Here we go ~ BUCKLE UP! ~ I think every GOP/TP senator and the 3 Dem senators that voted with them are guilty of violating their oaths of office and dereliction of their official duties ~ ~ Sooz

Senate Republicans Kill Sequestration Alternative
Brian Beutler-February 28, 2013, 3:17 PM5025

Senate Republicans have filibustered a Democratic bill that would pay down sequestration’s indiscriminate spending cuts for a year.

Though the vote outcome was never in doubt, the legislation’s demise assures that Congress will miss Friday’s sequestration deadline, and federal agencies will begin cutting projects and services.

The final vote was 51-49. It needed 60 votes to pass. Sens. Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted with a unified GOP conference to block the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also switched his vote from yes to no — a procedural maneuver that preserves his right to call the measure up for a vote again quickly in the future.

If the bill would have become law, it would have replaced tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts set to take place this year with 10 years’ worth of deficit reducing tax increases and targeted spending cuts. The revenue would have come largely from individuals making over $5 million a year, by imposing a minimum “Buffett Rule” tax on their earnings. The cuts would have been divided evenly between agriculture subsidies and defense spending.

Democrats also blocked a GOP-sponsored plan to modify sequestration by providing federal agency heads with some authority to reallocate the cuts. Under current law, affected agencies must cut each of their programs by the same percentage before the end of the year. The Republican bill likewise needed 60 votes to pass; however, it did not achieve majority support. It failed 38-62, with nine Republicans — Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Dean Heller (R-NV) Mike Lee (UT), John McCain (R-AZ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — crossing the aisle. Two Democrats — Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT), and Mark Warner (D-VA) — voted with the GOP minority.

With both the House and Senate now out of session, and no legislation on the docket in either chamber to address sequestration, the Obama administration will be forced to issue the order on Friday. President Obama has invited congressional leaders to the White House tomorrow to discuss sequestration, but officials from both parties predict the event will yield little progress.

As the cuts roll out, House Republicans will ready legislation to renew funding for federal agencies, which expires altogether at the end of March, irrespective of sequestration. That legislation — known as a continuing resolution — could reach the House floor as early as next week. And depending upon how it’s constructed, it could determine how the fight over sequestration ultimately comes to an end

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/republicans-block-sequestration-alternative.php?ref=fpa

Cool.
What, 20 months before the GOP implodes?

how's that Filibuster promise going for you, Harry? feeling good about that now?

Was that necessary? Now I have stomach cramps again.

Boehner is a disasterous Speaker ~ not only for the GOP/TP, but for our country ~ in a kinda sorta weak defense for him, I recognize it's impossible for him to be anything else ~ the GOP/TP caucus is too focused on "winning" to even recognize the self-inflicted deep damage they are pushing ~ I'm thinking Boehner is too drunk/too hungover/too dumb to even know he's being played by his own caucus ~ Sooz

Boehner will accept only a 100%-0% deal
By Steve Benen - Fri Mar 1, 2013 12:47 PM EST

[Sooz comment: video clip accessible via end link]

President Obama met with congressional leaders from both parties and both chambers at the White House this morning about the latest in a series of self-inflicted, easily-avoided wounds. There were no realistic hopes that the policymakers would somehow reach an agreement to replace the sequestration cuts, and expectations were met: the group spoke for about an hour and then quit, resolving nothing.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) left the meeting and spoke for about a minute to reporters without taking questions. For those who can't watch clips online, he argued:


I'm trying to think of a way to explain this in a way Boehner will understand. As the Speaker sees it, the very idea of a balanced compromise is ridiculous -- a compromise would necessarily include revenue, Democrats already got new revenue, so it's outrageous for anyone to even raise the possibility.

Let's put this as plainly as possible: in the summer of 2011, both sides accepted a debt-reduction deal that cut spending by over $1.2 trillion without any additional revenue -- a win for Republicans. In late 2012, both sides accepted another deal that raised about $600 billion in revenue without any additional cuts -- a win for Democrats.

Now it's time to add another piece to the puzzle, and the Speaker of the House only remembers part of the very recent past.

This sentence...


...makes exactly as much sense as this sentence:


Substantively, there is no difference between the two arguments. Both represent extremes. Except right now, Republicans think the first sentence makes perfect sense and no one is even bothering with the second sentence.

Indeed, if Boehner were to accept Obama's compromise, Boehner would still come out on top since the spending-cut totals would still easily outweigh the revenue totals. The president's offer, at face value, is already a win for the GOP.

But Republicans won't accept a win; they'll accept a rout. According to Boehner, the only available solution to a problem he helped create is one in which his side gets 100% of what it wants, predicated on the assumption that the massive spending cuts agreed to in 2011 have escaped Republicans' memories altogether.

At this point, most Americans want a compromise. Most Democrats want and have already proposed a compromise. But Boehner wants everyone to know there will be no compromise, and there's nothing the president can say or do to change his mind.

I'll now look forward to pundits everywhere telling me how "both sides" are to blame.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/01/17148387-boehner-will-accept-only-a-100-0-deal?lite

Boehner spect 56 seconds speaking before he left for the weekend. Big man isn't he?

And the GOP/TPers are high-fiving themselves on a job well done ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in original, accessible via the end link ~ Sooz

The 32 Dumbest And Most Devastating Sequester Cuts
By Igor Volsky on Mar 2, 2013 at 11:03 am

With Congress unable to reach a deal to avert the indiscriminate spending cuts put in place in the Budget Control Act of 2011, President Obama on Friday signed an order authorizing the government to begin canceling $85 billion from federal accounts for this fiscal year.

As Obama said during a press conference yesterday, “This is not going to be a apocalypse, I think as some people have said. It’s just dumb. And it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt individual people and it’s going to hurt the economy overall.” In a 83-page letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), the Office of Management and Budget details the specific reductions each government program will face. Here are the dumbest and most painful cuts:

Health care
$20 million cut from the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs
$10 million cut from the World Trade Center Health Program Fund
$168 million cut from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
$75 million cut from the Aging and Disability Services Programs

Housing
$199 million cut from public housing
$96 million cut from Homeless Assistance Grants
$17 million cut from Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS
$19 million cut from Housing for the Elderly
$175 million cut from Low Income Home Energy Assistance

Disaster and Emergency
$928 million cut from FEMA’s disaster relief money
$6 million cut from Emergency Food and Shelter
$70 million cut from the Agricultural Disaster Relief Fund at USDA
$61 million cut from the Hazardous Substance Superfund at EPA
$125 million cut from the Wildland Fire Management
$53 million cut from Salaries and Expenses at the Food Safety and Inspection Service

Obamacare
$13 million cut from the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan Program (Co-ops)
$57 million cut from the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control
$51 million cut from the Prevention and Public Health Fund
$27 million cut from the State Grants and Demonstrations
$44 million cut from the Affordable Insurance Exchange Grants program

Education
$633 million cut from the Department of Education’s Special Education programs
$184 million cut from Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research
$71 million cut from administration at the Office of Federal Student Aid
$116 million cut from Higher Education
$86 million cut from Student Financial Assistance

Immigration
$512 million cut from Customs and Border Protection
$17 million cut from Automation Modernization, Customs and Border Protection
$20 million cut from Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology

Security
$79 million cut from Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance
$604 million cut from National Nuclear Security Administration
$232 million cut from the Federal Aviation Administration
$394 million cut from Defense Environmental Cleanup

Republicans, who refused to raise any additional revenue to avoid the budget cuts, have described the reductions as “modest” a “homerun” and something that “needs to happen” in order to “get this economy rolling again.”

The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that the nation’s deficits have shrunk by trillions of dollars, and the debt is close to being stabilized as a percentage of the economy. Meanwhile, budget cuts have already reduced spending by $1.5 trillion and even with the revenue included in the fiscal cliff deal, the ratio of cuts to revenue stands at an unbalanced 3 to 1.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/03/02/1662271/the-dumbest-and-most-devastating-sequester-cuts/

What really makes my blood pressure spike is that this is voluntary [and reinforced] ignorance and deceit ~ ~ Sooz

VIDEO: How The GOP Constantly Pretends Spending Cuts Haven’t Happened
By Jeff Spross on Mar 1, 2013 at 10:40 am

Barring a miracle of bipartisan cooperation over the next 12 hours, the sequester — a series of across-the-board spending cuts — will kick in tonight.

Part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the sequester will likely shave 700,000 jobs and 0.6 percent worth of growth off the economy. Its cuts were designed to be so crude and damaging they would incentivize all sides to replace it with more well-thought out deficit reduction.

But thanks to the GOP’s single-minded fixation on spending cuts over tax increases, that effort failed. Republicans spent the last two years treating every debate over the deficit as if it were occurring in a historical vacuum, accusing Obama of failing his own commitment to balance, repeatedly scoffing at new tax revenue, and insisting that “it’s finally time” to “get serious” about cutting spending, even as trillions of dollars in cuts mounted.

In short, the GOP has repeatedly thrown the spending cuts from each previous deal down the memory hole, demanding more and more while claiming that Obama and Democrats have unreasonably wanted to balance those cuts with new revenue. ThinkProgress has the video report. Watch it:


Between the spring 2011 budget fight, the debt ceiling debacle, and the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the United States has cut almost $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade, plus saving roughly $200 billion more in lower interest payments.

In fact, at the Wall Street Journal breakfast featured in the video, reporter Lori Montgomery brought up all these previous cuts point blank with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s rejoinder encapsulated the entire bizarre kabuki dance: “That was last session. We’re going forward now.” Montgomery and the other reporters literally busted out laughing in response. (Ryan’s logic doesn’t even work on its on terms. The new tax revenues in the fiscal cliff deal were part of the last congressional session as well, but he wants to count those.)

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the budget ledger, the country will raise only $630 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade. That’s the context in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists “the tax issue is finished,” even as both he and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) claim to be seeking a “balanced” agreement. As a result, everything from Medicare, to the military, food safety, air traffic control, nutritional support for women and infants, disaster relief, law enforcement, and health research looks likely to get the axe.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/01/1656731/video-gop-spending-memory-hole/

Ok, so Boehner thinks the fiscal problems have "consumed" the nation for only the past 2 years and that no one understands how it gets resolved.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/boeh ... s-resolved

OTOH, Romney implies that he could have fixed it all, while his little wifey says if he had been elected it would have been better for the country.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/romn ... -continues

IMO, Boehner is "completely clueless" FAR FAR FAR beyond the sequester ~ ~ Sooz

John Boehner Admits He’s Completely Clueless About The Republican Sequester
By: Sarah JonesMar. 3rd, 2013

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told David Gregory in an exclusive interview on Meet the Press today, “I don’t know whether it’s going to hurt the econonmy or not. I don’t think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

Watch here from NBC: [Sooz comment: clip accessible via end link]

Boehner continued, “I don’t think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved.”

So, Republicans like Paul Ryan have been pushing for this thing they don’t understand. John Boehner announced that he got 98% of what he wanted when the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law, which included sequester, as a direct result of Republicans threatening to fail to pay off the debt they’d already aquired by raising the debt ceiling.

Boehner scoffed at the idea that sequester would be bad (after warning us earlier that it would be very, very bad), suggesting that since air traffic controllers weren’t laid off yet, all was well. The full impact of the cuts won’t kick in for a month, and Boehner should understand at least this much about his party’s idea. That didn’t stop Boehner from insinuating that the President wasn’t being truthful about the impact of sequester.

Boehner should have a chat with his colleague Eric Cantor (R-VA) (who happily took responsibility for this mess before it was an actual mess) after the hits make themselves apparent in Virginia, where the economy is largely dependent upon the Department of Defense and military contractors. Experts predict Virginia sliding into a recession as a result of sequestration.

Boehner then tried to sell Republicans refusing to raise revenue by comparing it to average Americans making things work in a tough economy, “Every American, in these tough economic times, has to find a way to balance their budget. They’ve got to make choices. They expect Washington to live within its means and to make choices as well.”

Yes, indeed, Speaker, they do. But average Americans aren’t refusing to work for a living and expecting to pay for their living expenses via cuts to movies and dinners out alone. You see, most of us have to do this thing called work. We do that in order to make this thing called revenue. Revenue is used to pay the mortgage and buy food. Most of us can’t cut our way out of trouble without revenue and you’d be hard pressed to find an American who would turn down additional revenue (pay).

But that’s exactly what House Republicans are doing. They don’t want to ask corporations to pay a little or cut tax subsidies to oil companies and they refuse to entertain the idea of taking away tax breaks for corproate jets. Those things are off the table because they somehow lead to job creation in Republican fantasy.

Boehner claimed that Republicans are refusing to hit corporate taxes because they love the middle class. “American family’s wages aren’t growing. They’re being squeezed. And as a result, we’ve got to find a way through our tax code to promote more economic growth in our country.” Boehner then suggested Republicans are willing to close loopholes, but if this is so, then why don’t they do it, ” We can do this by closing loopholes, bringing the (tax) rates down for all Americans, making the tax code fairer. It will promote more economic growth.”

Tax rates are already very low for most Americans and lower tax rates does not equal more revenue. Increasing tax rates for all Americans is not on the table; rather, closing corporate loopholes and subsidies to oil companies is on the table (from the Democrats).

Without revenue we can’t pay down the debt. Allegedly, this entire debacle was started over Republican concern for the debt. It makes you wonder why they refuse to do the one thing that even Ronald Reagan knew had to happen in order to pay our bills.

Then we got this gem of soothing wisdom from the Speaker, “I don’t know whether it’s going to hurt the economy or not. I don’t think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

As I’ve been pointing out for weeks now, the notion of using the trigger of sequester in order to force compromise is a Republican idea. They’ve been holding it up as the holy grail of budget discipline for years. Paul Ryan has been touting it as great governance since 2004. That is, until it looked like it might actually happen. Republicans cheered it on as the great solution. Sequester is supposed to be so awful it forces both sides to the table, yet the Republicans refuse to raise any revenue.

Now that they’ve finally got it, now that it has gone into effect because Republicans refused to compromise on any loopholes or revenue, Speaker John Boehner admitted that he doesn’t know how to resolve it. In fact, he doesn’t think anyone understands how sequester is going to really work. Well done, Republicans.

http://www.politicususa.com/john-boehner-admits-republican-sequester.html

Should we take up a collection to buy the GOP another shovel?

There is one reason and one reason only that the sequester went into effect;

Republicans refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy.

They would rather see these cuts takes place that will hurt the poor and middle class.

Steve Benen gets an A+ for shredding whatever remains of Boehner's credibility in this post ~ both "the distance between reality and his rhetoric" and "dunce vs. deceiver" raced to the top of my list of perfect descriptors ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

Either Boehner is confused or he thinks you're confused
By Steve Benen - Mon Mar 4, 2013 8:00 AM EST

[Sooz comment: video accessible via the end link]

Watching House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on "Meet the Press" yesterday, it was hard not to wonder about the Republican leader's frame of mind. Given the distance between reality and his rhetoric, one question hung over the interview: does Boehner actually believe his own talking points?

For example, the Speaker insisted, "[T]here's no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester." Host David Gregory explained that the claim is "just not true," leading Boehner to respond:


Now, I suppose it's possible that the Speaker of the House doesn't know what a Senate filibuster is, but Boehner has been in Congress for two decades, and I find it implausible that he could be this ignorant. The facts are not in dispute: Democrats unveiled a compromise measure that required concessions from both sides; the plan enjoyed majority support in the Senate; and Republicans filibustered the proposal. That's not opinion; that's just what happened.

"If he had a plan, why wouldn't Senate Democrats go ahead and pass it?" One of two things are true: either the House Speaker has forgotten how a bill becomes a law in 2013 or he's using deliberately deceptive rhetoric in the hopes that Americans won't know the difference. It's one or the other.

What's worse, the "dunce vs. deceiver" debate intensified as the interview progressed.

Consider this gem:


If by "tried," Boehner means "blew off every overly generous offer extended by the White House," then sure, he tried. In reality, Boehner walked away from the Grand Bargain in 2011, walked away from another Grand Bargain to pursue "Plan B" (remember that fiasco?); and walked away from balanced compromise on sequestration.

Or how about this one about the sequester:


Boehner, just two weeks ago, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that the sequester is going to hurt the economy. Does the Speaker not remember this?

And finally, let's not forget this one:


First, no sane person could look at stagnant government spending rates during the Obama era and think it's "out of control." Second, using Boehner's own logic, the Speaker got his spending cuts in 2011 -- to the tune of nearly $1.5 trillion -- so if we're following his line of reasoning, the issue isn't spending.

Honestly, Boehner came across as a man who's just terribly confused about the basics of the ongoing debate. Putting aside ideology and preferred policy agendas, the Speaker just doesn't seem to keep up on current events especially well -- he doesn't remember the 2011 spending cuts; he doesn't remember last week's Senate filibuster; he doesn't remember President Obama's offers to cut more spending; he doesn't remember his own op-eds; and he doesn't remember the economic growth that followed tax increases in the 1980s and 1990s.

I'm tempted to take up a collection to help buy Boehner some remedial materials, but I'm not sure what he'd need first: an Economic 101 textbook or a subscription to a daily newspaper.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/04/17179278-either-boehner-is-confused-or-he-thinks-youre-confused?lite

I'm tempted to take up a collection to help buy Boehner some remedial materials, but I'm not sure what he'd need first: an Economic 101 textbook or a subscription to a daily newspaper.

Another shovel, I tell ya.