, don’t rewrite history to make him look bad because you can’t accept he lost. It’s just disgusting
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
Yes he did, and it was the right thing to do after fighting a gallant effort to end them for the rich.
And end this obsession with this Nick person you petty piece of shit.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: WTF? Obama started from “I promise MC tax cuts will be delivered. No matter what.”
That left him and us in a bit of a bother.
You’re a disingenuous fool Nick.
Elia Isquire
@Mnemosyne: Indeed I did. Thanks for the link. Our man Steny….
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: Nick, that’s what you consider a “gallant effort”? Gah.
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
Yes he did, because that’s the right thing to do. You wanted him to use the middle class as a political pawn? Funny how suddenly “Democrats should care about the middle class” goes out the window.
You know there are people who think Democrats care more about fucking the rich than helping the middle class and that’s why they vote on abortion.
Elia Isquire
@OzoneR: I misremembered. I’ve not yet found out how to rewrite history to my liking, although I am working on it. When wikipedia tells you that David Brooks left the NY Times in 2003 to work as a Llama herder in southeast Asia and was never heard from again, you’ll know I’ve succeeded.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR: How bout not tipping everything? Damn you’re a fool Nick.
The fucking R’s just played the entire string out. Fucking A!
Yutsano
@Elia Isquire: Just promise me that you will always use your powers for good. That’s all I ask.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@sukabi: Late getting back, but, yes, I think that that’s exactly what the Founders were afraid of. Hence their discomfort with letting the proles vote. I think they misidentified the most likely source of yahooism, but they did understand the problem.
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire: I’m honestly interested in what made you “misremember” that because I wasn’t suggesting that you rewrote history, but that someone else did and you just assumed it the source was factual.
Like how many times I hear my family say “but I saw on Fox News…”
Elia Isquire
@Yutsano: I can do this, provided we both agree on which side of the ledger Billy Joel can be found.
BTW: the Twitter tubes are telling me that Boehner’s not going to get the 218 R votes he wanted. I’m going to be really interested to see how the more die-hard Tea Partiers react to this…
@OzoneR: I was remembering Josh Marshall’s kvetching in the weeks leading up the House’s punt, which makes me look all the worse, really, since the source used to correct me was TPM. I should’ve just googled it before chiming in, but I’m a blogger and we don’t *do* like self-reflection.
Suffern ACE
@Elia Isquire: Please. Think of the children. You don’t want them growing up with a false fact like there’s llamas in SE Asia. Bison. He’s there raising bison.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
Shouldn’t it be yaks or qiviut in SE Asia? Or the ever popular angora goat that gives us cashmere?
Why, yes, I do knit, why do you ask?
OzoneR
@Elia Isquire: In fairness, i find the TPM bloggers often end up contradicting themselves. I follow Josh and Brian on Twitter and they have a nasty habit of speculating.
Elia Isquire
@Suffern ACE: Whatever — one of dem non-America/socialist mammals.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Mmm…yak butter. Can the massive digressions I see roaming about signal we needz open thread plz?
@Elia Isquire: I am a Billy Joel agnostic, so I’ll just crib on that point.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Bob Loblaw:
Stuck may not have been, but I was. Unfortunately, the choice wasn’t between a budget that cut $69 billion and one that didn’t cut anything at all. It was between a budget that cut $69 billion and the entire federal government shutting down. How much stimulus do you think that would have pulled from the economy? I figure it would take less than a week for it to exceed $69 billion.
How much stimulus were you prepared to sacrifice in order to protect $69 billion worth? Of course, some of the answer depends upon just what the cuts are. That was a significant part of the fight, though it got lost in the talk about the riders. I haven’t seen any enumeration of what they are. I’m pretty sure you haven’t either. That’s a key element in figuring out just how much stimulus was lost.
Corner Stone
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): What do you think is going to happen next?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Corner Stone: As I said in the other thread, I expect pretty much the same thing is going to happen. But a refusal to compromise wouldn’t have improved our negotiating position for the next time, since too many of the Republicans don’t see a failure to reach an agreement as the worst possible outcome. They have (or at least, don’t believe they have) any incentive to move from their original position. The next time, our choices will be to compromise a lot, or see them refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and those would have been our choices no matter what approach we took this time.
magurakurin
@eemom:
Thanks for asking. We are all fine as we live in Southwestern Japan. Me and my wife actually spent the last two weeks in Italy. We had had a trip planned for nearly a year, but we did feel a bit strange leaving when we did. We nervously tried to gather news when we could on the road.
Things are moving back to normal in Japan, if slowly. TV at least is back to normal. There is an anger simmering though below the surface towards Tokyo Power and when things are finally under control there it isn’t going to be pretty for them. Nobody is in the mood for forgiveness or bygones. Nuclear power is probably going to go into decline here, but it will be a slow transition I’m afraid.
There are lots of very touching stories still appearing on the news that has everyone choking back tears over the dinner table. Most recently two junior high school students from Fukushima entered a school in Osaka and they were greeted warmly at the opening ceremony of school. The brief greeting that one of the students gave to them was very touching. So, hope is shining through quite strong in spite of all the troubles. The Japanese are a hardy lot and it will take a lot more than the the biggest tsunami evah to knock them out.
thanks again for asking(even if this thread is more or less played out)
eemom
@magurakurin:
thanks for answering! Glad all is well with you, and it is great to hear that testament to the spirit of the Japanese people.
Just Some Fuckhead
You trying to look like a real human being and make friends, eeemom? Totally weirded me out.