Like clockwork, the self-important “pragmatists” in the Senate are banding into their little gang so they ride to the “rescue” and save us from ever having to decide something on principle. Then they clap themselves on the back for it!
You can read it yourself, or you can trust that I’ve pulled the most important bit, here:
As it would take time to enact such changes, the plan calls for an immediate $500 billion in spending cuts, something both Conrad and Coburn called “a downpayment.”
Tax increases, a ridiculously modest cut to spending (below what the “one-time” stimulus payment now factored into every budget has already added), no real reform of any kind, and promises to cut more in exchange for permission to grant yourself $2.5 trillion in new spending. Yeah, that’ll fix shit!
As folks like Mike Lee are trying to affect real change, professional Senators keep selling us down the river and congratulating themselves for doing so. They’ll smile and tell us that because both sides are unhappy, they’ve reached a good “compromise.” The stark difference between the Tea Party lawmakers and establishment Republicans couldn’t be any more clear.
It’s revolting, and it’s high time we picked up pitchforks and tar buckets.
(h/t sdferr)
****
update: you know you’ve got a real winner for the American people when a Marxist is praising it. And why is he praising it? Because the spending will keep going, the borrowing will keep happening, and the promused cuts will never come. As you’d think these GOP lifers would have learned by now.
Spit.
****
More, from Doug Ross.
I don’t understand how this addresses America’s dangerous and growing corporate jet problem
Dan Mitchell at Cato takes a look at what he knows of the Gang’s plan, concludes:
Fuck them.
it’s Obama’s America anymore but it’s the children what I fear for most
from Mr. sdferr’s link
wtf in the name of all that’s holy does that mean? The cowardly fuckspittles what ran social security into the ground are targeting 401Ks next?
better and fucking better
this is bullshit America is too effing gay NOT to default I think
I heard Mark Stein speak today of the need to repeal the 17th, because of the Imperial nature of our Senate. We cans trade that one for a shiny, new Balanced Budget Amendment?
These fucks are teaching us to actually like the idea of default. It’s hard to believe but somehow inexorable.
Coburn: “So it’s agreed? Every third deck chair should be moved 1/8 of an inch closer to the rail, and turned five degrees more toward the stern. That should send a very definite signal to all that frigid water rushing into the lower decks that we’re serious about saving this ship.”
link
It’s a shame that the cuts part of this is the usual, “we’ll get to it later, promise…”, since the tax reform part of the package doesn’t look bad at first glance. I personally have heard that tune too many times in my life, and lived through the double-crosses of 1986 and 1990.
But I’m still digesting the entire thing. It is strange though that Coburn would sign on to this a day after putting forth his own plan. According to the Hill, this is causing McConnell’s idea to fade from the Senate’s mind, which should count for something at least.
If they’re only cutting it 500 billion to start, why not only raise the limit as much as is cut. Think of it as benchmarks to achieve, like in a construction project. Raise the limit equal to the amount that’s cut each time.
Well, now I’m more skeptical, since The Won is praising it so
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59377.html
I wonder what DeMint thinks?
Why is Coburn supporting this? I thought he was supposed to be staunchy.
I thought the same Squid. Perhaps it’s because of the tax reform element. That part at least sounds like it might be good for the economy, macroscopically. But the debt increase might wash that, so to speak.
I’m still digesting it.
No matter what I think the Senate should be forced to vote on the House proposal, CC&B.
Minor cuts today, tax increases today, and promises for gimmick cuts in the future that will never happen. No thanks.
How much savings could they realize if they simply removed the one-time temporary “stimulus” from the baseline of budgets going forward?
I cannot stand these people.
Amend congressional retirement plans. But what am I thinking.
This opening paragraph at Daily Kos fits:
Me, I was only there because they had this link to the Executive (5 page pdf) Summary.
doctor okietard better keep his goddamn hands off my 401k is all I’m saying
i sense an interesting mark levin rant this evening
I was thinking the same thing, newrouter.
Here is all they say in the summary ‘feets.
the whole of the tax section seems to have internal contradictions.
so… they lower the maximum contributions maybe?
that’s brilliant the less people invest today while the greedy boomer parasites are busy disinvesting the faster our failshit economy can hollow out and we can all fulfill our destiny of sucking chinese ass from here to eternity
I sure hope the House tells him and the Senate where to stick it.
$3 trillion tax hike.
This type of gang is far more corrosive to America than the average street gang.
That it does:
Let’s pass it to know what that means.
Once clearly out of the messy little arena of cause and effect — and for that matter, what shit means — there’s nothing we can’t do. Together.
Moody’s will be so very pleased we might get a certificate with a scratch n sniff sticker!
Yep, as soon as I heard that Captain Hopenchange was saying good things about it I knew that the Gang of Six/Seven/Whatever plan was a hand grenade of FAIL.
We’re boned.
Yay!
Defense seems to be the only component of the budget where liberals are willing to make actual cuts.
if we’re truly truly committed to being a dirty socialist leg-humping backwater than we don’t need superpower toys anymore Mr. Howard
and I think we are
They’ll smile and tell us that because both sides are unhappy, they’ve reached a good “compromise.”
One side wants to build a bridge across the river and the other side does not, so they compromise and build a bridge halfway across.
And install a trebuchet on the other side to launch the cars a half-league past the shore.
Brilliant.
Now feets, we’re just evolving from a warring culture to an services-centric utopian civilization and monies just had to be reapportioned. It had to happen sooner or later.
Nothing good happens when you get too big for your boots, happy.
never trust a dame named Laurence
Mr. Howard we coulda been a contender
It seem more along the lines of a conception of some ideas that may lead to a plan for a bill. Everything is turned over to various committees to put the flesh on their “high concept” skeleton. Then if they can’t a special committee will be set up to do what the real committee couldn’t. Grinding some bad sausage they are.
Which is all just a bunch of sleight of hand…how stupid do they think we are? Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical.
What you got against bankrupt, decaying, post-industrial shitholes run by progressive oligarchies, feets? Fused at the hip to capitalist dependents willing to sell their souls in exchange for their special dispensations?
Liberty
iswas so over-rated.link
Obama and Coburn are friends.
And Obama gets what he wants.
Ruling class vs. the rest of us. Grab your pitchforks or grab your ankles. Your choice.
Leadership:
[Not] PRESENT!
use squid™ pitchforks and feathers
Grab your pitchforks or grab your ankles.
Laws have to be enforced, even the bad ones. We’re at the point where “you and what army” is the best response to Washington.
Evabody secede from Washington, is what I say. The feds can sit there next to their paper leviathans with their teeth in their mouth and just try to collect all them taxes.
and you dumb-ass failshit whored-out-to-the-Chinese Americans wonder why you ain’t got no jobs
i’m voting for the rents too damn high guy
Whizzerville. Gold!
oh
no
You want clarity?
Michael Medved is giddy with delight that the GOP is “doing what the public wants, that Congress members actually work together”
v
Hugh Hewitt is spitting mad that the GOP is about to be “had” again by their own pramatists … “there are no specifics, nothing written down and tax hikes are looming for some idiotic promise of ‘down payment'”
Really … Medved wants pragmatism, optics and process v Hewitt saying ENOUGH already!
Karen Tumulty is excited Darleen.
I expect that means she must imagine she can see a path to Obama’s reelection.
That is the special deluxe feature, not some lousy unplanned bug.
For anyone who has read Larry Niven’s “Ringworld”, Obama is the “Hindmost”.
i’m voting for the rents too high guy and i’m
wearing purple sneakers
CCB passed, 234-190. Nine R’s voted no, five D’s voted yes.
Medved’s a ruined third-rate thumps-up-my-ass pbs movie shilling whore. Turn off the radio, for christ’s sake
Thumps? thumbs?
toe maa toe? toe ma toe?
From your link, sdferr:
My emphasis.
Myself, I thought this had already happened with Obamacare. I suppose they might have forgotten.
Just once though, I’d like to hear that math and reality forced the cuts in one of these programs. Sure, some people agitated more strongly for paying attention to math and reality than others but they were really more messengers than actual causes.
Where all the mushrooms at?
ol’ man river
‘dat ol man river
he mus know sumptin
but don’t say nuthin
he jes keeps rollin’
he keeps rollin along
Cooking is on topic.
Heh, I declare that it has always been, Geoff.
Allegories. Wrapped in an mystery.
For anyone who has read Larry Niven’s “Ringworld”, Obama is the “Hindmost”.
Yes, and good god, I almost spit my wine onto the monitor.
steph
I like to keep tabs on people I don’t agree with
It’s better than you think.
Reading their little ‘Plan’ you will find that SS will not only not be cut or made solvent in some manner but will be saddled with a MINIMUM BENEFIT of 125% of poverty level.
And that proposed change to the COLA benefit increases will not take effect for 5 years.
Yeah, THAT’S how you cut spending and reduce the deficit.
No wonder Oba Won Kenyobi is in favor.
It’s nice to know we can always count on some RINO to sell out the conservatives and the country when the chips are down and we’ve got the Dems backed into a corner.
I just wanna know in what town square the militia is gonna assemble, and what gun to bring.
Medved thought he recovered from the liberalism of his youth.
Apparently, he’s still got a bit of the fever.
“JD posted on7/19 @ 4:03 pm
This type of gang is far more corrosive to America than the average street gang.”
This ain’t no street gang, it’s a flash mob.
“happyfeet posted on7/19 @ 4:42 pm
never trust a dame named Laurence”
Or one named “stanley”, for that matter.