What’s left to say, really?
The bipartisan House-passed Cut, Cap, Balance bill remains the only plan on the table, the only one that preserves our AAA rating, and is only four Democrat votes away from a Senate majority to end this debt crisis,” said Senator DeMint. “I will work to force another vote on Cut, Cap & Balance next week because the President and Democrats have not offered the American people any other viable solution.
“It is outrageous that every Senate Democrat voted against even allowing a debate on balancing the budget within 10 years, a plan supported by two-thirds of Americans with wide support across all party lines. Why are Senate Democrats so afraid to debate a balanced budget? Cut, Cap, Balance is the compromise plan that passed the House and can end the wasteful spending that caused this debt crisis. It gives the President the debt limit increase he has asked for in return for immediate spending cuts, enforceable spending caps, and a constitutional amendment to force Washington to stop spending more than it brings in.
“The President and Democrats have been beyond reckless in this debate, refusing to offer any serious solution to our fiscal crisis. The only plan the President has offered would increase our debt by $10 trillion and push our nation into bankruptcy.
“I urge Republican leaders to stop letting the President to drag you back like children into secret meetings where he pretends to do something constructive. The President created this crisis by irresponsible spending and borrowing that has left our economy in shambles, and if he’s unwilling to simply agree to balance the budget in 10 years then he is not a credible negotiating partner.
“No more closed door meetings, no more phony compromises that don’t solve the problem, no more useless commissions. We have a balanced approach supported by a bipartisan House majority that ends our debt crisis if just four Senate Democrats would keep their promise and support a balanced budget.
“We must pass Cut, Cap & Balance to keep our nation from falling off a fiscal cliff.”
We can help by sending that CNN poll, appended to or referenced directly in an email or letter, to every one of our elected leaders and legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike.
I would make a special plea to send it along to Boehner with your insistence that he not cut another deal — that CCB is the only plan that meets the dictates from Moody’s and S&P, and it is the only plan that addresses the root of the systemic problems with government that have threatened literally to destroy our country and turn it into just another big government soft socialist backwater. And it’s happening on his watch.
(h/t Pablo)
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update: Here’s a bit of what Senator Michael Bennet, a phony “fiscally responsible” Dem from Colorado, sent me in reply to my last note:
Extending the debt limit is not an issue that I take lightly. Congress must demonstrate a commitment to debating and passing a comprehensive deficit reduction plan. And the debt limit issue is one of several that present a good opportunity for Congress to act on our long-term fiscal health. Congress owes it to our kids and grandkids to seize this chance to put the country on a sound fiscal path.
Some of my colleagues have asserted they will oppose extending the debt limit no matter what. Others argue that they could only support extending the debt limit if it is accompanied by a deficit reduction proposal that they also support. I believe we have to do both — pay our obligations and protect the full faith and credit of the United States, and also enact meaningful, comprehensive and bipartisan deficit reduction.
In this spirit, I am committed to working with anyone to ensure our nation has a sustainable and secure economic future.
Well, anyone but the House, Senate Republicans, and two-thirds of the American people, you mean.
You lying shit sack.
I’m going to help hang this vote around your neck, brother. Bank on it.
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update 2: Andrew Stiles, The Corner:
Shortly after the Senate voted to kill “Cut, Cap and Balance,” Harry Reid announced that the he would not, as previously planned, keep the Senate in session over the weekend, citing the apparent progress in negotiations between President Obama and John Boehner.
Reid also suggested that the contingency plan he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) had been discussing was no longer necessary because of these developments. “It looked earlier this week like the Senate would have to originate the legislation perhaps as soon as today to avoid default,” he said. “During the course of the week, circumstances have changed. The Speaker of the House and the President have been working to reach agreement on a major deficit-reduction measure. I wish them both very well.”
Because the package under discussion includes tax increases as well as spending cuts, Reid claimed, and due to the Constitutional requirement that all revenue bills originate in the lower chamber, “the path to avert default now runs first to the House of Representatives…We in the Senate must wait for them.”
Reid said he expects “all kinds of meetings going on” over the weekend, barely able to contain his bitterness for being left out of the negotiations.
Prate on Senator, prate on.
In other news, two bombs at gubmint buildings in Oslo, plus terrorists dressed as police open fire at a youth camp in Utøya, 50km outside Oslo.
Norway twibbons available here: http://twb.ly/omHVEW
In this spirit, I am committed to working with anyone to ensure our nation has a sustainable and secure economic future.
I think he just invited you to come over for a chat. I hope his staff know how to make a decent cup of coffee; I suspect you might be there a while.
Shorter Reid: “We killed the bill the House sent to us. Now the onus is on the House to send a bill to us.”
Congress must demonstrate a commitment to debating and passing a comprehensive deficit reduction plan ..So today I voted to NOT debate the only comprehensive deficit reduction plan in sight. In fact not just a plan, compromise, final legislative language bill on the table, already passed by the House.
Doublethink? I guess if you do it long enough and the cognitive dissonance fades to just a tiny whisper….
A possibly more direct link to the Speaker’s Office.
Here’s another American’s For Prosperity E-mail campaign: Cut Spending Now!
I wonder whether David Mamet wrote the line “And then what are you prepared to do?” and if he did, what he thinks of it now? Shouldn’t we be asking it of Boehner, seeing who it is he’s dealing with?
Why would they take instruction from the people who say, “Not one cent more, you whoresons”?
What’s in it for them?
I wonder whether David Mamet wrote the line “And then what are you prepared to do?”
Sounds like him.
Unfortunately, the answer from the GOP establishment is, “fold like a cheap tent.”
This ends on or about Aug. 1st when the Republicans do what they’re expected to do (because they always do it) and cave; or else it ends on Aug. 3 when (Holy Shit!) the Democrats realize that the Republicans aren’t going to play their expected role this time.
When it comes right down to the last fibers at the tippity-end of the long rope of their own argument, what’s in it for them is an opportunity to continue breathing, is what.
We need to reduce the tax burden (which includes the regulatory part too) on the individuals and companies of the nation. We need to limit our borrowing to just what is needed to keep fiscal stability until the cures take effect. We need to reduce our spending immediately, actually, and continue to do so until the growth of the economy, raising the GDP, and the rising revenues from that growth bring our tax revenues and spending into balance. That is the only path that leads out of this wilderness of debt and fiscal destruction.
Who is calling for higher taxes? More borrowing? More spending? Democrats, adamantly so. Who is crying loudest about the (red herring of) default? Democrats over and over again.
Who has put out, actually passed, a plan to cut spending and not raise taxes and have called for reducing taxes in order to set our fiscal house on the path to recovery? Republicans. Specifically TEA Party Republicans in the House forced the passage of “Cut, Cap, and Balance” and TEA Party Republicans in the Senate are pushing for it to be passed there too. Democrats this morning voted that plan down.
Now the real questions are why do the Democrats wish to crash the financial system of the USA and in so doing crash the entire world’s financial system too? Who benefits? What kind of human would it take, who would position themselves, to benefit from so much misery, death, and destruction? Why should such people ever be allowed to have any power over anyone or anything other than themselves if even that?
I find myself with about as much sympathy for the Blue State Democrats as I do for the anti-Semitic Norwegians: they’ve made their filthy bed, now let them lie in it. And yes, I know the sentiment is wrong. But fuck it, there it is.
link
The House Republicans did their part, the Senate Republicans did theirs, now we have to do ours.
Jim Demint put out his call to the tea parties a few days ago. I haven’t seen much movement from the tea party umbrella groups in any of the states putting together any marches or rallies or anything. I’m packed and ready to go. Where? And when? NO idea. That is the problem.
We should get ANSWER to throw something together for us real quick.
Well, an army of one might work as an advertising gimmick for the government, but standing in front of the capitol with a CCB NOW sign by myself won’t do much good. Where is the ground game for the tea party that was much in evidence the last time around?
In the “then what are you prepared to do?”, Kristol ventures a potentially useful proposal:
Not a bad start at the minimum.