House Republicans to Tackle Ambitious Budget

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

House Republicans return from spring recess next week to face the difficult — some say impossible — task of filling the gaping holes in the House-passed budget, including figuring out how to slash income tax rates without costing the government any money and finding nearly $3 trillion in savings from entitlement programs over the next decade.

The budget, which passed the House last month and has since become a central focus of the presidential campaign, has faced blistering criticism for steep cuts to federal programs, including a blast from President Obama, who called it “thinly veiled social Darwinism.”

But the deep reductions that Mr. Obama spelled out for higher education, medical research, crime fighting and Head Start are more supposition than reality until the details are filled out. And the charge that such cuts would merely pay for still more tax cuts for the rich is expressly denied by Republican leaders who foresee no change in revenue under the budget.

Now the real work begins. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the House Ways and Means chairman, will hold meetings with Republican the rank and file next week to map out an overhaul of the tax code that strips it down to just two personal income tax rates — 25 percent and 10 percent — and a 25 percent corporate income tax rate, and to pay for it by curtailing or ending tax deductions and credits.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/us/politics/house-republicans-to-tackle-federal-budget.html

[msongs]

1. where is the jobs bill? Mr. Obama ought to ask this question often while he slashes safety nets nt

[cstanleytech]

2. Obama should hammer them on not including closing all the loopholes at the same time

Last edited Sat Apr 14, 2012, 03:24 PM - Edit history (1)

that corporations and the wealthy are exploiting not to mention their continued support of subsidizing the oil companies with tax payer money when they are already raking in billions in profit.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Close the loop hole that outsource American jobs and we would be solvent again

[nineteen50]

4. Has any country ever reached

prosperity by austerity measures?

[sofa king]

5. Ha ha ha!

Folks, those of you who are looking to pare down your information intake over the coming months may wish to take note of this rule of thumb:

Any headline that says "House Republicans" in it can be ignored.

To illustrate my point, the grand list of controversial Republican-authored legislation which has been signed into law by President Obama since 2010 is: effing NONE.

No Republican budget has passed, or will pass, in the Senate. No Republican spending recommendations have been followed or even considered by the Senate. Since the GOP has played hide-the-ball since President Obama's inauguration, the penalty is that House Republicans get none of their own pet projects passed. We put Plexiglass up over the Republican baboon cage and now their special brand of politics--poop flinging--doesn't work at all.

There are about a thousand Latest Breaking News headlines over the past two years that say something like "House Republicans say you cain't have nothin' nice," and the outrage bleeds across multiple pages. But not a single damned one of those shitty ideas has survived long enough to be vetoed by the President.

So just laugh and move on, reminding yourself that if you and your pals just go out in November and vote straight-D all the way down, in two more election cycles you may never have to see a Republican on the ballot again.

That's how close we are to driving the stake through their heart.

[xtraxritical]

7. You're effin right. The RebupliCON Ryan budget is a sham.

It's meant to be not passable so the RepuliCONs can keep accusing the President of not passing a budget. As usual sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors from the party of filibustering, obstructionist, M. McConnell douche bags. You are so right VOTE A STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC BALLOT in lieu of tarring and feathering these treasonous schmucks.

[sofa king]

8. They're in it far deeper than even they know.

This past six weeks of war-on-women flogging is just the overture. Next, we're going to show the public how the GOP is aiming straight for their wallets, holding their tax cuts hostage while defending the wealthiest, obstructing recovery from the Second Bush Depression, attempting to gut services to veterans and the impoverished while fighting tooth and nail for defense contractors--all the awful shit they do and get away with every year without the scrutiny they're about to get.

The tax-cut legislation which was passed in December, 2010 was specifically constructed so that tax cuts would be the major issue of debate in the general election season of 2012, which unofficially arrived with the withdrawal of Rick Santorum. And sure enough, the President just kicked it into the public debate today. That alone is going to kill the reelection hopes of dozens of House Republicans and two or three Senators.

What comes along with that is going to be a train-wreck of spin and double-talk which will further erode public confidence in the GOP. If the President stays true to form, he and Harry Reid will game the legislative calendar so that Republican stonewalling now ensures that the budget debate spills into the August recess, preventing House Republicans from campaigning in their home districts at that critical time. Every asshole thing we expect them to do in Congress has already been set up to damage them in coming months, thanks to their highly predictable behavior (greed is quite predictable).

President Obama isn't just trying to win this election for himself. He's trying to take the Republican Party completely out of the game before the last two years of his second term, so that he can make sweeping policy changes with Congressional support, flush the Supreme Court, and ratchet down a series of reforms that will take decades for the other side to unravel.

His plan, which is clearly telegraphed in the legislation he has managed to extract through clever negotiation over the past two years, has been working astonishingly well. Now it's time to open the can of whoop-ass.

[part man all 86]

6. work is a four letter word to these born again lying republicans.

[deacon]

9. The do nothing GOP house is a major failure. n/t

[jmowreader]

10. Riddle me this, Democrats...

From the article:

Also on Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee will draft a measure to save $53 billion over 10 years, in part by grabbing back overpayments for subsidized insurance purchases under the new health care law and by requiring parents to present a Social Security number to claim child care tax credits.

Since you need to present a social security number for your child to deduct him or her in the first place, how, exactly, is requiring a SSN to claim childcare tax credits going to save a nickel?

[alp227]

11. I've heard that this proposal was in response to illegal immigrants fraudulently getting credits.

[jmowreader]

12. So in other words...

We don't need a new law, we just need to enforce the ones we already have.