Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, fails to mention that he himself voted for the “sequester” in 2011.
Two conclusions can be made: that he agreed with these cuts at the time, or that he negotiated in bad faith, planning to undo the cuts that he didn’t like at a later date.
McKeon infers from President Obama’s behavior that the administration wishes to “hollow out” the U.S. military.
I infer from McKeon’s behavior that he wishes to protect a small number of defense contractors (that donated large sums to his campaign) at the expense of the large number of average citizens in his district who benefit from social programs.
Richard Olmstead Van Nuys
***
McKeon mentions the president’s proposals to avert sequestration, then goes on to blame Obama for all the ills that sequestration will visit on the military. Huh?
He also whines about previous cuts to the military budget, despite the fact that one GOP-initiated war has been wound down and the second is in the process of being ended.
The Republicans can’t have it both ways — either focus on the budget cuts and suck up the pain, or work with the president to find alternatives.
Enough with the hypocrisy. Brent Vanderwood Mission Viejo
***
Dear Congressman: You may be absolutely right about what may happen to the military and to civilian jobs because of the sequester. You may also be absolutely right that it really was a “dangerous experiment.”
But I did not think that Republicans would care so much for cutting budgets that they would rather destroy the country.
People have figured out what Republicans want: Cut taxes for the rich and, in that fight, if the country goes to the dogs, it is Obama’s fault.
I am a small-business owner. Can you tell me what you have really done for us? If more people had money, I would have more customers. I do not make money when only the rich can afford my products and there are not enough people in the middle who can.
Sam Mookerjee Canoga Park
***
If one were to look at the yea and nay votes in the House on the sequestration bill, one would see that McKeon voted in favor.
If civics were still taught in our schools, we’d see that the president can create no laws; that is the job of Congress — the Senate and the House of Representatives.
So now my elected representative is blaming the president for the sequestration problem? Doesn’t sound to me like the party of “personal responsibility” is capable of taking any.
Doug Kimball Lancaster
***
The sequester is wrong, but McKeon’s solution is absurd.
The Republican bill passed in the last session would cut deeply into programs for the poorest in our country to maintain a level of military spending that dwarfs the rest of the world’s.
Now, while we are in a recovery period from the recession, is not the time to be cutting spending. We should have a short-term stimulus package coupled with a long-term tax reform and spending package.
We do need to do something to control the cost of Medicare in the long term; the healthcare law is starting to address this issue.
The unemployment rate was effectively unchanged at 7.9%, and as is often the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape — while America’s private sector added 166,000 jobs in December, the public sector lost 9,000 jobs. Indeed, over the last three months, the nation’s private sector added 624,000 jobs, while 24,000 government jobs were lost.
It’d be easy for Washington to improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but congressional Republicans won’t allow it.
Fired up as once-unimaginable spending cuts start to slice the federal budget, Republicans are launching a new phase in their austerity campaign — resurrecting the party’s cost-cutting plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like systemfor future seniors.
Read that first part again. Republicans are “fired up” over the nation going down the sequester toidy, and they actually believe they have momentum. And by momentum, they mean every poll showing disagreement with their policies:
Did I mention that those “future seniors” who Republicans speak of so dismissively may not realize it yet, but they won’t like what’s coming down the ol’ voucher pike?
So what do they do with their imaginary momentum? Clearly, something constructive to get us out of the ditch their party created, right?
Ryan’s approach would transform the benefits program into one that would provide a fixed amount of money in a voucher that future seniors could apply to the cost of buying private health insurance or to buying coverage through traditional Medicare.
Again, that “fixed amount of money” is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of even one medical procedure… which would be covered by Medicare. And how many seniors can or want to switch from Medicare– a program that works so well and has a proven track record– to spending a fortune on premiums to Big Insurance which cares nothing about them but cares a whole lot for their damned bottom line?
What part of “This plan has never gotten American support” doesn’t Ryan get? Read our lips, Paul: That would shift healthcare costs from the government to seniors.
Ryan’s budget proposal is expected to lock in $1.2 trillion in sequestration-linked cuts over the next decade, while also reducing growth in the costs of Medicare and Medicaid — the health program for the poor, disabled and seniors in nursing homes. Other safety net programs, including food stamps and school lunches, also would be targeted.
As a senior, I am concerned about my Social Security and Medicare benefits. However, I am also concerned about the future prosperity of my children and grandchildren.
Your writer correctly points out that the chatter about “generational theft” in the debate over national fiscal policy is an intentional distraction. This false proposition that we must choose between spending on seniors’ benefits or spending on our children’s futures diverts attention from the national economic policies of the last 30 years, which have damaged the economic security of most Americans. These flawed policies caused an immense transfer of wealth to the top 1% while most Americans’ incomes stagnated.
We don’t need excessive wealth languishing in private hands and corporate slush funds. Our country has enough wealth to serve the needs of all our seniors, our families and our children. We need more of this wealth redirected to serve all Americans.
John D. Kelley Santa Barbara
***
The argument that Social Security is causing a generational rift is just as false as the use of the term “entitlements” to describe both Social Security and Medicare.
The generational theft is a scam created by those who are trying to kill these programs. The truth is that the benefits from these programs may be greater for young people than they are to the old.
Consider this: When Social Security and Medicare pay for the cost of caring for your parents and grandparents (and that is who the old people are), it relieves the young of that obligation. The point is, if those programs do not pick up those costs, who do you think will have to? The children and grandchildren.
… NBC/Wall Street journal poll may hold the answer as to why: 49 percent of Americans view the GOP negatively, while only 26 percent view the party positively. [...]
Looking toward the 2014 mid-term election, the Republicans (at this moment – and polling can shift like the wind) face the possibility of a wave election that breaks like a tsunami washing over their gerrymandered Tea Party House majority. According to Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
While Republicans still hold the House majority, they lost seats in the 2012 election and acknowledge that they held onto the majority only because of gerrymandering. Majorities of Republican voters reject key proponents of the GOP agenda, including cuts to Social Security and Medicare. [...]
Bookman points out that it appears that the Republican legislators on Capitol Hill may now be backpedaling on creating a crisis over the debt ceiling, in part because it might lower them even further in the polls – and put Obama and the Dems in a better position in 2014 [...]
[P]erhaps most Americans are recognizing the GOP obstructionism on injecting stimulus into the economy for what it is: sabotage to the future economic vitality of the nation. [...]
It may be that the Tea Party, and its plutocratic funders, is about to get dunked into a kettle of boiling reality.
Revenues are swell– mandatory, in fact– but Steny Hoyer also said that President Obama and the Dems are ready to accept significant spending cuts, or as The Hill called them, reductions. Define “significant” por favor. “Significant” cuts to Medicare? Social Security? Those reductions?
Meantime, Republicans are pleased as punch with themselves and their threats to shut down the government. Crash that economy! Go-o-o GOP! Rah! America first! Aren’t they just totes adorbs?
Rejecting GOP ultimatums, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that new revenues must accompany spending cuts as Congress prepares to jump headfirst into a series of high-stakes budget debates. [...]
Hoyer, the Democratic whip, said it’s “categorically not true” that the last deal takes new revenues off the table in the coming talks.
“I certainly reject it out of hand,” Hoyer said during his weekly Capitol press briefing. “You cannot get to where we need to get — to get our country on a fiscally sustainable path — without additional revenues.”
It starts to get comical now, because Eric Cantor opened his big mouth and this WTF Moment fell out:
“It’s time for President Obama to stop putting our credit rating at risk and acknowledge we need a credible deficit reduction plan attached to any increase in the debt limit.”
I’msorrywhat?
That would be the spending that Congress approved, that Congress put on the Giant U.S. Visa card, the bills they racked up and voted for, the same ones Republicans are now refusing to pay now that they’re coming due.
All the projection in the universe won’t convince America that it is the president who is playing with lives when it is those on the right who have publicly and proudly said they are using the debt ceiling as leverage, as ransom. Stick that in your debt deal and smoke it, Cantor.
President Obama holds a press conference to mark the end of his first term and answers questions about the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling with Republicans in Congress and potential legislation or executive orders to prevent gun violence.
Asked about the upcoming deadline to raise the debt ceiling, President Obama said the debt ceiling is not about authorizing any new spending, it is authorizing the government to pay the bills for the expenses it has already incurred. He said not doing so would be like going out to eat and then deciding to not to pay the bill.
He also said that the start of his second term was a good time to stop negotiating with congress about fiscal matters “through crisis.”
“I want to be clear about this: The debt ceiling is not a question of authorizing more spending. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to. These are bills that have already been racked up, and we need to pay them. So while I’m willing to compromise and find common ground over how to reduce our deficits, America cannot afford another debate with this Congress about whether or not they should pay the bills they’ve already racked up.
“If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks and veterans’ benefits will be delayed. We might not be able to pay our troops or honor our contracts with small business owners. Food inspectors, air traffic controllers, specialists who track down loose nuclear materials wouldn’t get their paychecks. Investors around the world will ask if the United States of America is in fact a safe bet. Markets could go haywire. Interest rates would spike for anybody who borrows money, every homeowner with a mortgage, every student with a college loan, every small business owner who wants to grow and hire. It would be a self-inflicted wound on the economy. It would slow down our growth, might tip us into recession, and ironically, would probably increase our deficit.
So to even entertain the idea of this happening, of the United States of America not paying its bills, is irresponsible. It’s absurd.
“The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip.
“… What you can count on is, is that the things that I’ve said in the past — the belief that we have to have stronger background checks, that we can do a much better job in terms of keeping these magazine clips with high capacity out of the hands of folks who shouldn’t have them, an assault weapons ban that is meaningful — that those are things I continue to believe make sense. (Inaudible) — will all of them get through this Congress? I don’t know.
“Well, Chuck, the issue here is whether or not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation. And so there’s a very simple solution to this. Congress authorizes us to pay our bills.
Now if the House and the Senate want to give me the authority so that they don’t have to take these tough votes, if they want to put the responsibility on me to raise the debt ceiling, I’m happily (sic) to take it. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, had a proposal like that last year, and I’m happy to accept it.
“But there’s one way to get around this. There’s one way to deal with it, and that is for Congress to authorize me to pay for those items of spending that they have already authorized. And you know, the notion that Republicans in the House or maybe some Republicans in the Senate would suggest that in order for us to get our way on our spending priorities that we would risk the full faith and credit of the United States — that, I think, is not what the founders intended. That’s not how I think most Americans think our democracy should work.
“Congress has not been able to identify $1.2 trillion in cuts that they’re happy with, because these same Republicans say they don’t want to cut defense. They claim that they don’t want to gut Medicare or harm the vulnerable, but the truth of the matter is, is that you can’t meet their own criteria without drastically cutting Medicare or having an impact on Medicaid or affecting our defense spending. So the math just doesn’t add up.
“I mean, this is not a complicated concept. You don’t go out to dinner and then, you know, eat all you want and then leave without paying the check. And if you do, you’re breaking the law… If Congress wants to have a debate about maybe we shouldn’t go out to dinner next time, maybe we should go to a more modest restaurant, that’s fine.
“We’ve got to stop lurching from crisis to crisis to crisis when there’s this clear path ahead of us that simply requires some discipline, some responsibility and some compromise.
“I’m confident that there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as president… I think, for example, how we are gathering data, for example, on guns that fall into the hands of criminals and how we track that more effectively — there may be some steps that we can take administratively, as opposed — through legislation.
As far as people lining up and purchasing more guns, you know, I think that we’ve seen for some time now that those who oppose any common-sense gun control or gun safety measures have a pretty effective way of ginning up fear on the part of gun owners that somehow the federal government’s about to take all your guns away. And you know, that — there’s probably an economic element to that. It obviously is good for business.
But I think that, you know, those of us who look at this problem have repeatedly said that responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship — they don’t have anything to worry about. The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the Second Amendment.
The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a — in a shockingly rapid fashion? And surely we can do something about that… I think it’s a fear that’s fanned by those who are — are worried about the possibility of any legislation getting out there.
“You know, when I’m over here at the congressional picnic and folks are coming up and taking pictures with their family, I promise you, Michelle and I are very nice to them, and we have a wonderful time — (scattered laughter) — but it doesn’t prevent them from going under the floor of the House and, you know, blasting me for being a big-spending socialist.”
At the end, the president said this:
“…Personal relationships are important, and obviously I can always do a better job, and the nice thing is, is that now that my girls are getting older, they don’t want to spend that much time with me anyway. (Laughter.) So I’ll be probably calling around, looking for somebody to play cards with or something, OK, I — because I’m getting kind of lonely in this big house.”
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