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With just two weeks until the sequestration cuts are set to begin, Senate Democrats have finally released their plan to address them. The Democrats’ bill would delay the sequesters for roughly a year by replacing them with $110 billion in alternative deficit reduction. The proposal is known as The American Family Economic Protection Act.
Half of the money would come from new revenue. Most of that would be from adopting the “Buffet Rule” and closing some corporate tax loopholes.
The other half would come from spending cuts split between defense cuts and reductions in agricultural subsidies.
As deficit reductions plans go it sounds decent, which is exactly the point. This bill clearly wasn’t designed to try to get Republican support and there is zero chance it will ever be approved.
It was created solely so Democrats could say they officially “tried” to stop the sequestration, so if the cuts happen they can say it is the Republicans’ fault. At the same time Republicans are trying to put the blame on President Obama by claiming the sequestration cuts were originally his idea.
The fact that with so little time left that both parties are still primarily focused on blame avoidance is a powerful indication that the cuts are going to happen.
Photo by .m for matthijs under Creative Commons license
16 Comments
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This is so stupid.
Mint the Coin.
Taken directly from the White House website here’s Obama calling the sequester a “win for the economy” that is part of his whole ‘shared sacrifice’ mantra:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet-victory-bipartisan-compromise-economy-american-people
Here’s Obama saying that he’d veto anything that eliminated the ‘deliberately onerous’ sequester:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/195141-white-house-no-wiggle-room-on-obama-veto-threat-
The White House originated the idea of the sequester as a means to address tax reform and the White House persuaded Harry Reid to go along with it – Jack Lew with his experience under Tip O’Neil used a decades old law to come up with the language of the sequester:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-fanciful-claim-that-congress-proposed-the-sequester/2012/10/25/8651dc6a-1eed-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_blog.html
Heh.
That was the avoidance solution to the last problem.
Except it’s not an avoidance. It’s an alternative solution to pretending that debts must always be financed by borrowing or taxing. It puts the lie to the austerity-seekers, who believe, without reason, that we’re running out of money.
And without debt scaremongering, there’d be a lower probability that we’d stupidly cut spending and raise taxes into a shiny new recession.
double
You mean we are not running out of money? Holy shit! Someone should tell the chief.
All right then. The chief knows what he is doing. Not to worry.
No. It was an alternative solution to relying on Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Minting the coin still relied on borrowing and taxing.
Works for me…it makes sense.
bluedot @ #6: 707! thanks, i needed that!
No. It didn’t. And doesn’t.
Just remember that despite the theater and protestations to the contrary, by the time legislation lands on Obama’s desk, it is always exactly what Obama wants.
Repeat: Obama always gets what he wants.
Bravo to David D.
If the sequester gets delayed to another time, I’m going to vomit in an envelope and mail it to my representative. The endless parade of “cliffs” is unbelievably stupid.
Austerity must be implemented to save the lifestyle of the average American millionaire. So what if the result will be fewer millionaires and a bunch of poor people (the >$200k crowd) will suffer. Don’t forget rich people are greedy and stupid as a class. They say the masses are asses at the cocktail party but continually ask the masses to save their asses. Hopefully as the next reDepression unfolds the masses will stop helping them.
Stupid is what Congress does best,sadly enough.
I’m going to be surprised if military industrial complex does not step in and tell the GOP to play ball. With these cuts we might be down to only spending more than the next 8 countries underneath us on defense. Oh the horror!