While we all regroup and consider whether or not the Republicans have learned anything, we can take a look at some comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY):
He said there’s no reason to go through the political wringer again in January, when the stopgap Congress passed late Wednesday expires.
“One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid 1990s and the second kick was over the last 16 days,” he said. “There is no education in the second kick of a mule. There will not be a government shutdown.
“I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is,” he added.
By “new members,” he means Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and (especially) Ted Cruz. But before you get too excited about McConnell giving away the next hostage, make sure that you read this:
McConnell told fellow Republican senators that he would not allow the deal to cross two important red lines: it would not raise taxes and it would not undermine the spending reforms achieved under the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA).
Perhaps he wanted to preserve those two things so that they can be bargained away during the upcoming budget conference, but until the Republicans learn that they can’t oppose all tax increases forever under any circumstances and expect to get concessions in return, they are going to keep getting kicked in the head by that mule.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to have the Congressional Republicans be the mules in this analogy?
You mean the House?
Maybe. I don’t know. They kicked themselves in the face.
“They kicked themselves in the face.”
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. We do need to add Speaker Cruz and Eeyore Lee to the pack of mules in the House.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi slew the
Philistinesasses with their own jawbones!Translation: he’s now confident of crushing his idiot primary opponent but is rattled by recent polls actually showing Grimes slightly ahead in the general. So he’s starting the usual Republican feint to the center a little early.
As I predicted this morning the Tea Party rank and file feel betrayed. All the Teabaggers I know said they couldn’t believe the Republicans just gave up. I thought they would be angry. Maybe that will come later. Right now they are stunned and quiet. I’m sure they feel betrayed, but I don’t know what path that will lead them to. I’ll let you know if their attitude changes.
My candidate for wanker of the week is Randy Hultgren . BTW, his district is mostly seriously rich people.
I’m so glad I got redistricted out of his district.
I’m in Tammy Duckworth’s. Who is your Representative?
Bill Foster, he’s much better this time around too which I’m very happy about, he was more Blue Doggy the first time around.
Ezra Klein this morning suggested Dems give up on more revenues. Not gonna happen because no more taxes, for the GOP, is the holy grail. But there are other items – immigration, for instance – that have an economic impact that can be used as bargaining chips. Ezra cites the Children’s Health Plan being added on to the budget as an example how seemingly unrelated legislation can be included in budget deals.
This is why the Tea Party is my friend – maybe not yours, but definitely mine – I’m fine with raising taxes but NOT IN RETURN FOR ENTITLEMENT CUTS.
As usual, Obama is forcing me into an enemy of my enemy situation. Until this year I wanted to flush Grover Norquist down the drain, but now his obsession with taxes is perversely protecting my social security.
I tend to agree with you. Booman thinks chained CPI is a reasonable trade for revenues, but I believe the broader public would disagree. Most folks wouldn’t care if some wealthy folks didn’t get their mortgage interest write off, but smaller SS checks with increasing medical expenses is personal.
A lot of people forget though that the ACA has lowered healthcare costs for retirees especially by closing the donut hole on prescription drugs. That needs to be factored in with any discussion of Chained CPI, everything these days is connected.
Even with Medicare part D, prescription drugs are expensive and can take a big chunk out of retirees’ income. You add the monthly cost of Medicare, Part D, often a medigap policy and then prescription drugs and you can imagine things getting real tight.
I’m not saying that it would be tight, I’m saying that there is some relief in the ACA for seniors. You have to factor that into any conversation you have about Chained CPI to have a full picture of the situation.
The ACA closes the “donut hole” over a period of time. That means (I’m not sure of the exact figures) that you can spend $2000 on meds a year at reduced prices. Then at $2001 through $4000 you pay full price. After that you get help again. So that gap will close. But meds aren’t cheap. I managed my mom’s finances when she was no longer able to, and she had about 10 prescriptions that added up to maybe $300 a month before she hit the hole. Many financial advisors say you need $250k for medical expenses as you get older. Getting old’s a bitch.
CPI is talking about the growth of costs in general terms so if costs go down because more is covered by insurance
I guess I really don’t understand what your argument is right now.
Chained CPI is a different measurement of the broad cost of food, clothing, and other common purchases. The most common analogy is if the price of beef goes up folks will buy chicken, etc. It will reduce the growth of SS cost of living increases by a small percentage, but over time it will add up. But seniors’ expenses are different – their biggest expenses are health care related that fall outside the CPI measurement. If you reduce SS payment growth while medical expenses pile up, it makes things difficult. The growth rate of medical costs has slowed, but it still outpaces general inflation.
We need CPI-E, not chained-CPI. Use chained-CPI for tax brackets if the must use it.
Also note that the reduced CPI would be used for SS calculations also, resulting in a lower initial annuity. And CPI is the basis for many wage increases. Chained-CPI would be used for all of this, including adjusting the poverty level. It affects everyone except the very rich.
That’s what I thought you were trying to say but wasn’t sure, what I’m saying is that the ACA made impacts on medical costs for seniors both prescription drug costs and Medicare costs. Now I don’t know the math well enough if it makes up enough to cover the difference between CPI and Chained CPI but what I’ve seen the Chained CPI adjustment is pretty small.
I don’t think we should reduce benefits but there needs to be some change to Social Security if we do something now it can be small if we wait it will have to be much bigger and we can’t guarantee what Congress and the President will be when that happens.
I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t dismiss anything out of hand right now.
I don’t know, it’s a tough choice. Not that I’m OK with cuts to Social Security, but this knee-jerk opposition to any and all taxes has got to stop. It’s been slowly strangling our government and our economy for a couple of decades now, so I would put breaking the grip of the Norquist pledge as a pretty high priority. I don’t know the best way to accomplish that, and it doesn’t necessarily mean putting chained CPI on the table, but I don’t like the idea of giving up on revenues before the talks have even started.
I really hate chained-CPI. At the same time, sometimes it’s best to take one step back in order to take two forward. If we could break the anti-tax obsession of the GOP while getting other concessions, it might be worth it. I’d want to see a meaningful increase in taxes on the wealthy (including the estate tax).
Just to be clear, I’m all for tax increases, but I’m not for them as much as I’m violently opposed to chained CPI or any cuts to soc. sec and medicare.
I don’t see McConnell being dumb or speaking from both sides of his mouth. I see him saying he’s going to preserve the previous victory (the sequester) and not permit Democrats any avenue by which to undo it. I don’t know if he’ll be successful but, if the Republicans don’t overreach, the only leverage the Democrats will have are the ever-deeper defense cuts required in 2014 and beyond.
Good points all. And the President can handle the ever deeper defense cuts through effective diplomacy. And the Democrats will be forced to give up further discretionary cuts, which more and more are digging deep into Republican constituencies. There are limits for McConnell continuing the sequester.
What gets killed of course is job growth. At least until January 2015.
You make good points as well, TH.
Here’s my essential disagreement with Obama and those who defend him: it’s not worth it to cut social security and medicare in order to raise taxes. PERIOD.
On another topic, I just flew through the obamacare signup (what’s all the frikkin whining about? it’s broken in chrome but works fine in FIREFOX) – there was a “chat representative” who talked me through any questions and stayed there in the popup while I went from page to page – I have to get some tax info but it looks like it’ll save me several hundred a month – without obamacare I wouldn’t even qualify for any coverage except high risk – so all this shutdown default BS was basically conducted with the sole motivation of disallowing my ability to save several thousand a year and/or stop me from being able to go to the doctor. Thanks for the thought, GOP. Full disclosure – I’m in CA, not currently under Taliban control.
Most reports indicate that state-run online exchanges (like California’s, or Kentucky’s) are running more effectively than the federal-run exchanges in the states that decided to let the feds take charge.
Oregon’s exchange is not expected to be up until November. Largely because the interface with the
Feds does not produce accurate tax credit information. They’ve started processing applications manually. Sure hope they get this fixed soon.
I’m using Firefox as well. It’s broken.
The Tea Party Republicans are like the guy who used a match to see how much gasoline he had left in the gas can.
…. except in the teatards case, some want to try it a second time ….
Hey, the can didn’t blow up. And we got the fire put out in time. Sure, a few of us got singed but really, it wasn’t all that bad.
I’m glad Reid is finally leading the charge in these negotiations; he was hamstrung by the WH in the past.