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The White House has put out a truly disgraceful “myth and facts” post at it’s blog, about the debt ceiling deal, which flatly lies to the American people. From the White House website post:
Myth: The joint committee — the so-called “super committee” — makes it easier for Congress to cut the programs we care about.
Fact: The joint committee system puts pressure on Republicans to seek compromise. As we all know, in this round of deficit reduction, there wasn’t a lot of leverage bringing Republicans to the table. In round two, that changes.
If Republicans aren’t willing to compromise, then the joint committee will fail. This would automatically trigger an additional $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction designed to be painful for both sides, with half that coming from savings in the defense budget.
(emphasis in the original)
This is not a myth.
Any package that comes from the Super Committee will get on up or down vote in both chambers of Congress. It can’t be filibustered in the Senate or amended. This means if a bill comes from the super committee that cuts Medicare or Social Security benefits, it would be able to pass the Senate with only a simply majority, instead of the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
It is a fact that the super committee created by the debt ceiling will make it easier for Congress to pass cuts to social safety net programs.
For the Obama administration to say this is myth is an outright lie.
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Since when does Obama care about any of the New Deal programs?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504114.html
Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform
President-Elect Says He’ll Reshape Social Security, Medicare Programs
January 16, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to shape a new Social Security and Medicare “bargain” with the American people, saying that the nation’s long-term economic recovery cannot be attained unless the government finally gets control over its most costly entitlement programs…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-debt-talks-obama-offers-social-security-cuts/2011/07/06/gIQA2sFO1H_story.html
July 6, 2011
In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare…
Ironically, If the Commission does seek revenues(taxes), the House has a loophole to amend the Bill…!
And here’s a really juvenile copout:
http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-we-dont-create-jobs-2011-8
Right. “Cuts only” bill gets and up/down vote.
It’s not really a loophole, but a requirement in the Debt Ceiling Bill as regards the Commish that if there are any revenue components in it, yup, straight to the House for amendments etc.
Hey, Kelly — Congrats on being the first (as far as I know of) to catch that “House can amend revenues” clause. Good job!
Thanks!
Everybody should read this bill. The best version I’ve found is this one at the Rules Committee website. Not as clunky as a pdf and has hyperlinks so you can jump around in the document.
Where I’m citing from is Section 402.
That’s Boehner’s hostage-cutout. If the bill from the SuperCongress includes tax increases, his little teabaggers can hold their breath and turn blue, then they vote NO on the proposal. It is a permission slip for hostage-taking, but it’s only written for teabaggers; liberals cannot use it.
And — as far as “officially lying” Jon? All I can do is refer you to the parable of the scorpion and the froggie: “It’s my nature.” This is what they do, it’s how they got where they are. Why stop now?
Hi, Kelly (not an email, but an FYI assist anyway, I hope) -
I believe I’ve seen you quoting (and thus that you’re referencing here) this subsection of Section 402 of the Budget Control Act:
Note that the referenced “subsection” in the bolded sentence of (2) is subsection (e), not Section 402 as a whole.
As far as I can see, subsection (e) does nothing to allow amending or more debate time in the House of Representatives, if the Joint Select Committee recommendations include provisions for higher revenue.
This subsection, rather, is apparently an attempt to save the Constitutionality of the Budget Control Act’s Super Committee, with regard to Article I, Section 7′s requirement that revenue-raising measures originate in the House.
And I think a good argument can be made, as has already been very well done here by the commenter ‘Occasional Observer’ in response to Marty Lederman’s brief Balkinization post about the law, that subsection (e) is a dubious, unconvincing attempt to save the Constitutionality of the Super Committee. A dubious attempt that may yet generate unintended (complicating or undesirable, if predictable and justifiable) consequences, as O.O.’s second comment perceptively spells out.
We’re not supposed to say it’s normal and expectable when the White House “lies” or misleads. That kind of apathy emboldens them to do it again.
You’re supposed to instead say you are a potential donor (from a swing state) inclined to contribute but that you are disappointed in the unintentional confusion stemming from the language used.
To Jon, when they say “Fact: The joint committee system puts pressure on Republicans to seek compromise” it is also untrue because the ‘penalty’ forces them to accept defense cuts 1 to 1 with entitlement cuts. That’s less pressure on Republicans, not more, than they started with in debates where increasing taxes on the rich and no entitlement cuts were on the table.
The “fact” following the myth there is a total non sequitur. Even if the Republicans have to kinda sorta maybe compromise their total anarchy true goals, that doesn’t mean it won’t be hella easy for the supercongress to make massive cuts to the social safety net.
The problem with that, though is that the original provisions in subsection (e) (1) specifically state that bill based upon the “Super Committee” report cannot be referred to a committee, but would (under subsection (e) (2), basically replace the bill that the other body would be considering….unless the bill being considered included revenues, in which the House would be allowed to refer it to the House Ways and Means Committee (which usually handles budget bills).
In that case, while it may not be amended or debated, it STILL could be simply tabled and killed by the Republican majority, and thus starved until a no-revenues bill was reported out of the “Super Committee”.
In other words…if a report with revenues came out of the SC, the House would simply table it to death. This is their ace-in-the-hole, along with the appropriation process, that they can use to blackmail the Dems into more severe budget cuts and extending the Bush tax cuts.
All they need is one deficit hawk Dem to go along, and it is history.
Anthony
Thank you for that reply, Anthony. That helps me to see this provision in a new light, and to better understand where Kelly may be coming from on this.
First, so that everyone’s on the same page, let me state some of the unambiguous ground rules for consideration of the Joint Select Super Committee’s product, as spelled out in various parts of Title IV of the Budget Control Act:
Meaning, in the case of Section 402(e)(1), that the Super Committee bill cannot be referred to a committee again, once passed by either the House or Senate and sent to the other body [except, per (e)(2), as Kelly has highlighted, in the case of a revenue-raising Super Committee product, which could technically get that second opportunity in the House, probably at the sole discretion of Speaker Boehner].
Whereas, elsewhere in Title IV, it’s clear that the Joint Select Committee’s recommendations – with or without revenue-raising components – must be separately sent to both the House and Senate by December 2nd [Section 401(b)(3)(B)(iv)], and subsequently may be referred to any committee in the House [Section 402(b)(1)], and shall be referred to committee(s) of jurisdiction in the Senate [Section 401(c)(1)]. The Joint Select Committee recommendations thus referred to committee(s) – in both the House and Senate – must then be reported, or discharged, out to the full House and Senate by those committees (with, in the case of Senate committees, a favorable, an unfavorable, or no recommendation), without amendment or revision, by December 9.
So, again, what Section 402(e)(1)(A) (as quoted @ 9) is stating is that there shall not be a second opportunity for referral to committee of the same Joint Select Committee product (after passage by the other body) if, say, the Senate receives the House-passed legislation before the Senate has taken a final vote on the same language itself.
While Section 402(e)(1)(B) is arranging to merge into a single legislative vehicle the unamended Joint Select Committee product (though not until the vote on final passage), if and when passed by both House and Senate [but, again for the sake of Constitutional appearances, not in the case of a revenue-raising Super Committee bill that is passed first by the Senate; as O.O. notes, such a situation has some definite, if unintended, potential for (legitimate) gaming by a House majority].
It’s important to note, too, that the ramrodding procedures written into the legislation seem to favor the House passing the legislation before the Senate, given that, starting on or about December 9, the whole Senate may debate the measure for up to 30 hours, but the whole House for a total of only two hours. [In addition, at this first stage, the House, unlike the Senate, has no requirement that any committee consider the bill for (possibly) no more than 7 days, upon its presentation by the Super Committee, so the measure might get a seven-day headstart on floor consideration and passage in the House, as compared to the Senate, for that reason alone.]
With all that in mind, we see that subsection (e)(2) makes a cursory exception to (e)(1), apparently to pretend to comply with Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, should the Senate act to pass a Super Committee bill containing revenue-raising measures before the House. With the apparent effect (again, as recognized by Kelly) that such a Senate-passed bill could (probably at Speaker Boehner’s sole discretion) be referred a second time to a House committee or committees, provided that the House has not already passed the Super Committee legislation itself.
So perhaps a better way to address this apparent exception, is to ask what the likely real-world impact will or could be of subsection (e)(2)’s apparent provision for a second referral to committee in the House of a Super Committee revenue-raising bill if (as seems unlikely) that bill is first passed by the Senate? Particularly in light of this categorical Section 402 prohibition, standing just above subsection (e) in subsection (d):
In light of that and the earlier requirements in the bill (cited above) that any committee-referred legislation be promptly reported back, unchanged, to the full House, can we really say that there’s a credible loophole in subsection (e)(2) for the House to disappear in committee the Senate-passed version of Super Committee recommendations that contain revenue-raising measures?
As Occasional Observer notes, there are “legal fictions” embedded in this sinister Super Committee language, to try to hide the fact that it’s riding roughshod over all kinds of longstanding (including Constitutional) rules and procedures designed to ensure a fair and democratic legislative process in and between the House and Senate. And I think Kelly may have focused on one of those “legal fictions” in (e)(2), which sounds – apparently simply for the sake of Constitutional appearances – like it could provide for something other than what seems to be intended by it, as clearly implied and flatly stated elsewhere in (and about) this backroom legislation by its handful of powerful Party authors.