Budget Battles
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-04-11/budget-battles
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, left, accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 7, 2011, after their meeting with President Obama regarding the budget and possible government shutdown.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Last Friday’s last minute funding deal for the rest of this fiscal year is the first of several bruising and partisan battles ahead. Many say, so far, neither party deserves particularly high marks. President Obama will weigh in later this week with a call for Republicans to work with him on ways to raise revenues and reduce spending on entitlement programs. The House GOP 2012 budget plan includes a fundamental transformation of Medicare, new limits on Medicaid spending, and lower taxes for the nation’s wealthiest. Please join us for an update on the details of Friday’s compromise and the high stakes fights ahead.
Guests
E.J. Dionne Jr.
senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington Post columnist, and author of "Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right" and of "Stand Up Fight Back."
Vin Weber
Republican consultant, former member of Congress representing Minnesota's 2nd district (1981-93)
Janet Hook
Congressional correspondent, The Wall Street Journal.
Comments
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After the last minute agreement, we are back to this: We don't have a budget crisis. We have a revenue problem. plain and simple. We cut our income. How silly was that?
Rescind the Regan Tax cuts and the budget is balanced and the deficit shrinks away.
Re spending cuts: How many military bases do we have around the world? Is it 80? We are stretched too thin. Let's make that half as many. Now the government has a surplus. Problem solved.
80 Bases LOL! 737 bases is the number kicked around as of 2009. I have heard it is quite a bit higher, but don't worry the cuts to Social Security and Medicare will take care of their funding along with the funding of our Congressmen's pensions and retirement health care.
All our retirements are such a small price to pay for our corporate empire, and Rep. Eric Cantor's retirement. Rep Cantor said on 4/11 he "knows" SS and Medicare won't be around when he retires, so all us little folk will all need to dig REAL deep, so Mr Cantor can retire in a style that HE says WE are not entitled to.
It really makes one wonder what it is going to take before people in this country finally take to the streets.
Tom in NC
When the discussion about the budget comes up we repeatedly hear the mantra that "There has to be shared sacrifice".
This is a fallacy. There will be no shared sacrifice because the burden will always be put on the most vulnerable in our society and those without the means to pay off the politicians through the Washington lobbyists.
Social Security, in spite of the propaganda we keep being fed by the corporatist media and the policy wonks sponsored by the Oligarchs, is not broken and it can be strengthened by raising the cap.
Medicaid and Medicare can be strengthened and fixed by simply creating a single payer system. Medicare for all will broaden the risk base and make it viable for decades to come.
We have to remember that when the Oligarchs were in trouble, when they had lost all their money gambling with credit default swaps, between the Fed and the Treasury department we gave them close to 13 trillion dollars in low interest or no interest loans to make them whole again. They then turned around and gave themselves gigantic bonuses.
Remember that when it was time for these Oligarchs to pay their fair share of taxes, they hid their money overseas and left the rest of us with a gigantic debt.
These guys won’t be happy until the middle class is destroyed and America looks like a Banana Republic with a very tiny group of rich people and a very large group of poor people and nothing in between.
This fight is no longer about Republican or Democrat. This fight is about the Oligarchs against everybody else.
It’s time for the American people to get smart and see what’s really going on here.
It’s time for the American people to educate themselves and demand that the Government work for us instead of the Oligarchs.
We should be cutting spending and cutting taxes, let the people decide what to do with the money they earn.
Politicians, especially the entrenched ones, see their job as to spend money. We need to alter their concept of their role. If they won't change, then let's replace a bunch more of them like we did last November.
How is giving Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian a tax break supposed to create new jobs? I didn't believe it when my parents told me that "my face was going to freeze like that" and I don't believe it when a bunch of millionaire senators maintain that tax breaks for them and their friends will create more jobs and reduce the deficit.
I would love to know why the President and Congress have so little regard for the rights of DC residents. Using the District as a bargaining chip in the budget battle is deplorable. Whether you are for or against vouchers and abortion is not the issue. The issue is whether Washingtonians should be able to chart their own course.
While we all talk about who won or lost. What was actually cut in the budget. Amazingly no one talks about the actual cuts which is what we back home want to know. Is it possible that we cut $38b and no one will notice.
In a $3,700 billion budget, it is comical that we can only cut $40 billion.
Americans everywhere are giving up their homes in order to pay their taxes; and this is the best we can do.
Obama is missing.
Workforce is shrinking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html
What do the panelists think that the Obama administration has seen (or realized) in the past year that has motivated his shift in agenda (from his campaign agenda to his current budget proposal - cut Block Grants, etc)
- Adam Gibbons
Boston, MA
--There are over 1100 military bases. This is a tremendous burden on taxpayers.
--Taxes are going down and down for the rich when we are spending more and more for our "Oil Protecting" wars.
--Why do the ultra rich still get social security? This is stupidity.
--Maybe 50 or 100 years ago, most wealthy people EARNED their money fairly. Nowadays, CEO's are way overpaid because every CEO is on someone else's Board of Directors.
--Very funny when Conservatives say Obama is a socialist when Bush is the one who started they initial 750 billion bailout to Wall Street with OUR tax dollars, that is socialism. Even funnier now that avg CEO pay is higher now than before the bailout.
--Republicans were not given a mandate to attack unions (middle class employees) and lower taxes for the rich, PERIOD.
Why doesn't Pres. Obama present a budget that is progressive end of things. By this I mean he should propose rescinding Reagan tax cuts to the wealthy, slash Pentagon spending, stop borrowing from Social Security, add enforcers to investigate Medicaid and Medicare fraud (which has to be in the 10's of billions of dollars) and let the negotiations begin. Paul Ryan cannot expect to get everything in his budget, nor should the President. President Obama looks like he is reacting to the Republicans and following their lead, instead of being proactive and defining what he wants and leading in his direction.
Let's not forget, we (the American People) gave Obama the mandate and not to the Tea Party.
1. The Majority of the Legislators appear to want to have a Government that works. However, it seems there a a few legislators who insist on convincing us that their ideological positions are more important than a working government.
2. On the other hand, there was also an awareness that most of last week's "Political Excitement" was "Theater" for spectators of Global Politics world-wide, as a lesson in our American Processes--as well as one opening scene in the first episode of Current World History.
Do your guests understand that the numbers thrown around (i.e. trillions) does not register on those of us that only have 5 zeroes behind our income. I have not seen the numbers, the problems with the numbers, etc. The media has championed the "problem". I have not been given the exact information about the moneys collected and disbursed. The debate is as abstract as the claims are.
There is a real danger in cuttig domestic programs too much. The more people who feel that goverment is not working for them the less able the goverment will be to influence thier behavior, until an egyptian style revolution of goverment results. My reading of the history of the 20th century is that the goverment came very close to losing control of the country in the 1930's and then again in the 1960's. These close call's were followed by implementation of the very programs the republicans now want to gut. I dont think they have learned what happens when you forget who goverment is supposed to serve.
The idea that for-profit insurance companies can more efficiently run Medicare is ludicrous. When share holders become more important than the insured, we have what became rampant in the medical insurance industry — dropping folks when they get sick - "health insurance rescission." For-profit insurance should not be allowed at all.
About medicare...one of your guests said that making Medicare private will bring competition and bring costs down...in any other sector this is true, but if this was true of medical costs, then why is private medical insurance companies costs in this country so high? There are so many companies that are in competition, and this is supposed to bring the cost down, but what is happening is costs that are escalating because these companies want to make more profit. Their concern is not the well-being of the people, but how much profit they can make. Looking at private health care in this country is showing clearly that privatisation of medical care is not the answer!
The expense of Medicaid and Medicare, and insurance premiums for private plans will bankrupt the country in a few years. We, as a society, simply cannot afford to continue to provide the unlimited amount of health care services (especially those unproven, futile or minimally beneficial interventions), that our citizens currently receive. We must face this difficult fact-that health care rationing is inevitable, and create sensible, fair, realistic, humane guidlelines for how much is enough, whether the payor is the government or private individuals. Otherwise, the free market will continue to make those decisions, with profit-not the well-being of patients-the primary concern.
Republicans want to privatize everything because it provides an opportunity to make profits. There is no denying health care costs are out of control, but there is already plenty of competition and it isn't producing the promised effect, but the opposite.
Diane Green
Mesa, Arizona
Could someone from the liberal side, please arrange fora day of protest of the common man/woman? This lop-sided budget is enought to make one apoplectic!
Why is it that I never hear anyone address the alternative deficit reduction plan that came from the President's Debt Reduction Commission?
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), has proposed a very sensible plan that doesn't balance the budget on the backs of the poor and middle class. I would like to hear a program devoted to it.
I'm tired of hearing all this "I believe govt spending grows the economy" and "I believe govt spending hurts the economy". I'm a scientist. I don't care what the heck you believe! Find out what is actually the case and act on that!