Republicans are a brick wall, at the expense of Americans, get rid of them!
NY Times Editorial
Tales From the Supercommittee
Published: October 31,
There are only three weeks left for the Congressional supercommittee to come up with a plan to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion, and there is no sign that the panel is anywhere close to reaching an agreement. Only one side, in fact, seems to be trying — the Democrats — and it is being far too accommodating, given the fierce obstructionism of the other side, the Republicans.
Last week, Democrats offered a $3.2 trillion compromise — proposing cuts to domestic spending and social-insurance programs that were so large as to be imprudent. Their proposal was instantly rejected by Republicans on the panel. Why? Because the Democrats included $1.3 trillion in new tax revenues, which is exactly $1.3 trillion more than Republicans are willing to accept.
In contrast, Republicans say they are willing to cut $2.2 trillion from the deficit, but only about $40 billion of that would be from new revenues. None would be from new taxes. (Republicans are actually proposing to lower overall tax rates, paid for by ending some tax loopholes. They say that that would produce $200 billion in new tax revenues, based on the discredited notion that the government can then count on higher revenues from increased growth. No impartial judge, including the Congressional Budget Office, accepts this kind of estimate.)
If the Republicans maintain this intransigence until the Nov. 23 deadline, they will trigger a huge sequester of federal dollars: an across-the-board, $1.2 trillion cut in spending, including $454 billion from defense programs. But it already seems clear that nothing is more important to them than protecting corporations and the wealthy from tax increases: not the Pentagon, not homeland security, not education, and not the country’s economic health. President Obama got burned earlier this year when he tried to work out a “grand bargain” with the Republican leadership of the House. The only real compromise it was interested in was one in which it dictated all of the terms.
Nonetheless, in an almost naïve gesture of good faith, Democratic Congressional leaders began talking last week about their own version of a grand bargain that goes far beyond the supercommittee’s minimum mandate to avoid the sequester.
The plan would cut $475 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years, including $200 billion in cuts to beneficiaries, which is far more than the Obama administration proposed in September. It would also cut $400 billion from regular discretionary spending, which, combined with earlier cuts this year, would be bigger than those proposed by the Gang of Six or Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction panels, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Both cuts would go too far in reducing programs vital to the nation’s most vulnerable population.
Democratic officials say these cuts would be considered only alongside tax increases. The danger is that Republicans will try to scoop up those proposed cuts while rejecting the increases. In the next 23 days, we will learn whether the six Democrats on the committee will hold out for real balance, and whether even a single Republican will dare to join them.
DO SOMETHING!
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