Wed Sep 25, 2013 at 10:27 AM PDT
Cruz votes against Cruz, Senate moves on to funding government
attribution: None Specified
Stand with Daily Kos and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in denouncing Republicans who would completely shut down the government just to destroy Obamacare.
Failed Republican Fiscal Policy has left the U.S. unable to compete globally.
Is this the Party that makes sense for Americans?
Tue Sep 24, 2013 at 08:01 PM PDT
China Builds Sucessful High Speed Rail While U.S. Flails under Austerity
When the great global recession hit, the Chinese government went full speed ahead on plans to develop high speed rail. China embarked on a massive debt-funded spending program to develop public infrastructure. Now, just 5 years later, China is reaping the benefits of increased productivity. The Republican mantra for over 30 years, cut government spending, has led to American stagnation while China has prospered by investing in public infrastructure.
Just five years after China's high-speed rail system opened, it is carrying nearly twice as many passengers each month as the country's domestic airline industry. With traffic growing 28 per cent a year for the last several years, China's high-speed rail network will handle more passengers by early next year than the 54 million people a month who board domestic flights in the United States. ...Business executives like Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock market in coastal Shenzhen, ride bullet trains to meetings all over China to avoid airport delays. The trains hurtle along at 186 miles an hour and are smooth, well-lighted, comfortable and almost invariably punctual, if not early. "I did not think it would change so quickly. High-speed trains seemed like a strange thing, but now it's just part of our lives," Zhen said. ...
Chinese workers are now more productive. A paper for the World Bank by three consultants this year found that Chinese cities connected to the high-speed rail network, as more than 100 are already, are likely to experience broad growth in worker productivity. The productivity gains occur when companies find themselves within a couple of hours' train ride of tens of millions of potential customers, employees and rivals.
The House-passed continuing resolution funds the government through Dec. 15 at a spending level of $986.3 billion, roughly what the government is currently spending after the sequester. Senate Democrats plan to strip out the bill's language that prohibits funding for Obamacare, but senior aides privately concede that they'll reluctantly accept the sequester level and won't risk a shutdown for higher spending. The White House has steered clear of using its primary leverage -- a veto threat -- to unwind the sequester.The Budget Control Act calls for a fiscal 2014 spending level of $1.058 trillion, before the sequester cuts that to $967 billion. The sequester would bring down the spending level to $967 billion either way. Senior Democratic aides insist this is temporary and the low spending levels won't be locked in. But voting to establish a lower top-line spending level in the short term cedes their leverage to ultimately scrap sequestration cuts.
These spending cuts have not been kind to the U.S. economy. The contraction in federal government consumption and investment has caused a direct drag on economic growth in eight of the past 10 quarters, including the past three quarters consecutively. Although down from its peak several years ago, the unemployment rate remains greater than the level most forecasters had predicted three years ago, when Congress began cutting federal spending. And for many American families, the recession is not over. Indeed, median household income today is lower than it was when the Great Recession technically came to a close in June 2009.It is in this economic context that conservatives in Congress are demanding even more cutbacks. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that implementing the sequester cuts in 2014 will reduce real gross domestic product, or GDP, by 0.7 percent and reduce employment by 900,000 jobs. Since Speaker Boehner’s approach would cement most of these cuts into place, the immediate negative economic consequences alone should be enough for Congress to reject it.
Adding to the absurdity of considering further cuts is the simple fact that the allegedly worrisome federal fiscal situation—the stated rationale for these cuts—is not nearly as worrisome today as it once was. Measured as a share of GDP, this year’s federal budget deficit is expected to come in at its lowest level since 2008. More importantly, the projections of future budgets have improved dramatically over the past three years. The federal debt-to-GDP ratio was once expected to rise to unprecedented levels by the end of the decade; it is now expected to decline for the next five years and only then rising slowly, to end in 2023 at the same level it is today.
We have GLOBAL WARMING to address while Republicans dither:
Republican Senator Calls Out Ted Cruz and Tea Party for Not Being In Tune with the “Real World”
September 25, 2013 By
It’s not often you see Republicans calling each other out (though it’s happening more and more as the internal “civil war” within the Republican party continues to grow), but that’s exactly what happened when word leaked out that some Republicans were trying to recruit “red state Democrats” to their fight to defund the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”).
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his fellow tea party radicals are now trying to recruit Democratic senators in “red states” to help them pass the bill the House sent to the Senate, which would fund the government while defunding Obamacare.
One such Democrat they targeted was Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu. Apparently, Cruz has taken to veiled threats against Democrats in predominately red states by insinuating that their jobs might be at risk if they continue to support Obamacare. He seems to be using this as a tactic to try to leverage some Democratic support for his push to defund the law.
A push which even if the Senate passed it, President Obama has vowed to veto the bill. And don’t start with the whole, “Congress can override a veto” thing—it’s not happening. It takes 2/3 of both the House and Senate to override a veto and you’re not going to get that.
It’s a futile effort by Cruz and the tea party to continue to threaten the lives of Americans by pushing for a government shutdown if their attempts at blackmail fail. And it has prompted a few Republicans in Congress to call out this radical behavior.
One such senator who’s had enough of it is Tom Coburn from Oklahoma. You might remember him as the gentleman who initially said that budget cuts needed to be made to offset spending before he would support disaster relief for the Moore, Oklahoma tornado victims. I only bring this up to show that he isn’t exactly what one would call a “moderate” Republican.
Well, he took a jab at these members of Congress who continue to push to defund Obamacare by threatening a government shutdown:
So while Cruz and those Republicans who support this asinine idea will continue to campaign across the country to gain support, continually repeating the talking point of, “It’s what the American people want,” simply remind them that if that was the case—Mitt Romney would be president right now.
The American people did speak last November. They re-elected President Obama and gave more power to Democrats in both the House and the Senate.
A political and real world reality that Ted Cruz and many Republicans seem in complete and utter denial about.
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/republican-senator-calls-out-ted-cruz-and-tea-party-for-not-being-in-tune-with-the-real-world/
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his fellow tea party radicals are now trying to recruit Democratic senators in “red states” to help them pass the bill the House sent to the Senate, which would fund the government while defunding Obamacare.
One such Democrat they targeted was Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu. Apparently, Cruz has taken to veiled threats against Democrats in predominately red states by insinuating that their jobs might be at risk if they continue to support Obamacare. He seems to be using this as a tactic to try to leverage some Democratic support for his push to defund the law.
A push which even if the Senate passed it, President Obama has vowed to veto the bill. And don’t start with the whole, “Congress can override a veto” thing—it’s not happening. It takes 2/3 of both the House and Senate to override a veto and you’re not going to get that.
It’s a futile effort by Cruz and the tea party to continue to threaten the lives of Americans by pushing for a government shutdown if their attempts at blackmail fail. And it has prompted a few Republicans in Congress to call out this radical behavior.
One such senator who’s had enough of it is Tom Coburn from Oklahoma. You might remember him as the gentleman who initially said that budget cuts needed to be made to offset spending before he would support disaster relief for the Moore, Oklahoma tornado victims. I only bring this up to show that he isn’t exactly what one would call a “moderate” Republican.
Well, he took a jab at these members of Congress who continue to push to defund Obamacare by threatening a government shutdown:
”And the political reality, you know, tactics and strategies ought to be based on what the real world is, and we do not have the political power to do this. And so we’re not–we are not about to shut the government down over the fact that we cannot, only controlling one House of Congress, tell the president that we’re not going to fund any portion of this, because we can’t do that.”And while he could have phrased things a little more eloquently, the fact is that he’s right. Under no circumstance does this “defund Obamacare” strategy make any sense. The whole strategy isn’t based on reality.
So while Cruz and those Republicans who support this asinine idea will continue to campaign across the country to gain support, continually repeating the talking point of, “It’s what the American people want,” simply remind them that if that was the case—Mitt Romney would be president right now.
The American people did speak last November. They re-elected President Obama and gave more power to Democrats in both the House and the Senate.
A political and real world reality that Ted Cruz and many Republicans seem in complete and utter denial about.
Related Posts on Forward Progressives:
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/republican-senator-calls-out-ted-cruz-and-tea-party-for-not-being-in-tune-with-the-real-world/
No comments:
Post a Comment