It’s interesting to watch the Republicans squirm as they are faced with the stiff defense-spending cuts mandated under the 2011 debt limit law if the Super Committee failed (as it did) to do its job. I’m not happy with Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin after he included dreadful detainee language in the Defense Appropriations Bill. But I like what he’s doing here:
“The purpose of the sequester is to force us to act to avoid the sequester,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor roundtable. “It’s like a nuclear weapon — it’s totally useless; it can’t be used except to accomplish some other goal than its use. It’s used to deter.”
…“The sequester…is used to force us to deal with the deficit. And it will. I predict it’s going to succeed,” Levin said. “But it will only succeed if it’s kept intact. That sword of Damocles can not be splintered. It’s got to be kept intact if it’s going to have its effect of basically forcing the Republicans, who have taken an ideologically rigid step against any new revenues, to relent and reflect what public opinion clearly is — that there is room for additional revenues, particularly in closing the loopholes [and] in restoring that higher rate for upper bracket Americans.”
…
“The dam has got to be broken on revenues and what will break it, I believe, is sequestration,” Levin said. “And it can’t be divided and splintered up. It’s got to be kept intact. And that’s what I believe will move the rigid ideologues to deal finally with revenue.”
In other words, “give up on the Grover Norquist bullshit or the Pentagon gets it.”
The best part, for me, is that i don’t care if the Pentagon “gets it.” I don’t care if the Medicare providers “get it.” It’s win-win.
Many Republicans will have no choice but to vote to raise taxes on millionaires, at minimum, in December. More likely, they’ll have to give Obama his entire 98% tax promise instead. They’re fucked. The die is cast. The President won. The only way out of the predicament is to win in 2012. And they won’t be doing that.
The GOP House blew 2011 by carrying out a policy of unrelenting obstruction, instead of extraction, with a hostage they couldn’t actually afford to shoot. Obstruct with a minority, extract in a divided government. Always be proactive, push a positive, busybodied agenda, and never let things go down to the wire without an out card in your back pocket. That’s what you gotta do. But the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party is complete. They can’t even find capable soulless legal sharks to negotiate for them anymore. The id-driven tea party runs all.
I’d like for the professional left to learn from this, but they hate government more than they love actual progress. Oh well, the only question remaining is how little of John Boehner is left after Cantor gets done with him? Even though it’s all Cantor’s fault to begin with. That’s a sweet deal for the future Minority Leader from Virginia.
I’ll be damned; the Republicans really did screw up. I figured they demagogue the hell out of the defense cuts to weasel out of their end.
In other words, “give up on the Grover Norquist bullshit or the Pentagon gets it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjPBp6DOwgU
[youtube]AjPBp6DOwgU[/youtube]
😀
Speaking of Norquist:
Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.
~Gwover
Dude is rapidly jumping the shark.
This is why I still don’t get the “progressive” freak-out over the debt ceiling deal.
I think they devoted so much breath and reputation to predicting that Obama would screw us that, once they actual deal came out, they had to try to spin it as badly as possible in order to avoid acknowledging that they were wrong on the internet.
So, speaking of which, would anybody care to give me a timeline for when the Republicans are going to start attacking Obama for trying to cut Social Security and Medicare?
I was promised devastating, granny-scaring, liberal-repelling attack ads charging Barack Obama with trying to gut programs for retirees. So, can any of the super-geniuses who predicted that give me some kind of ballpark estimate of when they’re going to start?
Or is that line, like “Obama agreed to ninety bazillionty dollars in cuts in the April budget deal,” no longer operative?
You don’t care if Medicare gets it?
Thanks on behalf of the millions across the country who already depend on Medicare and the tens of millions who will, soon enough.
You’re a great reason to favor liberals over conservatives.
Medicare providers.
Like a good liberal, the commenter is trying to explain that if we don’t give the Randian ubermen in white coats every dollar they want, they’ll Go Galt.
You think that medicare providers are being paid too much?
I really don’t know if this is valid but I do know that it is pretty difficult to find a Medicare provider who takes new Medicare patients, especially a GOOD Medicare provider.
I finally found a Women’s Clinic connected to a University hospital that takes Medicare patients and once you are in the University system you can easily arrange to see other doctors.
However, my former Primary Care Physician was really terrible and was not really interested in helping with several serious conditions that I needed help with. I stayed with her because it took me weeks to even find her as someone who was taking new Medicare patients.
Maybe you need to be just a few years older, or quite a few, to experience this.
Yep, be careful what you wish for and watch out for those pesky unintended consequences. Since Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements for ambulance service were reduced back around Y2K, county taxpayers have had to pick up the subsidy.
This is kind of what I figured would happen. The republicans allowed themselves to be taken in by their own press, that “The Dems are gonna CAAAAVE” and they figured they could just walk in and get what they wanted via the supercomittee. They never thought they would actually be faced with a tough negotiation and never in their wildest nightmares did they figure they would have to actually implement these cuts.
I’m sure if the supercomitte actually came out with a reasonable deal, Obama would have been thrilled, but in a very real sense the committee was designed to fail and got the loaded with the best deal possible.