REPUBLICANS HAD NO PLAN!

Now that REPUBLICANS are in charge, their inability to govern is clear!

Republicans have been incapable of governing each time they're in charge.
How many times have they wasted their time and energy attempting to REPEAL OBAMACARE?

REPUBLICANS are not acting for Americans!

ALL AMERICANS DESERVE HEALTH CARE

STOP THE GOP RIGGED ELECTIONS & VOTE THEM OUT!

28 June 17 AM

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Republicans Eye Billions in Side Deals to Win Obamacare Repeal Votes 
Josh Dawsey and Burgess Everett, Politico 
Excerpt: "White House and Capitol Hill officials are exploring potential deals to divvy up billions of dollars to individual senators' priorities in a wide-ranging bid to secure votes for the imperiled GOP health care bill." 
READ MORE


Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have been looking to wipe out as much of Obamacare as possible 
and replace it with health savings accounts, group plans and selling insurance across state lines. 
(photo: Getty Images)

The White House and Senate GOP leaders have nearly $200 billion in savings to divvy up among senators’ priorities to secure votes for the imperiled bill.

hite House and Capitol Hill officials are exploring potential deals to divvy up billions of dollars to individual senators’ priorities in a wide-ranging bid to secure votes for the imperiled GOP health care bill.

A Congressional Budget Office score that projected 22 million fewer Americans would have insurance under the plan sent some members fleeing Monday and left the bill in jeopardy of failing to have enough votes to even be called to the Senate floor this week.

But Republicans in the White House and in Congress were pleasantly surprised that the bill included more savings than they expected — and are trying to figure out if they can dole it out for votes.

The Senate has about $188 billion to play with.

Among the possible changes: More spending for health savings accounts to appease conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee, according to three people familiar with the matter, and some additional Medicaid and opioid spending for moderates.

"We are still working with leadership to change the base bill," a Lee aide said.

Lee, Cruz and others on the right have been looking to wipe out as much of Obamacare as possible and replace it with health savings accounts, group plans and selling insurance across state lines, among other ideas. It’s not clear whether the Senate parliamentarian would allow all of those proposals through under strict reconciliation rules. And Lee will likely require far more dramatic changes to be won over.

Meanwhile, senators from Medicaid expansion states huddled after the CBO score revealed the nearly $200 billion in savings to see whether they could get GOP leaders to put more money into Medicaid and to thwart drug addiction. Those modifications might take place on the Senate floor, but Republicans are divided on how to use the money.

Negotiations are likely to continue quickly behind the scenes over the next 24 hours and could draw the ire of good government groups and advocates. Republicans hammered Democrats for supposedly crafting Obamacare in secret seven years ago and for handing out goodies to wavering Democratic senators.

But the GOP bill has been roundly criticized for being negotiated and written in secret — and the final terms are leaving even some Republicans queasy.

One Senate aide said that Tuesday would be "all about side deals," and another person familiar with the discussions said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had already begun talking about private deals.

"There's no one-size-fits-all to getting these people on board," said one White House official. "Each of them want different things, and we have to figure out if there is a path."

Defenders of the bill note that Obamacare's markets are struggling and the coverage losses are partially due to people choosing not to buy coverage, because there would no longer be a government mandate.

Any changes to appease moderates could face severe blowback from conservatives.

“There are some people who have some designs on that,” said Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if we put the money toward deficit reduction."

The MILITARY ADVENTURES of the US invading and bombing nations goggles up more than 50% of the FEDERAL BUDGET. Maybe that would be a good start to reducing the deficit. And how about those TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS the Pentagon can't account for? 

The bill remains in peril. It is also unclear whether there is enough money to give out that could win over the divided GOP Conference.

Time is of the essence.

McConnell has said he wants a vote this week no matter what, even as some White House officials have said they wouldn't mind a delay and are fearful the votes aren't there with the current legislation.

“You could make an argument for delaying it if you could get a better policy, but this is the best we could do to satisfy all the different aspects of our conferences,” Thune said.

“There’s no reason not to get this done this week,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. “And the CBO score was a little better than I thought it would be.”

White House officials said they were increasingly looking to Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) — and if the two maintained their opposition, the bill was likely dead. Senate leadership has largely written off Paul, and a Trump outside group has begun attacking Heller, drawing some head-scratching from Senate aides.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/44372-republicans-eye-billions-in-side-deals-to-win-obamacare-repeal-votes

This, that and .....Sharia Law

Stop Telling Lies About Liberals And We'll Stop Telling The Truth About You shared 1,000,000 Strong to Help Improve Tea Party Patriots' Spelling and Grammar's photo.

USAction shared Working America's photo.

LIKE & SHARE to wish ‪#‎SocialSecurity‬ a happy 78th birthday!

Happy 78th birthday, Social Security!

Thank you for being one of the most successful poverty-reduction programs in our nation's history. Let's keep you around.

Steve Marmel

Why is this failure still speaking?

Http://Facebook.com/TheMarmelPage

 

(chs)

Women, we are going to have to turn all these bad laws around. Nobody but nobody wants to have an abortion. I am pro-choice but the understand pro-life position, I just wish they could understand the meme below and what the ramifications of their absolutist attitudes will be. Regressive and deadly.

PS If you want any of the above to go with a share, you have to cut and paste it into your share screen.

The Pragmatic Progressive Page shared The Big Slice's photo.

Too Informed To Vote Republican

Image from American Voice of Reason
mmc

Restoring Fiscal Sanity

Instead of restoring fiscal sanity, the Republicans have driven policy that continues to reward the wealthy moochers and Big Corporations.

Please consider adding your name instead of supporting stripping others of benefits they've paid for --

Americans across the political spectrum are up in arms. President Obama has endorsed cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits by using the "chained CPI" to lower the cost-of-living adjustment.

The Congressional Budget Office says cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits in this way would save the government $163 billion over ten years.

There are much better ways for the government to save $163 billion. Urge President Obama and your representatives in Congress to cut the Pentagon budget instead of cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/chained-cpi

Here are three easy ways to save $163 billion by cutting the Pentagon budget:

1. End the war in Afghanistan. A rough estimate of the cost of deploying U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a billion dollars per thousand troops per year. If we withdraw 16,300 troops from Afghanistan and keep them out, that would save $163 billion over ten years.

2. Cut the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. A recent estimate of the long-term cost of purchasing, operating and maintaining 2,457 F-35s is $1.5 trillion. [1] That's $610 million per plane. If we cut 267 planes - a little over 10% - that would save $163 billion.

3. Cut Pentagon contracting. Every year the Pentagon spends more than $360 billion purchasing goods and services from contractors. Service contractors can cost, on average, 2.94 times more than an average Pentagon civilian employee performing the same job. A crude estimate suggests that just by cutting Pentagon contracting by 7% and bringing the work in house, the Pentagon could save $163 billion over ten years. [2]

Cutting the Pentagon budget instead of Social Security and veterans' benefits isn't a wild idea - it's exactly what will happen if there there is no "grand bargain" budget deal. All we have to do to make sure the Pentagon budget is cut is prevent a deal that cuts Social Security and veterans' benefits.

Urge your representatives in Congress and President Obama to cut the Pentagon budget instead of cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/chained-cpi

Thank you for all you do to help bring about a more just foreign policy,

Robert Naiman, Chelsea Mozen, Sarah Burns and Megan Iorio
Just Foreign Policy

Help fund our work—donate to Just Foreign Policy! With our small staff and minimal overhead, you know your contribution will go a long way.
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References:

1. “Cut Social Security & Veterans' Benefits? Cut the Pentagon Instead!” Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, April 9, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/cut-social-security-veter_b_3040226.html
2. Ibid.

The Republican Hoax

Interesting perspective on Republican Tactics --

Bi-Partisanship We Don’t Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

John Boehner, Speaker of the House, revealed why it’s politically naive for the President to offer up cuts in Social Security in the hope of getting Republicans to close some tax loopholes for the rich. “If the President believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement released Friday.

 

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor agreed. He said on CNBC he didn’t understand “why we just don’t see the White House come forward and do the things that we agree on” such as cutting Social Security, without additional tax increases.

 

Get it? The Republican leadership is already salivating over the President’s proposed Social Security cut. They’ve been wanting to cut Social Security for years.

 

But they won’t agree to close tax loopholes for the rich.

 

They’re already characterizing the President’s plan as a way to “save” Social Security — even though the cuts would undermine it — and they’re embracing it as an act of “bi-partisanship.”

“I’m encouraged by any steps that President Obama is taking to save and preserve Social Security,” cooed Texas Republican firebrand Ted Cruz. “I think it should be a bipartisan priority to strengthen Social Security and Medicare to preserve the benefits for existing seniors.”

Oh, please. Social Security hasn’t contributed to the budget deficit. And it’s solvent for the next two decades. (If we want to insure its solvency beyond that, the best fix is to lift the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes – now $113,700.)

And the day Ted Cruz agrees to raise taxes on the wealthy or even close a tax loophole will be when Texas freezes over.

The President is scheduled to dine with a dozen Senate Republicans Wednesday night. Among those attending will be John Boozman of Arkansas, who has already praised Obama for “starting to throw things on the table,” like the Social Security cuts.

That’s exactly the problem. The President throws things on the table before the Republicans have even sat down for dinner.

 

The President’s predilection for negotiating with himself is not new. But his willingness to do it with Social Security, the government’s most popular program — which Democrats have protected from Republican assaults for almost eighty years — doesn’t bode well.

 

The President desperately wants a “grand bargain” on the deficit. Republicans know he does. Watch your wallets. 

 

http://robertreich.org/post/47580510045

 

 

The stampede is toward wrong-headed economic policies that have been proven to fail and Paul Krugman has offered an easy to understand explanation debunking some of the myths --

Op-Ed Columnist

The Urge to Purge

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 4, 2013

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

 

When the Great Depression struck, many influential people argued that the government shouldn’t even try to limit the damage. According to Herbert Hoover, Andrew Mellon, his Treasury secretary, urged him to “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers. ... It will purge the rottenness out of the system.” Don’t try to hasten recovery, warned the famous economist Joseph Schumpeter, because “artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depressions undone.”

 

Like many economists, I used to quote these past luminaries with a certain smugness. After all, modern macroeconomics had shown how wrong they were, and we wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, would we?

 

How naïve we were. It turns out that the urge to purge — the urge to see depression as a necessary and somehow even desirable punishment for past sins, while inveighing against any attempt to mitigate suffering — is as strong as ever. Indeed, Mellonism is everywhere these days. Turn on CNBC or read an op-ed page, and the odds are that you won’t see someone arguing that the federal government and the Federal Reserve are doing too little to fight mass unemployment. Instead, you’re much more likely to encounter an alleged expert ranting about the evils of budget deficits and money creation, and denouncing Keynesian economics as the root of all evil.

      

Now, the fact is that these ranters have been wrong about everything, at every stage of the crisis, while the Keynesians have been mostly right. Remember how federal deficits were supposed to cause soaring interest rates? Never mind: After four years of such warnings, rates remain near historic lows — just as Keynesians predicted. Remember how running the printing presses was going to cause runaway inflation? Since the recession began, the Fed has more than tripled the size of its balance sheet, but inflation has averaged less than 2 percent.

      

But the Mellonites just keep coming. The latest example is David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s first budget director, who has just published a mammoth screed titled “The Great Deformation.”

      

His book doesn’t have much new to say. Although Mr. Stockman’s willingness to criticize some Republicans and praise some Democrats has garnered him a reputation as an iconoclast, his analysis is pretty much standard liquidationism, with a strong goldbug streak. We’ve been doomed to disaster, he asserts, ever since F.D.R. took us off the gold standard and introduced deposit insurance.

 

Everything since has been a series of “sprees” (his favorite word): spending sprees, consumption sprees, debt sprees, and above all money-printing sprees. If disaster was somehow avoided for 70-plus years, it was thanks to a series of lucky accidents.

      

So it’s more or less the usual stuff. In particular, like so many in his camp, Mr. Stockman misunderstands the meaning of rising debt. Yes, total debt in the U.S. economy, public and private combined, has risen dramatically relative to G.D.P. No, this doesn’t mean that we as a nation have been living far beyond our means, and must drastically tighten our belts. While we have run up a significant foreign debt (although not as big as many imagine), the rise in debt overwhelmingly represents Americans borrowing from other Americans, which doesn’t make the nation as a whole any poorer, and doesn’t require that we collectively spend less. In fact, the biggest problem created by all this debt is that it’s keeping the economy depressed by causing us collectively to spend too little, with debtors forced to cut back while creditors see no reason to spend more.

      

So what should we be doing? By all means, let’s restore the kind of effective financial regulation that, in the years before the Reagan revolution, helped deter excessive leverage. But that’s about preventing the next crisis. To deal with the crisis that’s already here, we need monetary and fiscal stimulus, to induce those who aren’t too deeply indebted to spend more while the debtors are cutting back.

 

But that prescription is, of course, anathema to Mellonites, who wrongly see it as more of the same policies that got us into this trap. And that, in turn, tells you why liquidationism is such a destructive doctrine: by turning our problems into a morality play of sin and retribution, it helps condemn us to a deeper and longer slump.

      

The bad news is that sin sells. Although the Mellonites have, as I said, been wrong about everything, the notion of macroeconomics as morality play has a visceral appeal that’s hard to fight. Disguise it with a bit of political cross-dressing, and even liberals can fall for it.

      

But they shouldn’t. Mellon was dead wrong in the 1930s, and his avatars are dead wrong today.

 

Unemployment, not excessive money printing, is what ails us now — and policy should be doing more, not less.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/opinion/Krugman-The-Urge-To-Purge.html?_r=1&

 

 

Spending Growth

Wow! So....Obama increased spending LESS than any President in your lifetime????

Fire Mitch McConnell 2014

Obama never needed to increase spending. It was sky-high before he ever even stepped foot into office.

$521 Billion

In simple economic terms, there are ways to achieve deficit reduction without the draconian proposals of the Tea Baggers who lack economic comprehension.

We've followed VooDoo Economics on a global scale to the Fiscal Cliff and it's time to abandon our misunderstandings and restore economic sanity.

Greg Palast very simply explained the failures of this economic folly [his books are well worth reading]:

Tinker Bell Pinochet and the Fairy Tale Miracle of Chile

Below are sensible solutions --

Another Option for Balanced Deficit Reduction

This week we’re taking a closer look at the $1 TRILLION in loopholes, deductions, giveaways, and credits in our tax code that could be eliminated, modified, or cut through a tax reform process. This would generate new revenue that we can use to further reduce the deficit, protect vital programs like Medicare and Social Security, and make investments in the middle class.

The tax reform idea we’re looking at today addresses one of the inequities in our tax code that helps stack the deck in favor of the wealthy. Currently, the tax code is structured in such a way that the wealthiest Americans get outsized deductions that they don’t need and, increasingly, that we just cannot afford.

Here’s how it works. There are numerous provisions of the tax code that are meant to encourage or subsidize something. The mortgage interest deduction, for example, is meant to encourage people to buy homes. And the wealthier are likely to have bigger homes (or more than one), which means bigger mortgages and bigger deductions. The problem is that the same exact same itemized deduction ends up being worth more to someone in the top brackets than it is to those in lower tax brackets.

Here’s what a $10,000 deduction could be worth for someone in various tax brackets:

• 39.6 percent: $3960
• 28 percent: $2800
• 15 percent: $1500

Luckily, there’s a fairly straightforward solution to this problem. In his most recent budget, the president proposed addressing these overly generous deductions by limiting them for the wealthiest Americans. The wealthiest Americans would be able to claim the same value from deductions that a middle-class taxpayer in the 28 percent bracket gets, but not more.

Limiting deductions for the wealthy would not only make our tax code more progressive, it would raise a substantial amount of revenue: $521 BILLION over the next ten years, according to an estimate from last year.

The president’s proposal and a recent tax plan released by the Center for American Progress and other economic luminaries both accomplish the goal of making deductions more fair while also raising new revenues.

BOTTOM LINE: We don’t need to gut Medicare or slash Social Security to reduce the deficit. Three-quarters of our deficit reduction so far has come from spending cuts, so common sense proposals like limiting extra deductions for the wealthy will help us further reduce the deficit in a more balanced manner.

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/521-billion/