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Roll Call: “Democratic and Republican leaders scrambled late Tuesday to salvage their weeks-long negotiations over a long-term spending bill after talks collapsed in an exchange of partisan fireworks.”
The New York Times on the numbers: "While Appropriations Committee aides have been assembling legislation based on $33 billion in cuts, that proposal has not gone over well with many House Republicans, who have already approved $61 billion in spending reductions for this year and do not appear to want to bend far from that figure. Several officials familiar with the morning session at the White House said Mr. Boehner had indicated that he could potentially sell spending cuts of about $40 billion to more of his members — a $7 billion increase from what Democrats viewed as their earlier agreement with the speaker."
Congressional watcher Norm Ornstein writes, “In many ways, the most interesting dynamic right now is that surrounding Speaker John Boehner, who has in the past been a first-rate legislator, knows how the legislative process works and knows the risks of a shutdown — to the economy and to his party — are high.” And, he says, Republicans eventually will have to defend their budget.
If there is a government shutdown, what closes and what stays open? Per NBC's Kevin Hurd, Reagan OMB Director David A. Stockman issued a memorandum in 1981 to heads of executive agencies detailing examples of activities that should be exempted from shutting down. The memo, which was included in a Congressional Research Service analysis this February, was used in the 1995-1996 shutdown. It reads:
Conduct essential activities to the extent that they protect life and property, including:
a. Medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care;
b. Activities essential to ensure continued public health and safety, including safe use of food and drugs and safe use of hazardous materials;
c. The continuance of air traffic control and other transportation safety functions and the protection of transport property;
d. Border and coastal protection and surveillance;
e. Protection of Federal lands, buildings, waterways, equipment and other property owned by the United States;
f. Care of prisoners and other persons in the custody of the United States;
g. Law enforcement and criminal investigations;
h. Emergency and disaster assistance;
i. Activities essential to the preservation of the essential elements of the money and banking system of the United States, including borrowing and tax collection activities of the Treasury;
j. Activities that ensure production of power and maintenance of the power distribution system; and
k. Activities necessary to maintain protection of research property.
The Boston Globe also looks at who would keep working and who might not if there’s a government shutdown.
The Boston Globe breaks down what exactly is in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal, including Medicare: “Wipes out funding for Obama’s health care initiative and changes the status of Medicare as an open-ended entitlement. People now 54 and younger would upon retirement get a fixed amount from the federal government to buy insurance from a range of regulated private plans. The payment would go directly to the health insurance plan. Starting in 2022, the eligibility age for Medicare, now 65, would be gradually increased until it reaches 67 in 2033. Seniors already on Medicare and people within 10 years of retirement would be able to go into the traditional program as it exists today.”
The New York Daily News says Ryan “is grabbing the third rail of American politics with both hands… But it does reframe the debate in Washington, with Republicans showing they're willing to propose politically risky cuts to keep the deficit from spiraling out of control.”
The New York Times on the proposal: “By its mix of deep cuts in taxes and domestic spending, and its shrinkage of the American safety net, the plan sets the conservative parameter of the debate over the nation’s budget priorities further to the right than at any time since the modern federal government began taking shape nearly eight decades ago.”
“Democrats and Republicans wasted no time on Tuesday turning House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan into a partisan rallying point,” Roll Call writes.
For all the talk of Ryan’s budget, don’t forget about the “Gang of Six,” The Hill reminds.
“All but a dozen Senate Democrats joined a united Senate GOP Conference on Tuesday in voting 87-12 to send Obama the House-passed version of a bill to repeal a requirement that companies to file a 1099 form with the IRS every time they conduct $600 worth of business with a vendor,” Roll Call writes.
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There's a deal, we just can't see it yet. That's the problem, society relies too much on television to tell them what is happening. I am all for that but I don't see how the media knows all. The media directs people to think how they want them to think. Keeps them in a box.
Just look at those that stayed glued to FAUX News all day every day.
SMH.
Giggidy
:^/
Thought it already was.
Thought it already was.
Quite clearly, Representative Ryan puts all Republicans in a bad spot. It has become increasingly obvious that their grandstanding aside, "the cause" that Ryan, Boehner and the Koch Brothers are desperate to push through is nothing but a tax elimination strategy for corporate benefactors and the uber-wealthy whom finance today's Republican party. Military spending aside, our nation's biggest issue is not spending, but revenue- the Reagan & Bush Jr. tax cuts for the wealthy were irresponsible and must be revised. Our system is based on progressively higher brackets- the Grand Old Party wants to eliminate that & continue shifting the burden to a middle class already paralyzed by the AMT. The top incremental bracket in 1970 was 70%. Today it is only 35%. Mr. Ryan and company want to bring it down to 25% by squeezing any and all programs that don't generate expensive federal contracts for their corporate buddies. Absolutely pathetic.
rsamps I agree with you. Ryan and the Tea Party lost all credibility with me, by insisting on lowering taxes while cutting Medicare and Medicaid. And it is clear they LIKE government spending when it benefits corporations. The $485 million dollar alternative engine the Air Force emphatically did not want but which Cantor and Boehner voted to fund, because it was built in their districts, proved that.
Dems. plans is workink jus way dey wants it to.
Dont be a chicken Sh*t come out with it in plain english. Freddy boy.
Obama and Democrats get my vote, the choice is simple. If you have Social Security, Medicare, the right to vote, the right to an education, a clean park or a lake near you. If you were given a disability check or a wheel chair ramp into the store you buy your food, if you like safe bridges, clean drinking water, clean air and a nontoxic environment, if you feel safe when you fly, or eat out, or give your child a toy, then it's time you give Liberals the credit they deserve.
Banking reforms:
HealthCare reforms:
Nuclear arms agreements:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act:
Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act:
Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act:
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act:
Student loan reform:
Keep on truckin Democrats.
For Republicans, reality is a distant land that needs to be conquered at the expense of the Americans and their families.
I'm tired of Republicans. It was all a nice puppet show. Foolish elderly Republican voters actually think that Republicans are going to repeal the Heath Care Reforms and ban earmarks and bring "freedom" back.
Would you hire a confessed animal hater to run a pet store? No? Then why would you elect politicians who freely admit to despising government?
Republicans rally against regulation of industry, and then America sees how that turns out when BP spills a million barrels of oil in our seas. Republicans will rally against gay people, stripping them of civil rights, and then you find them tapping their toes in airport bathrooms looking for their gay lovers. Republicans will rally against non-existent communists but have no problem driving our economy to the ground with Karl Marx like spending of trillions of tax dollars that they borrowed from China for endless wars against enemies that did not attack us. Tax cuts for the rich?
After the last ten years of watching Republicans one word stands out as defining them perfectly; hypocrite. A vote for a Republican is literally a vote for the absence of leadership.
Hands down, I'm voting for the Democrats for the next decade.
The sky is falling (LOL)
The biggest news about the shutdown is...that the government won't shut down. At most, some National parks may close temporarily. This is all hype, and we have all seen it before.
The National Debt is real though. It will consume us unless we take drastic action and soon. What are the options??
Raise taxes or cut spending, or both. Well, raising taxes only encourages more spending. It doesn't lower our debt at all. Cutting spending is all that we have left. Cutting means really cutting, not token cutting. Painful?? Sure. What if we just don't?? Economic collapse that will take those painful choices out of our hands. So, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
Yo mamma obama went to the white house, he wanted to run the nation;
But when he got there and they made him swear he went right on a vacation.
He had figured a way -- to make America pay, yes, he had figured a way -- to make America pay, pay. Yes they’d pay every day for every little slight.
Yes he’d spend her broke, and he’d let her choke while he let both parties fight.
Yes he figured a way -- to make America pay, yes he’d figured a way -- to make America pay, because he hates everything that’s white.
Freddy remember he's half white, you better get you some!
The budget could be done for 2011 and for 2012 if two simple fixes were doneEliminate all,repeat, ALL corporate loopholes, taxing them as they should be. Raise the tax rate and loopholes for those making over a million dollars a year. Actually, I would like to see a surtax of at least 15% of gross earnings on those who make 25 million or more. I know this, if I were to EVER earn that much, I would write that check voluntarially and smile all the rest of my life.
But for right now, the Republicans have the high ground. Remember, I said "for right now".
Don't bother here.save your wit; nobody reads, but what they writ.
I used to think everyone earning less than $100K a year who voted for republicans was out of their minds. But I've changed. Now I think everyone, rich or poor, who votes for republicans is out of their minds. How do you fail to see through the hypocrisy of a party that advocates for cutting billion$ from programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Education, Social Security, etc when they have no qualms in borrowing and deficit-spending billion$ on wars that don't need to be fought and tax cuts for wealthy individuals who don't and will never need them. How do you maintain a viable consumer class that will sustain a great economy with that approach? How can anyone fail to see that that kind of approach, if uninterrupted, will only lead, sooner rather than later, to the demise of the greatest nation in the world?!
Does anyone still think that trickle-down or more accurately, trick-down economics really works? Dems need to stand their ground and let the government be shut down. Let the chips fall where they may.
Gee who started the latest war?