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The House vote on the budget will not just include an up-or-down vote on the Paul Ryan version. As per custom, several budgets will get a vote that day. The Republican Study Group introduced their budget, which slashed spending even further and more quickly than Ryan’s and cut Medicaid more deeply, today. Hardline conservatives who support the RSG plan are in fact taking credit for making Ryan’s budget even tougher. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has their Budget for All, which sees deeper deficits than the Ryan budget in FY2013 but smaller ones over time, thanks to the ending of wars and raising of taxes on corporations and the wealthy. A full rundown of that budget plan can be found here, and there are some really good components to it, like ending the mortgage interest deduction for second homes, and enacting a health insurance public option, just to pick two. And, House Democrats released their own alternative, from Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, yesterday. It’s mainly a Budget for All-lite.
But there’s another version out there, one from what I’ll term the Wanker Caucus, looking to just put Simpson-Bowles on the House floor:
Monday night, a bipartisan group of House members including Reps. Jim Cooper (D-TN) Steve LaTourette (R-OH), Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Charlie Bass (R-NH), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Tom Reed (R-NY), introduced the Simpson-Bowles plan as a budget alternative to the powerful House Rules committee. Usually these alternatives are ruled in order, and if that holds for this plan, the full House will have an opportunity to back up their words with votes.
If it passed, it would unseat the GOP’s consensus plan, drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as the incumbent budget for the House — and it’s hard to imagine GOP leaders allowing that to happen. But that would give the lie to the criticisms they and others have lobbed at Obama for failing to embrace the plan himself.
As a political maneuver this could hurt Republicans more. After all, they run the House, and they’ve been making the point that Obama ran away from Simpson-Bowles. So if they run away too, that neutralizes the argument. However, this bipartisan plan is just as dumb as Simpson-Bowles, and it will serve to keep Simpson-Bowles alive as if it’s a serious plan.
Just look at their executive summary. My favorite part is this:
Limits long-term growth for federal health care spending to GDP +1%
Um, OK. How? I know how Simpson-Bowles accomplished this: with the famous “magic asterisk.” They just decreed that growth would be limited and imitated Jean-Luc Picard by saying “Make it so.” In Simpson-Bowles, there is absolutely no mechanism to limit health care cost growth in this fashion, and I suspect that there’s no mechanism in this Wanker Caucus proposal either. And if you correctly believe that the entire issue of the federal budget deficit comes down to health care spending, then you cannot see Simpson-Bowles as a legitimate solution, any more than “Whip Inflation Now” buttons were a legitimate solution to rising prices in the Ford Administration.
The document also calls it a “balanced approach” to reduce the deficit with 2/3 spending cuts and 1/3 “tax reform” – they couldn’t even bring themselves to say tax increases – which includes lowering overall rates.
What should concern people is that Simpson-Bowles comes to be seen as a serious, bipartisan alternative, when it’s a fantasy plan, as much as Ryan’s budget in that respect, and one that may cause milder suffering than Ryan’s, but still causes plenty of suffering.
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Obama deserves a considerable amount of blame for bringing the Catfood Commission into existence to begin with.
I’m 60 years old and fully expect Congress, with the connivance of the White House and Capitol Hill Democrats, to gut my Medicare and eventually my Social Security. Thanks for nothing, Democrats.
It’s his baby, and it keeps coming back, probably due to his insistence.
The return of the bipartisan-y Undead: the centrist position that no sane person wants: the Mr. Simpson and Mr. Bowles’ recommendations (note that the Commission did not approve their recommendations). These two egomaniacs fully expect their Trojan Horse president to approve and support their budgetary cuts. Hey. Money well spent!/s
Don’t feel bad. I’m 43. I was one of those told at the tender age of 18 that I’d pay more into Social Security to ensure the program was there for me in my old age. I figure the chances of me seeing the money Congress stole from my retirement account, to pay for wars while giving gazillionaires with multiple cars, jets and homes tax cuts, are slim and none.
Is there any reason that an MRI costs on average over $1500 in the US and $100 in Japan beside GREED?
I have a couple more years than you, so I think we’ll be fine with SS and Medicare, but that really isn’t the point if you care about your family and people 30 years your junior. The GOP tries in their greedy way to pit the current receipients against the younger population. That only works if you are a Tea Party cretin, or one of those people that doesn’t want to pay property taxes for schools because their children are grown.
I think you want one of the health care threads. This is the Social Security rant thread. ;)
If you seriously want an answer then I found this:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120545569
You’re absolutely right about those who aren’t in what one financial firm calls the “retirement red zone.” Not only will their traditional Social Security be replaced with some form of a 401(k)*, and the management fees that come with it, but there’s zero chance that their employer will offer a traditional fixed-benefit pension plan.
* And unlike annuities offered by the private sector, Social Security benefits are indexed (sort of) for inflation.
This is totally the point. I like you will be ok…I think. But my concern is the people under me. I care about what they are going to face if they take SS away from them. They will work until they drop. At least we will be able to crawl away from our jobs. I am afraid that the elderly in the years to come will live in deeper poverty than what we see now. And when I try to talk to the younger people that I work with they just say “oh I didn’t expect to see it anyway”. They don’t get it and they should be fighting with us to make sure they are protected. Very frustrating,
Speaking of annuities offered by the private sector, I see that Met Life recently asked its variable annuity holders for permission to get rid of the old MD trust that was responsible for them, and to set up a new trust in DE. I’m always wary when a private corporation makes such a request. I have to wonder if they’re anticipating problems, and trying to set up a shell that they can declare bankrupt more easily, to avoid the obligations. I have no proof of such in this case, but I’m naturally suspicious when it comes to this sort of thing. If anyone has any further info, let us know if this is something we should keep an eye on …
Apologies in advance for the nit-picking:
Since the study group didn’t reach the needed majority to report recommendations, what Simpson and Bowles say, and some other folks agree with should have a less imprimatur-y name, like maybe ‘Simpson and Bowles and a some other folks.’
This is tiring – I admire your stamina David.
Welcome back, Mr. Frankenstein. I’ve been hungering for some Purina Cat Chow…