Posted on 01/19/2013 7:56:38 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In the fights over the fiscal cliff and now the debt ceiling, many conservatives were adamant: Republicans should reach an agreement with President Obama only in exchange for serious cuts in entitlement spending. It is the entitlements Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security that will drive future deficits, the conservatives argued, and without real cuts, the nations debt will spiral out of control in the not-too-distant future.
Some Republican lawmakers have been stressing that point for weeks and demanding that the president agree to real cuts before any deal could be struck. But what has emerged from the House GOP retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia is that Republicans did not have an entitlement-cutting proposal to present to Obama in debt-ceiling talks, had the president ever agreed to negotiate with them. The talk about big entitlement cuts, at least in connection with a debt-ceiling agreement, was mostly talk.
Now, by deciding to pass a short-term debt-limit bill, and at the same time demand that Democrats pass a budget something Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not allowed in nearly four years Republicans have sidestepped the entitlement issue altogether, at least for a while. That might have been the GOPs only option, since it had not agreed on an entitlement-cutting proposal.
House Republicans placed themselves on the side of entitlement reform when they voted for the Ryan budget. But the Ryan budget was a far-reaching, intricately interconnected plan that addressed not only entitlement spending but taxes and revenues and more. It was not a proposal that Republicans could just throw at the president and say, Here, this is our position. As for the actions on entitlements that might have been part of GOP demands for a debt-ceiling deal, says one participant in the Williamsburg meeting: Long term, those have to be figured out. But my sense of that is that it is not going to happen in ten days. This is complex, important. In other words, there was no plan for major entitlement cuts as part of the debt-limit strategy.
Rather than come up with their own plan for extensive entitlement cuts, Republicans considered focusing on some smaller proposals that Obama has spoken of favorably in the past and has now abandoned. If the debate had reached a discussion of entitlements, its likely the GOP would have latched onto those and pushed for the president to live by his own words.
None of this means Republicans didnt discuss among themselves some possible options for cutting entitlements. There were a lot of discussions about cuts and what to cut, says another Republican who has been involved in the process. Fifty-five and above was discussed. What could we get and where were discussed. But discussing does not mean agreeing on a plan. And the bottom line is that if President Obama had had an incredible change of mind and said to Republicans, OK, youre right. I will negotiate. And we need to cut entitlements. Whats your plan? the GOP would have had little to offer beyond what Obama himself has already said.
I don’t beleive for a minute that if they cut socialist security they would not move the money saved to the even bigger sinkhole known as socialized health care.
There is no way this government is ever going to get serious about not wasting money and going into debt to do it. They broke out of the limits of the constitution and the sky is the limit. What goes up, must come down.
Let it crash. Then start over with constitutional limits on federal activity for a change. The government is a monster and cutting one unconstitutional activity will just lead to more spending on another unconstitutional thing.
During the past four years, we have spent approximately six trillion dollars more than we have taken in. That deficit spending has not been for social security or medicare. While those programs do pose a future problem, we have a more immediate concern that needs to be addressed first. If we don’t deal with our our of control non social security spending, fixing social security will not save us.
It is as if our house is on fire and also has an infestation of termites. Does it do any good to bring in an exterminator if we don’t put out the fire first.
Let’s see them put their money where their mouth is: cut salaries and staff for all elected officials. And eliminate tax-supported pensions for the same.
It would save a mere pittance compared to other wastefull government programs, but it would show that they *meant* it when they talked reform.
Ae you ready for Speaker Pelosi Part 2 yet? Boehner and his gang of Whigs have guaranteed it for 2014. 2010 was a directive from the people to cut spending. NOT ONE CENT HAS BEEN CUT. So, why bother having this gang of Do-nthng, spineless cowards run the House?
Boehner should have been ousted when he made his ridiculous “we only control 1/6th of the government” comment. Whigs are totally incapable of running anything except their mouths.
I would ask that everyone refer to the former Republicans as Whigs and get behind the formation of a national TEA Party. I propose three plain ideas as core beliefs:
1. Adherance to the Constitution in all things;
2. Massive reduction, reorganization and responsive government; and
3. Rededication to our Judeo-Christian principles.
Conservatives have been betrayed.
Shame on the GOP. There is to be NO entitlement reform, and the sequestration cuts (where the military is 18% of the budget yet takes 50% of the cuts) still loom.
American were played by Obama and the GOP.
Soros and other nonAmericans
(Romney’s and Obama’s partners)
now control what is left of the USA.
America is a bankrupt nation where the Law
only depends on skin color, religion and connections.
Of the three things mentioned...only Medicaid is a true entitlement....the others are really “pay into” programs....and that will be political suicide for any politican to cut SSec and Medicare
When Reagan and the GOP made an honest push to address these issues....the backlash was severe...even from Reagan supporters. Note that there were fewer on SS and HCare back then compared to now
The best way to curtail SS and MCare spending is to allow some private seperate investments for those not yet collecting....and no Illegal Alien Amnesty
Anyone supporting Illegal Alien Amnesty...in any form....is just asking for the SS and MCare system to be greatly expanded. No one supporting Illegal Alien Amnesty can claim they are for less government spending
That’s the Washington way.
My congressman sought a $50 million cut in funding for the national endowment for the arts. By the time it made it through committee and all the amendments were voted on it was only a $20 million cut and the annual increases were raised so they’ll end up getting even more money than the current $125 million per year.
The real problem isn’t enough money for government but too much.
Amnesty is nothing but government growth hormone.
30 million illegals is enough to create some 50 odd congressional districts (mostly democrat) and all the expenses incurred as well as all spending voted on.
“America is a bankrupt nation where the Law
only depends on skin color, religion and connections.”
Sounds like the South after Reconstruction. The post Civil War economy was bankrupt, whites suppressed blacks with Jim Crow laws, one party ruled while a very few wealthy landowners and factory owners suppressed poor whites. Company stores were a vehicle for shackling workers with debt they could never repay so they could not leave the mill. The few Jews in southern towns who were not extremely wealthy were shunned and despised by the dominant Christians. The Klan ran free, persecuting blacks and whites who showed sympathy for blacks. The local sheriff served as the enforcer for the few wealth aristocrats. Anyone bucking the system could expect punishment rendered outside the due process of law.
Come to think of it, the situation wasn’t much different in the North. Union bosses and political machines dominated the cities. There was no real political opposition at the local level. Average citizens, including women and children, worked long hours in factories, enduring oppressive working conditions for wages that barely put food on the table and paid the rent for a tiny squalid tenement apartment. Catholics and Jews were despised for their religious beliefs by the dominant Protestant Christians. The national government persecuted native Americans the West while the railroads brought in cheap Chinese labor. Wealth financiers and industrials owned Congress and the President.
One might argue most citizens today have more freedom, and better lives, in the USA than average citizens in the last quarter of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th century.
I used to have faith that at some Republicans would fight for what is right.
What have we seen?
The GOP politicians in New York agreed with Comrade Cuomo and passed his fascist "gun control" agenda in the middle of the night.
The Republican party has abandoned the United States military and is now playing second fiddle to the Democrats as to who can bankrupt the country the fastest by spooning out "checks" to the lazy, the illegals, and the self declared entitled.
I have prayed to God for this nation and her leaders. My only hope is that God has mercy on America, because it does not seem like we have very much time left.
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