John Boehner Calls Off Vote On His Own Bill to Reopen Government

House Speaker John Boehner is a joke. Once again he does not have the votes in his own caucus to a conservative spending bill to reopen the federal government. What is likely to happen is Boehner will have to go to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She will demand a clean continuing resolution (that does not involve defunding Obamacare) to reopen government. This is further proof that Boehner can't control his caucus or even count votes.

Gus Bilirakis Won't Vote For Clean CR

Voters should remember that Rep. Gus Bilirakis vowing not to vote for a clean continuing resolution to fund the federal government.

“I am not in favor of shutting the government down," the Palm Harbor lawmaker said in a statement. "However, there are a number of policy issues that deserve to be discussed and negotiated before I would consider a clean CR. These issues include treating Congress like the rest of America under the health care law and getting our runaway spending under control. The President and Senate must sit down with the House to discuss these important issues first.”

The media should ask Bilirakis how does he expect to get President Barack Obama to sign legislation to defund Obamacare. It is not going to happen.

Quote of the Day

"There’s no such thing as a debt ceiling in this country because it’s never been not increased, and that’s why we’re $17 trillion in debt. And I would dispel therumor that’s going around that you hear onevery newscast that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll default on our debt -- we won’t. We’ll continue to pay our interest, we’ll continueto redeem bonds, and we’ll issue new bonds to replace those."

Sen. Tom Coburn, on CBS This Morning

I hope Sen. Coburn enjoys living in the land of make believe.

Joel Award: John Boehner

It is time to give out the Joel Award. The award goes any celebrity, pundit, blogger or politician that purposely contradicts himself or herself.

House Speaker John Boehner went on This Week and told George Stephanopoulos that President Barack Obama must meet his demands on either delaying or repealing the Affordable Care Act.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So are you saying that if he continues to refuse to negotiate, the country is going to default?

BOEHNER: That’s the path we’re on. The president canceled his trip to Asia. I assumed — well, maybe he wants to have a conversation. I decided to stay here in Washington this weekend. He knows what my phone number is. All he has to do is call.

Stephanopoulos pointed out to Boehner that the Speaker originally said he was not going to put a repeal or defunding of Obamacare into the CR bill.

Stephanopoulos played a clip of Boehner saying,”It’s pretty clear that the president was re-elected. Obamacare is the law of the land.” Adding,”If we were to put Obamacare into the CR and send it over to the Senate, we were risking shutting down the government. That is not our goal.”

The ABC host explained, “So right there, you say that’s not your goal. You don’t want to put Obamacare on the CR. You did it.”

Boehner has lost control of his caucus. The tea party members have taken over the House of Representatives. Boehner can introduce a clean CR bill and get the votes from Democrats and Republicans that are begging for an end to the shutdown. Boehner won't do that.

Dennis Ross Says Shutdown About Republican Pride

Florida GOP Rep. Dennis Ross speaks truth to The New York Times about how foolish the government shutdown is for Republicans.

“Republicans have to realize how many significant gains we’ve made over the last three years, and we have, not only in cutting spending but in really turning the tide on other things,” he said. “We can’t lose all that when there’s no connection now between the shutdown and the funding of Obamacare.”

“I think now it’s a lot about pride,” he said.

The deficit has gone down under President Barack Obama. Economists have warned that the deficit had gone down too fast and has hurt GDP growth. Republicans have inaccurately predicted austerity policies would boost the economy. The slow recover has proven Republicans to be wrong.

A

Where Are the Women

NARAL and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted this photo of the House Republicans set to negotiate with Senate Democrats. The lack of women in a leadership position in the GOP makes it easier to understand why Republicans are willing to shut down the government to prevent women from getting birth control. Elizabeth Warren gave a powerful speech, on the Senate floor, about the GOP war on women.

Republicans are shutting the government over preventing birth control access, abolishing taxes on medical devices, and denying people with pre-existing conditions getting health care insurance. Republicans are tanking the economy to appease corporate and social conservatives. That is why we are having a shut down.

Florida Members of Congress Voting For Government Shutdown

Via Stogie: here is a list of Republicans who voted for a CR bill that would delay Obamacare. This is a nonstarter in the Senate and President Barack Obama would never sign it into law. This vote is just to appease the tea party base of the GOP.

Rep. Jeff Miller [R-D1]

Rep. Steve Southerland [R-D2]

Rep. Ted Yoho [R-D3]

Rep. Ander Crenshaw [R-D4]

Rep. Ron DeSantis [R-D6]

Rep. John Mica [R-D7]

Rep. Bill Posey [R-D8]

Rep. Daniel Webster [R-D10]

Rep. Richard Nugent [R-D11]

Rep. Gus Bilirakis [R-D12]

Rep. W. Bill Young [R-D13]

Rep. Dennis Ross [R-D15]

Rep. Vern Buchanan [R-D16]

Rep. Thomas Rooney [R-D17]

Rep. Trey Radel [R-D19]

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart [R-D25]

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-D27]

Marco Rubio is Still an Economic Illiterate

Sen. Marco Rubio's reasoning for not allowing Republican House members to conference with the Senate is mind-boggingly stupid. Rubio tweeted this gem.

Rubio, who has made a couple floor speeches about the standoff, tweeted this evening: "Will keep objecting to budget negotiations moving forward until Senate leaders agree to rule out raising #DebtLimit." If they don't plan to raise #DebtLimit in budget then why do they object to putting it in writing upfront?"

Rubio's position is he won't let the House of Representatives conference with the Senate because he wants the federal government to default. That is exactly what would happen if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Congress controls the power of the purse. The main job of Congress is to pass a budget. Rubio is denying Congress the ability to fulfill its constitutional responsibility so he can create a potential international economic crisis.

Every country on the planet is tied to United States currency. The most likely scenario would be countries freezing credit. A credit freeze is what caused the crashes in 1929 and 2008. The federal government doesn't have the revenue to pay the debt. If the debt ceiling isn't raised the international markets will panic. Rubio throws his political spitballs but he never offers a solution. Of course, Rubio ignored Alex Sink's warnings to deal with Florida's debt.

Don Gaetz on the Sequester

Republicans in Congress are more concerned about pleasing conservative media than governing. Republicans on the local and state level have to explain to their constituents why their jobs will suddenly disappear. Case in point is Florida Senate President Don Gaetz.

"What's not debatable is that sequestration has created a sense of uncertaintly and instability in sectors of the Florida economy," Gaetz, a Niceville Republican, said during a speech at the Capitol Tiger Bay Club meeting today.

Gaetz noted there are five military bases in the Panhandle region he represents. Directly and indirectly, the defense and aerospace industries employs thousands of people who are already being fuloughed and could face layoffs, he said.

Republicans have talked about massive budget cutting as creating jobs. Balancing budgets and job creation are not one and the same. Britain used drastic austerity measures after the 2008 crash. The results has been a disaster.

What has British achieved through its austerity? Since Cameron took office in spring2010,unemployment hasn’t budged much past 7.9%. Consumer confidence declined further. And gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services, is below the level when Cameron assumed power.

Bernie Sanders Aganst Grand Bargain

Sen. Bernie Sanders sent out a press release stating he will not vote for the grand bargain that President Barack Obama has proposed for the sequester.

Not a Grand Bargain President Obama stepped up efforts to cut Social Security benefits and lower payments for disabled veterans and their survivors. “It’s a horrendous idea. It is totally absurd because for a start, Social Security has not contributed one penny to the deficit … But it`s not just seniors on Social Security. If you can believe it, this chained CPI [consumer price index] will make devastating cuts for disabled veterans. The men and women who lost arms and legs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the widows of people who were killed in Iraq, it will mean significant cuts for them,” Sanders said Thursday on MSNBC. Obama pushed his “grand bargain” over dinner Wednesday with 12 Republican senators and at lunch Thursday at the White House with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan “The president historically has not been a strong negotiator,” Sanders said. “The fear is he is going to get a deal that will probably not be strong enough on revenue. That does worry some of us.”

It should be noted that Sen. Sanders hinted he was not going to vote for a health care bill without a public option. Sanders ended up voting for the Affordable Care Act. Republicans are likely to vote against any legislation to end the sequester. Harry Reid is going to ask Sanders to swallow his pride and vote for a compromise.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I am glad that military defense spending is being used to answer such important questions as "Did Jesus die for Klingons, too."

The 100-Year Starship Project: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent more than $1 million to "foster a rebirth of wonder" and to make space travel to other solar systems feasible in the next century. To that end, the agency paid $100,000 to sponsor a strategy workshop in September featuring a session called "Did Jesus die for Klingons, too?" on the theological threat to Christianity that the discovery of life on other planets might pose. A related conference devoted to the future of space travel included a workshop on "what intersteller explorers might wear." (Hint: Not polos and khakis.) The event featured an "intergalatic gala" for which attendees were asked to come in "starship cocktail attire."

Sen. Tom Coburn released a report titled "The Department of Everything". In the report, Coburn identifies $70 billion in wasteful defense spending. The report is worth reading for some of the sheer bizarre things that tax dollars were spent on in the name of defending America.

Deficit Has Gone Down Under Obama

The Treasury Department announced that the federal deficit for 2012 is $1.089 trillion. The federal budget shortfall for last year was $1.297 trillion. You can see by the chart made by Steve Benen that the deficit has gone down under President Barack Obama.

The Republicans cry about the stimulus. There were massive layoffs across the country. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the stimulus created 3.3 million full-time jobs. The stimulus was a one-time spending package. The Bush tax cuts, TARP bailout, Iraq war, and Bush's refusal to fight with his own party on yearly pork spending have had long-term effects on the deficit.

Paul Ryan wasn't crying about deficit reduction during the Bush years. Ryan was helping craft these massive spending bills in the Budget and Ways and Means committees.

The Ryan Budget Scam

Connie Mack IV made the mistake of telling the truth during a Republican primary. The truth is the Paul Ryan budget would not balance the budget anytime in the near future.

"I was here in Florida campaigning," Mack said Saturday, according to an undisputed quote reported by the conservative Florida Political Press. "You know that budget was a joke, doesn't balance the budget for years."

Mack is exactly right. The tea party base is too economically illiterate to crunch the numbers. They believe that Ryan's budget will balance the budget. They have the power of truthiness on their sides.

Ryan's plan is short on specifics. Ryan claims trickle down economics is the answer.

The reform plan, which was first advanced by the House Ways and Means Committee, would broaden the tax base, lower marginal rates and flatten the tax structure from six rates to two: 10 percent and 25 percent. The plan would also lower the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent and would transition to a terroitorial system of international taxation, which would put U.S. competing businesses competing abroad on a level playing field with their foreign competitors and incentivize the repatriation of funds, currently held offshore for tax reasons, to be to use in the U.S. economy.

Starting a tariff war with China will not make Fortune 500 companies suddenly want to invest in the United States. If Ryan is lowering taxes on corporations and the top 1 percent, exactly who is he broadening the tax pool on.

Ryan doesn't explain what tax loppholes he would close. Economist Paul Krugman notes Ryan projects unemployment will drop to a magical 50 low. Ryan fail to mention how he will use his magic wand to make unemployment disappear. The most telling fact about the House GOP budget not being serious is that Ryan never asked the CBO to do a revenue estimate.

U.S. Military Spending Compared to Other Nations

Mother Jones has a chart comparing United States military spending to that of other nations. Needless to say, no other country comes remotely close to the U.S. in spending.

Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled his budget plan that would increase military spending.

The Ryan plan also increases national defense spending to $554 billion in 2013, an increase of $8 billion over the $546 billion that was agreed to under the Budget Control Act.

That would reverse some of the $487 billion in cuts that the Pentagon has planned to implement over the next decade. Over 10 years, the Ryan budget would spend $6.2 trillion on defense, which is higher than the $5.97 trillion level set under the Budget Control Act.

Ryan would do well to listen to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous "military industrial complex" speech.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Push Back From Social Security & Medicare Cuts

The Washington Post reports that White House sources have admitted that they are seeking a deal "to the right of the Gang of Six."

Congressional and administration officials said the White House informed Democratic leaders about the talks after Obama met privately with Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) late Wednesday. Congressional aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail private discussions, said the White House acknowledged that the emerging agreement is “to the right of the Gang of Six” — a bipartisan Senate debt-reduction framework unveiled this week — and far removed from what Democrats have said would be acceptable.

WaPo and the Wall Street Journal report that Senate Democrats went off on OMB Director Jacob Lew. The reason being is that Obama and Republicans are negotiating decreases in cost of increasing rates to Medicare and Social Security. In exchange, Obama gets no tax increases for giving two Democratic sacred cows to the Republicans to carve up. It appears that the Democratic caucus will not go for it. For now.

After a lunchtime meeting between Lew and Senate Democrats, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made no attempt to hide his anger, telling reporters that his caucus would oppose the “potential agreement” because it appeared to include no clear guarantee of increased revenue.

“The president always talked about balance, that there had to be some fairness in this, that this can’t be all cuts. There has to be a balance. There has to be some revenue and cuts. My caucus agrees with that,” Reid said. “I hope that the president sticks with that. I’m confident that he will.”

Democrats for planning to go into the 2012 election campaigning against Rep. Paul Ryan's attempted Medicare cuts. Obama is trying to make cuts into Medicare and Social Security. I can guarantee Republicans will run attack ads against Obama if he succeeds in enacting these cuts. The policy is horrible. Why Obama thinks this is good politics is beyond me.

Another Poll Shows People Don't Support Ryan Budget

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds 58 percent oppose the Paul Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program. Only 35 percent support Ryan's proposal. 56 percent think the Ryan plan would be bad for the elderly. Senior citizens are in agreement. 74 percent of seniors oppose the plan.

People are catching on to the Party of No.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, a majority also don't think the GOP has cooperated enough with President Barack Obama and, for the first time since they won back control of the House last November, the number of Americans who say that Republican control of the chamber is good for the country has dropped below the 50 percent mark.

What Ryan doesn't add is that the Congressional Budget Office ruled that repealing the Obama's health care reforms would add $230 billion over the next decade. Ryan's tax cuts would also add to the deficit. Ryan isn't trying to reduce the deficit. He wants to shrink government and shift the tax burden on the middle class. George W. Bush did that and job creation during his administration was horrendous.

Quote of the Day

“While others stick their fingers in the wind to see what the election results from last night mean for their support of the Ryan Plan, I remain steadfast in my support. In fact, my only complaint with the Path to Prosperity Plan is that it does not go far enough, fast enough, to address Washington’s unsustainable spending."

Adam Hasner, on the Paul Ryan plan.

I hope the DSCC remembers this quote. As Digby pointed out, Ryan's plan to make Medicare a voucher program is extremely unpopular with seniors. The Congression Budget Office letter to Ryan gives good reason for people not to support the plan.

To summarize, a typical beneficiary would spend more for health care under the proposal than under CBO’s long-term scenarios for several reasons. First, private plans would cost more than traditional Medicare because of the net effect of differences in payment rates for providers, administrative costs, and utilization of health care services, as described above. Second, the government’s contribution would grow more slowly than health care costs, leaving more for beneficiaries to pay.

If you are a senior or have a pre-existing condition, good luck trying to get private health insurance without insurance companies being required to cover you. Which is what the CBO tells Ryan.

Read more »

Reid to Force Vote on Ryan Bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will allow a vote on the Paul Ryan budget.

“There will be an opportunity in the Senate to vote on the Ryan budget to see if Republican senators like the Ryan budget as much as the House did,” Reid said today. “Without going into the Ryan budget we will see how much the Republicans like it here in the Senate.”

Reid knows that Republicans do not have enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill. Reid is forcing the vote to put Senate Republicans in the position of either pissing off the tea party or alienating voters in both parties that support Medicare. Voters tend to run from conservative government once they see the policies.

Tom Coburn on Obama & Budget

I can't stand Tom Coburn's politics. Coburn has been an adult about deficit reduction. Coburn has proposed closing tax loopholes and cutting defense spending. Coburn is giving other Republicans cover from the Tea Party demonizing of President Obama.

Said Coburn: "I love the man. I think he's a neat man. I don't want him to be president, but I still love him. He is our President. He's my President. And I disagree with him adamantly on 95% of the issues, but that doesn't mean I can't have a great relationship. And that's a model people ought to follow."

Coburn and Obama were friends in the Senate. I'm not surprised by Coburn's comments but it will probably not play well with the Tea Party.

Coburn is urging House Republicans to drop the riders in the budget.

"It's pretty unrealistic to think with this president that you're going to get a lot of riders," said Coburn, 63. "That's number one. Number two is, what's the greatest moral dilemma of our day? Abortion is certainly a big one, but if we don't address all these other financial issues that are going to cripple those that are with us, we'll be making a big mistake."

Coburn is telling other Republicans it is unrealistic to get everything that they want. The Tea Party doesn't want to hear that message.

Why GOP Stalling Budget

Mike Pence: We are trying to score a victory for the Republican people.

Oops. Freudian slip.