It’s like a preemptive surrender on the part of the establishment GOP. And these are the guys who we’re supposed to believe will push Romney toward the right? Politico:
Interviews with more than a dozen Senate Republicans show a growing openness to higher tax revenues to reach a so-called grand bargain on overhauling Medicare, other entitlements, discretionary spending and the Tax Code. On top of that, a small group of House GOP freshmen are balking at conservative activist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, while six Republican senators recently declined to sign a GOP letter calling for the immediate extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.
All of this points to shifting politics in the tax debate, as Democrats pummel the GOP for opposing tax hikes on millionaires and billionaires. Increasingly, Hill Republicans are signaling flexibility on taxes ahead of another major budget fight.
“Nobody wants to raise taxes, but the question is can you lower tax rates, lower loopholes and deductions and apply that to debt reduction? I think the answer is yes,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “If our position is every time you eliminated deductions and exemptions, all of it has to go to bring down rates, how do you pay off the debt?”
During the primary, Romney opposed using new revenue from closing so-called tax loopholes to pay down the debt and said he’d oppose a deficit deal even if the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases were 10:1.
Let’s face it: nobody really believed Romney on taxes anyway, and all we’re seeing here is a tacit acknowledgment of that from the usual suspects on the “right”, with the (rhetorical) ground being prepared for an inevitable demand for new “revenues” in DC no matter who is President in 2013. Those revenue will not go toward reducing the debt, of course — first, they never do, and second, to curtail deficit spending, Congress won’t even act to cut redundant programs or waste, fraud, and abuse. And why would they? After all, they’ve figured out — and this includes Republican ruling class-types, who are largely indistinguishable from the Democrats — that they can simply lay claim to fiscal responsibility by calling on tax increases if they pretend that the use for that new revenue, forcibly taken from us, is debt reduction. Meanwhile, deficit spending will continue apace.
So we were lied to. Again. But honestly, what are you gonna do, conservatives? Vote for Obama?
Suckers.
SCOTUSa Federal appeals court* has ruled the Defense of Marriage unconstitutional — which it should be ruled — because, get this, it prevents another overreach of modern federal government power from being deployed as entitlements.Government, you know, is by intent and design an agency for social benefits. As any Congress perceives them — rather, can be coerced by voter pressure to grant them.
And this is gonna so cost.
*thx sdferr. Good thing I never blog…
Republicans really miss the good ol’ days when Bob Michel and Howard Baker always took their paddling with gratitude never failed to ask for another one. Almost as much as the Democrats, it seems.
I can’t think of a better way to keep Obama in the White House and Senate Republicans in the minority while threatening the majority in the House.
Somebody let me know what the prize for losing is, will you?
Nah, it was just a three judge panel of the 1st Circuit sitting in Boston, not the Supremes. There might be an en banc review before the case rises.
If the GOP is as stupid as the politico article suggest, I probably will as a tactical matter. That way, when the whole sodden house cards collapses, the Democrats can own it.
The POTUS kingship hinges on gas prices, Ernst, they being the cornerstone of American structural liberty. It’s automatic. We’ll be fine.
You’re sanguine, JHoward. Me? I’m bloody-minded.
Yes.
And these are the guys who we’re supposed to believe will push Romney toward the right?
Always the flat-out funniest line of argumentation from the Romneybots.
“Don’t you worry–we’ve got 24o head in the north lot and 52 (we hope) head of cattle in the south lot who will watch Rancher Mitt LIKE. A. HAWK.
Well, like three-quarter ton narcoleptic hawks who can’t fly, aren’t even aerodynamic and spend the entire day eating, drowsing and/or shitting themselves.
But HAWKS, I tell you!”
Before I got up today, I was thinking of the huge mess that has been created by an overreaching Federal government in the last 150 or so years, and I realized, once again, we’re screwed.
I may just be losing my patience with the GOP. I’d complain to my Republican reps and sens – but I don’t have any.
To top it off, I am absolutely, positively, 100% sure that Boehnert, et al., will fuck up the debt ceiling debate this summer. Maybe even sufficiently enough to give O the win.
Watch for a “Grand Bargain “-sized butt-fucking.
If Romney allows Boehner and company to fuck him like that, he deserves to lose. And the Republicans deserve to join the Whigs and the Federalists on the ash–heap of history.
One piece of evidence that Politico marshals here is when the GOP cut ethanol tax credits.
Fucking Politico.
this is mostly tea leaf stuff I think … a lot will depend on how many Rs are in congress come next year
Senate Republicans? The only thing Senate Republicans ever pushed to the right was…
Give me a minute…
This is McCain talking, isn’t it?
Too bad the Bush taxcuts expire this year.
Oh, and Obamacare taxes kick in the day after the taxcuts expire.
Double whammied before the new Rs get sworn in —however many there are.
McCain, Grahamnesty < ==> To-may-to, to-mah-to.
Why isn’t anyone, say Lindsey Graham, asking Scott Walker these questions? She asked rhetorically.
Senate Republicans? The only thing Senate Republicans ever pushed to the right was…
Give me a minute…
The tab from a lunch with lobbyists?
Rereading that Graham quote, I’m starting to think bh nailed it:
Fucking Polihacktico!
Realistically, the choice is either Obama or Romney. I mean, we are getting one or the other. I have grave doubts about what Romney will do, but I’m damned sure about Obama.
There’s nothing for it, except try to survive and work for a better choice next time. For there to be a next time, Obama cannot win. Four more years of him and we’ll be Venezuela. At least Romney buys time, hell, even three years from now a new party (that actually represents US) could go against Romney in the primaries and win. Especially if congress gets flushed out and the new one actually starts performing for the people instead of themselves.
Either way, I don’t give great odds that we remain a constitutional republic with individual and property rights beyond the control of an oppressive government.
Oops, never mind…I will no longer cover that bet.
I don’t know that I’d consider Romney even part of this story. This is about the Permanent Incumbency Caucus that has at least a 90-seat majority in the Senate. As long as that remains the case, it wouldn’t matter if the next President of the United States were a cross between Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer.
Four more years and we’re likely to be Venezuela regardless of who sits in the White House. McGehee is right, so long as Congress remains firmly in the hands of the Ruling Class they’re going to keep spending until they really do run out of Other Peoples’ Money. Changing Congress enough to turn things around seems unlikely.
Best get prepared for interesting times….
That president would be pretty awesome, McGehee, especially if McGiver was rolled in there.
I should market a bumper sticker: FLUSH CONGRESS!
CafePress is your ticket, Lee.
VDH has brilliant ideas:
It’s either going to go VDH’s way or this way.
We sometimes wonder how we’ll pay all these unfunded liabilities. The answer really is as simple as: we won’t.
CPERS is about to find that out.
Sorry, that’s CalPERS.
I hadn’t even thought about the sneaky Mexicans that snuck into the country consuming public services while sending money home. Shit!
Most of the rest of it though, become public union issues. California public unions make the Terminator mess it’s pants.
That’s a very good one, I think.
It might not be workable as a direct remittance = no welfare. (Honestly, I don’t know how most people send money back home.) But, I reckon you could achieve the same thing just by tightening up enforcement on benefits.
You’ll get a kick out of this, Lee.
On the pro side, bankruptcy is public union kryptonite. On the con side, crime tends to initially skyrocket when you suddenly have one cop per hundred square miles.
This ties into that other thread about survivalist fantasies, of course. Which is why I’m glad you’ve stocked away a few extra rounds and I don’t find such things silly.
I wonder why it’s so easy to get on public assistance in California? It’s not just sneaky illegals, either.
You’d think with all of the case workers at the welfare office, that there would be a tighter review.
Perhaps I’m being unintentionally oblique up there.
I can understand why one would find my thoughts about preparedness to be strange and worrisome as I live in suburban Wisco. But others, in Cali let’s say, really do live in places where this isn’t particularly theoretical.
So I guess there is no hope that the delegates and caucuses will come to their collective senses or are planning a big surprise.
Good Lord.
My efforts at preparedness mostly revolve around power failure. I figure if you’re ready for the lights to go off for a few months, you’ll be ready for about anything. And when it comes to that scenario, suburban Wisco is no more protected than anywhere else.
I don’t understand why anyone wanting to be prepared would be thought strange or worrisome.
If the light’s go out, those sewer dwelling hippy-zombies will get you. Just like they got Chuck Heston!
I have a different strategy than Chuck did. A fort in the city ain’t my style.