Steny Hoyer: Now That Democrats Alone Have Gone Nuts With The Spending, We’re All Going To Have To Come Together And Figure Out How To Deal With All This Debt

When congressional leaders start talking like this, hold onto your wallet.

The second-ranking House Democrat said "the single most pressing challenge" for the public and lawmakers was "putting our fiscal house in order."

"The subject we were discussing [healthcare] was not as important as the subject we're discussing here," said Hoyer at a University of Maryland forum Thursday on the country's fiscal future.

…Hoyer said that the health bill should help the fiscal picture; the Congressional Budget Office expects savings of about $140 billion this decade and far more in the bill's second decade.

Hoyer acknowledged Republican concerns that those savings may not be realized, as they're based on measures lawmakers may be reluctant to enact. The health bill's savings come through Medicare cuts, which Democrats said won't affect seniors' quality of care, and through new taxes on high-income earners.

He called on lawmakers to have the "courage" to stick by them.

"Those savings are contingent on Congress keeping its pledge to take hard votes," Hoyer said.

"Congress does not have a good track record on that objective," he added.

In other words when it comes to the savings in the health care law, “You fucked up... you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it!”

So how does Steny expect us to get out of this? Why, tax increases of course.

"Both Republicans and Democrats have to come to the table without preconditions," he said. "You can't rule out any solution, on the revenue side or the spending side. We can't give into the temptation to turn this defining challenge to the subject of demagoguery."

The funny thing is, Democrats are now talking about renewing the evvvvilllll “Bush tax cuts”, at least for the “middle class”.

So what taxes does Hoyer think will be raised? Oh right.

posted by DrewM. at 01:40 PM

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