Posted on 12/03/2012 12:53:06 PM PST by Red Steel
(Newser) – With fiscal cliff negotiations going, in John Boehner's words, "nowhere," Republicans are considering what ABC News correspondent Jon Karl calls a "doomsday" contingency plan. Under the plan—which Karl's sources say "is becoming the most likely scenario"—the House would approve extending the middle class Bush tax cuts, but would agree to absolutely nothing else before the holiday recess, leaving President Obama to face massive spending cuts and another debt ceiling showdown as soon as Congress returned.
In other fiscal cliff news:
Nancy Pelosi is threatening to use a maneuver called the "discharge petition" to bring the Senate's already-passed bill averting the cliff to the House floor whether Boehner likes it or not, CNN reports. Pelosi would then need to woo a handful of Republicans to her side to actually pass the bill.
Congressional veterans tell Reuters not to worry about the apparent gridlock; it's well-established that little gets done on Capitol Hill until just before the holiday recess. "The Congress doesn't work on the clock," one GOP senator observes. "It works on the calendar."
Boehner and Obama actually largely agree on the long-term portion of the deal, but they're miles apart on the short-term "down payment," the New York Times reports. Obama wants a large down payment paid for mostly with tax hikes on the wealthy; Republicans want a smaller one including entitlement cuts.
The Times also has a piece observing that Obama has toughened his negotiating posture, after a first term in which he seemed to constantly offer what he considered compromises, only to have Republicans reject them and demand more.
HOW IS CAVING A "PLAN"!?!
(...and this is the point where I stop typing before I get banned or accused of having Tourette's.)
Boehner has shown no ability or willingness to fight the traitorous Lib press. They will crucify him and the Repubs and Obama’s 80-IQ goons will cheer them on.
Hey Republicans,
This isn’t complicated. Say ‘No’!
“The elderly are not touched.”
The elderly have been creamed by the Bernanke, Bush II, Obama policies of using the Federal Reserve to artificially suppress interest rates in order to hold down the interest rate on the ballooning federal deficit. The self reliant retiree who could earn 6% on a safe, federally insured CD ladder at the beginning of the Bush II regime in 2001, now earns 1%. Or, had that same retiree invested in a conservative diversified portfolio of stock mutual funds in 2001, that retiree would have lost 50% of the savings in the 2008 market crash.
Whichever path the retiree took to invest savings in the private sector over the past decade, the real after tax and inflation return on savings was negative. A negative return on savings over a decade is not going to encourage people to be frugal nor will it give them faith in the private sector options for conservative savings. For many of the elderly, who paid into Social Security for 40 years and did accumulate enough savings for a self sufficient retirement the last decade has moved them from a comfortable middle class lifestyle to poverty. Add to that the bailouts of Wall Street speculators by the government, and the government shoveling money and free phones at third generation non working urban parasites and you call the elderly greedy?
I pointed out that the elderly won't be touched by such cuts; the reforms are only directed at those under 55.
I didn't comment on the interest rate realities. Only the entitlements. There's no denying that a major portion of entitlements (social security, Medicare) are retirement programs.
I don’t know how old you are, but I do know how old I am. I first started putting $$$ into the Social Security and Medicare funds when I was only 15.
I put in plenty of money for over 50 years.
I paid my income taxes—as a single person for all but 4 years of all those tax returns. I was in the higher category—not married—no kids, etc. Earn $3 to bring home $2, was the mantra.
I haven’t used one single penny of Medicare.
I was promised my Social Security benefits and I live now on less than $1100 a month.
Reducing that money to people like myself is out and out fraud. I paid what was demanded into the fund. I didn’t steal the money out of the fund—the Democrats did.
Yet I still want Medicare reformed because if they don't do it it will go bankrupt for EVERYONE.
I'm OK with the voucher proposed by Ryan. I like the idea of being free to shop around for healthcare.
I don't know why you're worried about SS benefits. You will get those.
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