Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« Top Headline Comments 7-27-11 | Main | DOOM to Nation: Drop Dead! »
July 27, 2011

Boehner Plan Back to the Drawing Board

Speaker Boehner has rushed his bill back to the drawing board with the hope of re-writing its provisions to get better numbers out of the CBO. The bill is still tentatively scheduled for a vote tomorrow, but Boehner can lose only 23 Republicans before he has to find votes among the Democrats. Keep in mind that only 5 Democrats crossed the aisle for Cut, Cap, and Balance and none of them have spoken up in support of the latest Boehner plan. Somewhere in a Capitol Hill office, Senator Reid is doing a Snoopy happy dance.

So what happened with the numbers? Boehner promised that his bill would increase the debt ceiling by less than it cut spending. So his numbers were $800 billion for the debt ceiling and $1.2 trillion in cut spending. But that cut was only relative to the January 2011 baseline, which had been used up until now in the debt ceiling talks. Unfortunately for Boehner, that baseline is out of date.

The March CBO baseline is more recent and current than the January one, and it makes sense to use that one now, even if the Biden talks and subsequent negotiations used an earlier baseline (which led the architects of this bill, working off their prior efforts, to do the same). Republicans are right, therefore, to be re-writing their bill to match the later baseline. ...Democrats have just realized that the Reid bill, which the White House is backing, has made the same mistake, so that Reid’s cuts would also be scored as lower than its authors claim by CBO (probably at exactly the same level as the original Boehner bill). With House Republicans accepting CBO’s correction and re-writing their bill with deeper cuts to suit the later CBO baseline, Reid’s bill suddenly becomes a much weaker player in all this unless he also makes deeper cuts, which the Democrats are obviously not inclined to do. In that sense, this baseline confusion could well strengthen Boehner’s hand.

One can only hope. Because it's still the only other game in town. Purists insist that the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan that passed the House (thank you, Speaker Boehner) is still viable, though Reid shot it down in the Senate, but there is no reason to believe that is the case. The Senate won't vote for it and the President won't sign it. And leveraging the threat of economic calamity isn't changing that.

What might change that particular stalemate would be to push past the August 2 (or is it August 10?) deadline, let our AAA rating be lost, let federal disbursements be disrupted, and use the actual economic calamity as leverage for CCB and the Balanced Budget Amendment. That is the strategy that the purists are suggesting now. Of course, there's no reason to believe that Republicans will not be blamed in whole or in part for this "Let it Burn" plan and it has the smell of desperation about it. While it may be fun to imagine using economic Armageddon to get everything we want without having to compromise on anything, they're playing with people's lives and livelihoods in a particularly cynical and unprincipled manner.

Like it or not, Republicans only control one half of one branch of government. As long as that's the case, the range of possible options on the debt ceiling issue is between Speaker Boehner on the Right and President Obama on the Far Left. In a better world, one where Republicans have control of Congress and the White House, the range of possible options would be better---between Jim DeMint on the Far Right and Speaker Boehner on the Right. I'd like to live in that world, and I know you would too. So, for the love of Pete, can we please concentrate on getting there? Say, perhaps, by racking up some victories against President Obama?

Republicans have the opportunity for a small victory here. They get to moderately restrain spending, put the President in the hot seat, and lay the ground work for a Balanced Budget Amendment vote. Small victories lead to larger victories.


digg this
posted by Gabriel Malor at 08:05 AM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "I think it was grump928 who made an outstanding po ..."

Don Black: "is everyone over on the main page, slapping f5 lik ..."

JackStraw: ">>The long-shredded pretense to impartiality is su ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "Wakandyass it is! ..."

Don Black: "NYR 0 COL 0 end 1st p 🏒 ..."

Alberta Oil Peon: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Puddleglum at work: "[i]173 167 I’ve often speculated that the re ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Ciampino - Bloody 'experts' again ...: "158 For being the alleged "birthplace of civilizat ..."

sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades [/b][/u][/i][/s]: "got to have a spread of alternatives, amirite? ..."

Bulgaroctonus : "167 I’ve often speculated that the reason th ..."

Hairyback Guy: "Anita Bryant > All Other Female Crooners ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64