Precedents by digby (Yeah, that happened -'09)

[kpete]

Precedents
by digby


In case there remains any possible doubt that counting on the Democrats to hold fast against the Republican assault on the so-called entitlements is probably a fool's game, Chris Bowers is here to remind us of something that happened not quite 18 months ago that should bring us up short:

whole bunch of them joined with Republicans in a threat to not raise the debt ceiling without creating a deficit commission that would make onerous cuts to entitlement programs. Yeah, that happened:

Sens. squeeze Speaker over commission
By Jared Allen and Walter Alarkon - 11/10/09 09:14 PM ET
Senators from both parties on Tuesday put new pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to turn the power to trim entitlement benefits over to an independent commission.

Seven members of the Senate Budget Committee threatened during a Tuesday hearing to withhold their support for critical legislation to raise the debt ceiling if the bill calling for the creation of a bipartisan fiscal reform commission were not attached. Six others had previously made such threats, bringing the total to 13 senators drawing a hard line on the committee legislation.

“You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who said he hasn’t ruled out offering the independent commission legislation as an amendment to the healthcare reform bill.(…)

“There are rare moments in this institution when you can implement fundamental change,” Bayh said during Tuesday’s hearing. “This is one of them.”(…)
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/67293-sens-squeeze-speaker-over-commission

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/precedents-guess-who-threatened-not-to.html

[gratuitous]

1. And simply establishing the commission was all it took

The commission didn't issue a report, didn't come to the necessary agreement on any of its contemplated recommendations, and basically was a waste of time and effort. But simply establishing the commission was sufficient to float the trial balloon ideas of cutting benefits for future retirees (they were smart enough not to mess with current beneficiaries), raise the retirement age, and means test benefits, all of which are steps along the way to eliminating social security entirely. And right now, anyone who is churlish enough to point out that the Catfood Commission utterly failed to do anything is dismissed as being Not Serious About the Deficit, and can be safely ignored.