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Grover Norquist (photo: Gage Skidmore)
Probably part of the reason the American people don’t expect a deal is that just like in Congress there is a sharp partisan divide among regular people about what even the basic outline of a deficit reduction package should look like. From Quinnipiac:
There are striking differences on the issue depending on party identification. By 84 – 12 percent, Republicans don’t expect a deal, compared to 51 – 39 percent among Democrats and 71 – 20 percent among independent voters. Whites by 73 – 20 percent think a deal is unlikely as do Hispanics 55 – 36 percent. Blacks are hopeful for a deal by a narrow 44 – 40 percent.
On whether the debt reduction plan would include just spending cuts, or include some taxes, the split is clearly partisan. For spending cuts only are Republicans 74 – 16 percent and independent voters 48 – 38 percent. Democrats would include tax hikes 58 – 30 percent.
There has been a very serious effort to put the blame for the Congressional Republican’s refusal to accept a “grand bargain” that contains tax increases squarely on Grover Norquist and his Taxpayers Protection Pledge, but the issue isn’t that Norquist personally has an incredibly amount of power to punish Republican that cross him. The issue is that the no new tax position is now held by a very large part of the Republican base. It is the Republican base that can and will punish elected Republicans if they don’t represent them on taxes.
Norquist’s pledge wouldn’t have power if it weren’t for the fact that it represents a popular and simple statement of principle with regular rank and file Republicans. Congressional Republicans aren’t eager to accept a grand bargain that contains tax increases because the people they depend on to elect them don’t want that kind of a deal.
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And then there are those of us who recognize that “Deficit Reduction” is a decoy issue. Stop playing along at all. The “super committee” is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Start from there. JOBS.
The Super Committee is unconstitutional in it’s nature, and the intention to have it impose fascist austerity upon the US is not in accordance with the spirit governing our Constitution either. Getting our money from the FED is unconstitutional and is not in accordance with the intention of the War of INdependence, which was fought and won, in case any one has not remembered that, so we didn’t have to tolerate the Oligarchs or the Empirical Monetary System of the Oligarchs ANY LONGER. We need our Credit System according to the Constitutional Article 1 Section 8 for Congress to utter Credit. What is wrong with us? Why do we let the current state of affairs to drag on. The protestors are achieving nothing and the Issa investigation of Fast and Furious is dragging on and on, the Solyandra investigation is going no where fast, and Susan Rice is working hard to get permission for us to “defend” Syrian civilians, just like we helped out those lucky civilians in Libya just now. This is SICK SICK SICK. We have to do anything and everything we know how to get the Glass Steagall standard reinstated to cut the bailouts off and make the toxic debt the responsibility of the banksters, not taxpayers, right away.
This can be done by passing HR 1489 THE RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT introduced by Marcy Kaptor D Ohio. That will place the too big to fail banks into bankruptcy protection. We can declare a moritorium on foreclosures, and restore the states by uttering credit through Congress.
We can get the large infrastructure programs we need like NAWAPA and get NASA up and running again, put millions back to work, and form an alliance with Russia and China first, to get things going globally. The Glass Steagall could be applied globally, so as to relieve the pressure on wanna be sovreign nations. We don’t have much time, the EU is fast turning itself into a UNION and will have it’s own army that is more powerful than ours before we can say “Hey whazup?
I don’t think I completely agree with that. Polling shows that even Republican voters support raising taxes on the rich. I think the Rs fear their donors and patrons more than they fear their voters.
Whatever happened to pray pray prey, your usual sign off from your runon hit ‘n run.
Oh now I see it. You’ve substituted sick sick sick. Thanks for the variation.
I think you hit the nail on the head there.
The Republicans have managed to construct a conversation where raising taxes is a bad thing. The only reason for this is to protect themselves and their benefactors. It has nothing to do with the their Bible Belt voting bloc.
Complete understatement. IMO, Rs worship their donors and have nothing but contempt for their voters.
Oh wait. I’m so confused. Is that Rs or is that Ds.
Hmph! The distinction is lost these days, isn’t it?
We should start calling them R2D2s or something.
Works for me.
They obviously shouldn’t be touching Medicare or SS, the only thing they should be doing is raising taxes on the rich, instituting the tax on wall street trades, and cutting military spending. I hope they try to convince the public that both are necessary, because OWS, bank transfer, it’s all coming together and it might be just enough to cause a full blown revolution.
This just in (literally).
My next door neighbor is running a ESL biz in China and just arrived there. She sends me a return email that the http://www.occupywallst.org site is not yet blocked in China.
That’s amazing. I’d read a couple weeks ago that the Chinese government was blocking the word ‘occupy’. Guess that report was inaccurate.
Yep. Surprised me too.
Always interesting to get those widdle anecdotes that reveal a lot.
I don’t get it. Why would they fail to make a deal unless you mean a deal that includes a tax increase? And where does Quinnipiac find voters who know what the super committee is?
#Caingrich is the #4 global trend on twitter right now. Lol.
Shhhh, if you question the legitimacy of the poll you can tear the very fabric of the universe. You don’t want to see what’s on the other side of that curtain.
The very existence of a “super committee” is proof positive the entire Congress is nothing but fail.
That’s the VERY BEST one of the day.
This is completely testable in the real world in real time – as in right now.
First, google is the #2 search engine in China – #1 is Baidu.
Second, one can go to google’s translate site and translate Occupy Wall Street into Chinese.
Next, Google China is here: http://www.google.com.hk/
Paste the Occupy Wall Street in Chinese results ” 占据华尔街 ” into Google China and you get this page:
You get the idea – work it a little more and you see that the results cease in October, and certainly aren’t representative of what we would think of as a reliable google search result.
Hell of a thing But we gotta cut that deficit.
That’s really fucked up, but undoubtedly the reality. Be that as it may, I did call my idiot congressman (I know…redundant) yesterday to tell him that a bloc of congressmen and senators had publicly bailed on Norquist (finally), and that he could (and should) do the same right now while he’s got some political cover. I also indicated that Norquist is “a nothing, a nobody,” and asked that since he has no legal authority to compel anyone to do anything, was it even legal for a congressmen to do his bidding… It made the 12-year old who answered the phone stutter just a bit.
“No new taxes” is an easy political sell when day after day people are treated to things like the costly Fannie/Freddie fiascos, bankster bailouts, etc., not to mention the perfectly accurate perception that the pols in DCs are nothing but sleazy whores for anyone who writes them a check.
Newtie and Hermie just got done asserting that people’s benefits should be limited so they stop being lazy parasites and go out and get a job. They (apparently) actually believe that crap.
Clever!
Yeah. Saw that. Shaking my head in shame.
What you type is about 10 pay grades above my capabilities.
They do. Like other austerians they also believe that the unemployed keep inflation in check. Also why pay the lazy any benefits when that would just increase the deficit. They also figure they got the dems trapped, super committee or no since they are such wimps and have nothing to bargain with.
Bottom line – no real results for searching “Occupy Wall Street” at Google China. It’s completely censored.
“We don’t have much time, the EU is fast turning itself into a UNION and will have it’s own army that is more powerful than ours before we can say “Hey whazup?”
Is army a metaphor here? If not, what’s the problem?
Yet my neighbor, receiving the link from me in an email upon her arrival in China, was able to access it.
I don’t know anyone who thought the super committee would actually come up with an agreement. What’s interesting, and also not a surprise, is we are already hearing many pols talking about not allowing the cuts to defense/war spending if the committee doesn’t agree to anything. And we know the dems will partner with rethugs to ensure war is our primary fed trough.
The Chinese are scared to death word of a building Revolution is happening here. They have hundreds of millions of people who might react and react quite negatively.
Forget alice. She is a hit ‘n runner.
This is a totally one sided committee. Why would the thugs want to negotiate at all? Means nothing to them. The dems are trapped negotiating with themselves but, hey, they have the master as a model. In the end maybe they will “announce” they have an “agreement” with the thugs. Makes them feel good you know.
Maybe someone should ask them how they can say that when…
Incoherent too.
Good point, ecahn. Yes, I’ve seen her posts before, navigated my way through them – some good stuff she has written – but was surprised at that army reference. Oh well.
How far out of touch with the voters are inside-the-beltwayers.
See my 27 above. Not much more needed.
In theory, the thugs would want to negotiate to avoid the across the board cuts. But the 2 parties have been wide apart since the beginning. It will be very interesting to see if the cuts do get made. I expect we will hear dire warnings from the pols, like with the extension of the bush tax cuts (we HAVE to extend it to get those unemployment checks too) and the debt ceiling crap (all hell will break loose), and they will agree to reverse the across the board cuts.
Frankly, I’d like all hell to break loose. Nothing else is happening that’s any good.
I think you got it. No need for them to participate unless you give them something first. They can get it later over the debt ceiling debates.
One wonders why bother.
My first foray into blog commenting came on a site that I’ve forgotten. Hostess was into Far East religion stuff and had just shown up on WJ. Had about a 3-4 comment interaction in comments, showing that she had completely misinterpreted my knowledge & background, age, gender & everything else. Left with a signoff about how I had appreciated the conversation & never went back.
WTF? Nothing could be farther from the troooth. O lurves warz more than anyting & will go to the mattress over defense spending.
Only he doesn’t need to bc the Rs will do it for him.
Again, good point. I should have inserted “posturing” before “wide apart”.
All is forgiven.
One newer knows for sure, without history, and I have no experience with yours, whether commenters are Obots or not.
Indeed. !!
yes, yes, yes. the GOP is the party of the rich and the democrats are the party of unions and working people and minorities and the downtrodden in general. yes, yes.
It’ll be alright, Bacaus and Hoyer are there to give the Repubs bi-partisan cover.
The salient point is that it doesn’t matter if the committee fails or succeeds. The American people are screwed either way.