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PoliGAF 2013 |OT3| 1,000 Years of Darkness and Nuclear Fallout

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mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
xnipx said:
Why do entitlements need to be cut exactly?? Are they wasting money? Fraud? Abuse? What exactly is the motivating factor that entitlement cuts are something necessary for a healthy budget conversation?
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Because 47% of the Congress will not vote for anything without them. And some entitlements can and should be cut if it can be exchanged for something else.
 
J

Jooney

Member
Baraka in the White House said:
Man the thought of McConnell going down gives me wood.
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Aaron Strife said:
partytime_zpsc15961fa.gif

.
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You always post the most interesting GIFs. ;-)

What is this?
 
B

besada

Banned
Maninthemirror said:
False

http://blog.chron.com/chronopinion/2013/10/did-we-un-endorse-ted-cruz-no/
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They can say it wasn't a reversal of the endorsement, but it essentially was. They pointed out in the initial story that their endorsement had been made with reservations and predicated on the hope that Cruz followed the path of Hutchinson and then went on to say that he hadn't, effectively undoing their endorsement.

At which point local politics went batshit and they rushed out this article about how they really hadn't retracted their endorsement.

The fun part of the original article:
When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November's general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation - that he follow Hutchison's example in his conduct as a senator.

Obviously, he has not done so. Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution.

We feel certain she would have worked shoulder to shoulder with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in crafting a workable solution that likely would have avoided the government shutdown altogether.

But we'll never know.
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They're welcome to cover themselves with a semantic argument, but they took a big steaming dump on the guy they endorsed.
 
J

Jooney

Member
besada said:
They can say it wasn't a reversal of the endorsement, but it essentially was. They pointed out in the initial story that their endorsement had been made with reservations and predicated on the hope that Cruz followed the path of Hutchinson and then went on to say that he hadn't, effectively undoing their endorsement.

At which point local politics went batshit and they rushed out this article about how they really hadn't retracted their endorsement.

The fun part of the original article:


They're welcome to cover themselves with a semantic argument, but they took a big steaming dump on the guy they endorsed.
Click to expand...

The retraction of the endorsement by the Houston Chronicle kind of reminded me of this great editorial by the Salt Lake City Tribune sticking the knife in Romney, two days before the election.

Tribune endorsement: Too Many Mitts

Best part:

Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party's shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party's radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney's next speech or sound bite.
Click to expand...
 
P

Piecake

Member
PhoenixPause said:
I'd support this. Revenue strikes me as irrelevant right now: the focus should be jobs, not taxes. Then the question becomes: would you trade entitlement cuts for stimulus/sequestration end/pre-k? I wouldn't...

TLDR: nothing will pass unless Obama is willing to cut entitlements without revenue.
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Id easily trade infrastructure and pre-k for chained CPI and maybe something stupid like means testing. Pre-K is easily the best investment we could possibly make. I think the benefits will far outweigh the negatives, and if we include stuff like safe harbor guidelines for malpractice and allowing medicare to actually bargain I think it could turn out to be a pretty good bill, since that stuff would actually reduce the deficit.

I'd be willing to throw in the medical device tax and the repeal of the employer mandate to get this done
 
J

Jooney

Member
Piecake said:
Id easily trade infrastructure and pre-k for chained CPI and maybe something stupid like means testing. Pre-K is easily the best investment we could possibly make. I think the benefits will far outweigh the negatives, and if we include stuff like safe harbor guidelines for malpractice and allowing medicare to actually bargain I think it could turn out to be a pretty good bill, since that stuff would actually reduce the deficit.

I'd be willing to throw in the medical device tax and the repeal of the employer mandate to get this done
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What is the effectiveness and political likelihood of trading entitlement cuts with lifting the cap on SS + enabling medicare to negotiate drug prices? Would the GOP go for it? It would be trading short term cuts on entitlement spending with long term reform that would make both programs more solvent.

gcubed said:
they had two weeks to fix the glitches. They got a present with the shutdown, it should have been fixed
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I agree. I understand everybody's need to go shields up to defend the administration against some nonsensical attacks (e.g. "the website is bad, so repeal the law"), but the rollout has been embarrassing, and if it weren't for the shutdown, politically costly. It's gone beyond capacity issues to there being problems with the technical solution. Yes, you can say that it was a private sector company that was contracted to build it, but ultimately the government is responsible for the procurement of the service and should be held accountable if that service was delivered poorly.
 
P

Piecake

Member
Jooney said:
What is the effectiveness and political likelihood of trading entitlement cuts with lifting the cap on SS + enabling medicare to negotiate drug prices? Would the GOP go for it? It would be trading short term cuts on entitlement spending with long term reform that would make both programs more solvent.
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Well, I dont think lifting the SS cap is likely since that is an evil tax, but I think the rest of what I said is in the realm of possibility so long as Boehner isnt an idiot and doesnt follow the 'hassert rule'.

Republicans would get some good stuff out of that. They get token cuts to entitelments that they can brag about, they get to repeal a tax, hurt lawyers, and help businesses by reforming Obamacare.

Whats funny is the things that democrats will get are the things that will actually reduce our deficit. Infrastructure spending, pre-k will all produce positive returns and medicare bargaining will reduce health care spending, the real driver of our deficit.

The only bad thing democrats really give up is chained CPI. Means testing is just idiotic, so whatever. And I think a repeal of the employer mandate as well as safe harbor guidelines would be a good thing

gcubed said:
why havent we allowed medicare to negotiate drug prices yet? Cuz pharma money?
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Basically. Though the reason Republicans will tell you is that they want government out of healthcare, which is just idiotic on so many levels. Medicare is a government run program and Republicans are not allowing the government to be treated as a capitalist actor because they want to subsidize big business.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has no interest in a budget deal that trades sequestration relief for entitlement cuts, believing that future spending reductions scheduled to hit the Pentagon give Democrats the upper hand. Instead, the Nevada Democrat told The Huffington Post on Thursday, any large-scale debt-reduction deal must include increased revenue in exchange for changes to mandatory spending programs.

The government funding and debt limit bill signed Wednesday night sets a Dec. 13 deadline for budget negotiators to report back to Congress. If no deal is struck, Congress will have until Jan. 15 to approve continued government funding or face another shutdown.

Reid's hard lines -- which were offered just hours after Wednesday night's deal was signed into law -- reflect an increased sense among Democrats that after a big shutdown victory, they are in a strong political position heading into the next crucial months of debt-reduction talks.

Reid noted that while the coming year of sequestration cuts -- if fully implemented -- would be painful, the worst of it will recede in coming years, as spending levels begin increasing automatically. That gives Democrats more leverage to say no to lopsided offers.

"I would like to suggest that maybe the Republicans aren't too happy with next year's sequestration. Who does it hurt, non-defense? I get an extra billion dollars this year compared to [last] year. Defense? They lose $23 billion," Reid said, referring to the Pentagon. "So I would think there should be some people among the Republicans in the House and Senate who would say we should take a look at that."

Two in particular, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have been adamant about addressing the effect sequestration is having on the military.

Reid also said that he would make sure to protect Social Security against attempts to trade cuts for sequestration relief, calling such a bargain "a stupid trade."

"That's no trade. We are going to affect entitlements so we can increase defense spending? Don't check me for a vote there. I'm not interested in that," he said.

"It is the most successful social program in the history of the world. The program is not about to go broke, so take it easy on Social Security," Reid said.

President Obama made a similar commitment during a meeting with the Democratic Senate caucus last week, but added that if the Republican offer also included infrastructure money or investment in early childhood education, a major priority of Obama's, it would at least be worth considering. The president added that he was open to reforms to Social Security Disability Insurance.

If Republicans want to trim Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, Reid said, they'd have to give on tax revenue in exchange. Asked specifically if the deal must be revenue for entitlements, he said: "Yes, and we call it mandatories."

Asked for a response to Reid's line in the sand, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), told The Huffington Post, "If Democrats truly believe sequestration is bad for our economy, they shouldn’t hold a fix ‘hostage’ for another round of tax hikes.”

Obama has repeatedly offered to cut Social Security as part of a grand bargain, by changing the way benefits are calculated so as to reduce future payments.

Republicans, meanwhile, have been increasingly referring to sequestration as a win for the party, with anti-tax activist Grover Norquist calling its implementation the defining moment of the decade. But Reid questioned how unanimous that opinion is. He also pushed back against the notion that sequestration was a victory at all.

"Try to explain that to the programs that are being devastated. [National Institutes of Health], take that one. Would you call that a success?" he asked. "Let the Republicans try and defend what they've done to our country."

For all his strategizing, however, Reid acknowledged that he doesn't yet have a firm read on his opponents. Asked if this shutdown loss had broken the GOP's hostage-taking strategy for the foreseeable future, he demurred.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't like terms like [broken] because remember, we are not dealing with rational folks. But I do believe that they have been hurt irreparably."

Ultimately, Reid said, he doesn't hold out much hope for a big deal with Boehner, who has been unable to bring his troops together.

"I hope this budget process works. If it doesn't, that gives us 30 days before the Jan. 15 date. So if that doesn't work, we will do something during that period of time," he said. "The sad part about this is that John Boehner, I've heard him say so many times, 'I didn't get elected Speaker to do small things.' Well, we have tried to do big things with him and he can never, ever, ever pull the trigger. It is all, 'I can't do that, my caucus won't let me.'"

Reid advised his cross-cameral colleague to ditch the so-called Hastert rule, which holds that a bill should only come to the floor if a majority of the majority supports it.

"I would hope that if we have learned nothing else from this sorry episode that they've created, I would hope that America, and maybe even Republicans in the House, will look at what they've done. Last night they did the right thing," he said. "The House of Representatives voted on a piece of legislation. I served in the House. That's the way it always used to be. There was never this majority of the majority, how silly. You in effect wipe out the talents of half the Congress," he continued.

"So I would hope that if we've learned nothing else from this, that we will now get rid of the stupid Hastert Rule."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/harry-reid-social-security_n_4117325.html?138203929

I like this version of Harry Reid.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
They cost the economy 23 billions, they pay for it in defense cuts. (I do think there needs to be more discretionary choices)

And yeah Reid seems to have finally realized the dems position is the popular one. That and deficits in vague abstractions won't be a losing issue. They'll point to a few years of it falling.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Reid has never been the problem. He's not the guy who thought it was a great idea to let Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins dick everyone around on healthcare for months. That was Baucus, and Obama.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
So, I have a theory.

The GOP won't accept tax raises (even if it's removing deductions). And the Dems have stated they won't make real entitlement reform without tax revenues. So, if they believe the GOP is serious, which I think thy are, by holding that position they are saying there is on deal to be made.

The Dems don't want to reform entitlements (at least in ways that are cuts) and by holding the demand of increased tax revenues which they know the GOP would never agree to do they are effectively taking entitlements off the table.

That means the only possible deal available is to trade military sequester for non-discretionary sequester cuts. Or, in reality, just removing the sequester. Sure, they'd like more ala infrastructure spending, but the GOP has nothing to trade with them to get that, too.

So I think the end game here of the Dems is the GOP eventually giving up on the sequester and ending [at least most of] it while not touching entitlements. And they know it.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
B-Dubs said:
Either he has lost his damn mind or he's been hacked.
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This is the guy who...

This Super Bowl sucks more dick than adult Trayvon Martin would have for drug money.

— Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) February 4, 2013
Click to expand...


On Sunday, Todd Kincannon, a South Carolina lawyer and the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, tweeted that it was a “shame” an antiwar veteran “didn’t come home in a body bag.”
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D

Drakeon

Member
Black Mamba said:
So, I have a theory.

The GOP won't accept tax raises (even if it's removing deductions). And the Dems have stated they won't make real entitlement reform without tax revenues. So, if they believe the GOP is serious, which I think thy are, by holding that position they are saying there is on deal to be made.

The Dems don't want to reform entitlements (at least in ways that are cuts) and by holding the demand of increased tax revenues which they know the GOP would never agree to do they are effectively taking entitlements off the table.

That means the only possible deal available is to trade military sequester for non-discretionary sequester cuts. Or, in reality, just removing the sequester. Sure, they'd like more ala infrastructure spending, but the GOP has nothing to trade with them to get that, too.

So I think the end game here of the Dems is the GOP eventually giving up on the sequester and ending [at least most of] it while not touching entitlements. And they know it.
Click to expand...

I'd call that a win. I have serious doubts anything significant passes the house in 2014 (or after if the Republicans hold on).
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Black Mamba said:
So, I have a theory.

The GOP won't accept tax raises (even if it's removing deductions). And the Dems have stated they won't make real entitlement reform without tax revenues. So, if they believe the GOP is serious, which I think thy are, by holding that position they are saying there is on deal to be made.

The Dems don't want to reform entitlements (at least in ways that are cuts) and by holding the demand of increased tax revenues which they know the GOP would never agree to do they are effectively taking entitlements off the table.

That means the only possible deal available is to trade military sequester for non-discretionary sequester cuts. Or, in reality, just removing the sequester. Sure, they'd like more ala infrastructure spending, but the GOP has nothing to trade with them to get that, too.

So I think the end game here of the Dems is the GOP eventually giving up on the sequester and ending [at least most of] it while not touching entitlements. And they know it.
Click to expand...

Probably. John McCain will probably do nearly anything to get rid of sequestration, and he'll lead a merry band of 5-10 republican senators in whatever direction he chooses.

Still I wish the WH would at least come up with a plan on entitlements. No I don't think they should be cut. But there are ways to address entitlements without starving old people. Like, you know, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. But that will never happen due to the deals taken to get ACA passed.
 
S

sangreal

Member
Black Mamba said:
So, I have a theory.

The GOP won't accept tax raises (even if it's removing deductions). And the Dems have stated they won't make real entitlement reform without tax revenues. So, if they believe the GOP is serious, which I think thy are, by holding that position they are saying there is on deal to be made.

The Dems don't want to reform entitlements (at least in ways that are cuts) and by holding the demand of increased tax revenues which they know the GOP would never agree to do they are effectively taking entitlements off the table.

That means the only possible deal available is to trade military sequester for non-discretionary sequester cuts. Or, in reality, just removing the sequester. Sure, they'd like more ala infrastructure spending, but the GOP has nothing to trade with them to get that, too.

So I think the end game here of the Dems is the GOP eventually giving up on the sequester and ending [at least most of] it while not touching entitlements. And they know it.
Click to expand...

That's not a theory, McConnell spelled this all out today:
MCCONNELL: The price for entitlement reform, so far from the administration, has been taxes. There is some willingness to discuss trading entitlement spending reductions for discretionary spending relief. But, so far, there has been no real willingness on the part of the administration to do that. That’s worth discussing, though, because if you get real entitlement spending reductions, they tend to last — we don’t tend to vote on it every year. Take the decision by Reagan and Tip O’Neill to raise the age of Social Security; we never went back and revisited it, and it saved Social Security for a generation. And there’s no question that as proud as I am of the Budget Control Act, that only deals with the discretionary side of the budget, and the biggest problem is on the entitlement side. Now, that’s not an argument for not reducing discretionary spending, since I think the government is way too big, including on the discretionary side. But the biggest challenge we need to address is entitlements, and they don’t want to.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/361533/mcconnells-exit-interview-robert-costa
 
S

sangreal

Member
PhoenixPause said:
Probably. John McCain will probably do nearly anything to get rid of sequestration, and he'll lead a merry band of 5-10 republican senators in whatever direction he chooses.

Still I wish the WH would at least come up with a plan on entitlements. No I don't think they should be cut. But there are ways to address entitlements without starving old people. Like, you know, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. But that will never happen due to the deals taken to get ACA passed.
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on a similar note, there are a lot of fixes that need to be made to the ACA that would appeal to both parties if the GOP would just drop their insistence on outright appeal or nothing

This actually came up in the shutdown debate when the house balked at Boehner's medical device tax (broken because it is on gross revenue not profit) delay because it would "make the law more palatable"
 
P

Piecake

Member
PhoenixPause said:
Probably. John McCain will probably do nearly anything to get rid of sequestration, and he'll lead a merry band of 5-10 republican senators in whatever direction he chooses.

Still I wish the WH would at least come up with a plan on entitlements. No I don't think they should be cut. But there are ways to address entitlements without starving old people. Like, you know, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. But that will never happen due to the deals taken to get ACA passed.
Click to expand...

The plan shouldnt be about entitlements though. It should be about health care costs, since that is the cause of our long term debt issue. Youre right that negotiating drug prices is a very good idea, but cutting benefits is just stupid because it just shifts the cost to American individuals, which will hurt growth. Now, I am willing to trade some stupid, but just as long as we get something better, like Pre-K.

-Safe Harbor guidelines
-negotiating drug prices
-Use the Obamacare insurance regions to set up collective bargaining between all the insurance companies in that region and all the hospitals. This will hopefully give insurance companies more bargaining power and stop the absurd price differences.
-Do something about the absurd bureaucratic paperwork that hosptials need to fill out for insurance companies. Standardize everything. The collective bargaining should help this.
-Standardize medicare payments - just because it pisses me off that florida and texas get more than Minnesota. I mean, wtf?
-Price transparency
-Show actual cost of healthcare on pay stub, not just the unsubsidzied part.

Obviously the best way to do it is single payer, but that aint happening

image013-d4d3d35e8791f3aa4439c8a6d4c6d55df2445e5e-s40.jpg
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That pattern looks oddly familiar...
 
D

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Not a single Republican will specify an actual medicare/SS cut. It's all BS. If Ryan even tries to bring up his plan again, he will get destroyed. Entitlement reform sounds great, actual cuts = democratic landslide next few years.
 
J

Jooney

Member
+1 for negotiating on drug prices.

Here in Australia we leverage the gov as a single payer to negotiate cheap drug prices on common prescription drugs. On top of that, most pharmacies push the generic version of the drug which includes further savings for patients. You can get common medications (antibiotics, blood pressure medication, etc.) for around $5 if you have a pensioner card.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
sangreal said:
on a similar note, there are a lot of fixes that need to be made to the ACA that would appeal to both parties if the GOP would just drop their insistence on outright appeal or nothing
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Though I could see them demanding concessions for those kinds of reasonable changes both parties would like.
 
G

Giant Panda

Member
I personally believe that trading entitlement cuts for infrastructure and pre-K funding would be a deal worth doing if they were fair amounts. Don't infrastructure and education have higher multipliers than entitlement spending anyway?
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Giant Panda said:
I personally believe that trading entitlement cuts for infrastructure and pre-K funding would be a deal worth doing if they were fair amounts. Don't infrastructure and education have higher multipliers than entitlement spending anyway?
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I'm a much bigger fan of keeping people out of poverty than building bridges. Unless you can really show me building them saves more lives and keeps more people from being poor.
 
F

Frank the Great

Banned
All these discussions about trading things for entitlement reforms are overly optimistic IMO. Boehner is still not going to bring anything to the floor without majority Republican support, and there's no way House Republicans would support something that increases spending with primaries so close.

It will go down to the wire again and no big deals will be made. Unless Boehner locates his testicles at some point between now and January.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Crazy busy today but very quickly:

Frank the Great said:
All these discussions about trading things for entitlement reforms are overly optimistic IMO. Boehner is still not going to bring anything to the floor without majority Republican support, and there's no way House Republicans would support something that increases spending with primaries so close.
Click to expand...

That's the magic of a conference committee! If the budget conference reports a bill out, it's guaranteed an immediate vote free of any further amendments. It can't even be filibustered. (Although technically it could be recommitted.)
 
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