Daily Archives: December 10, 2012

December 10, 2012 · 1:42 PM

On debt ceiling, Graham vows to ‘play that game’

Why is Senator Lindsay Graham and other knucklehead Republicans in Congress so damned myopic?

The Maddow Blog

With memories of last year’s brutal debt-ceiling crisis very much on his mind, President Obama said last week, “We can’t afford to go there again.” He added, “The only thing the debt ceiling is good as a weapon for is destroying your credit rating…. I will not play that game.”

This morning on Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded, “Yes, we will play that game.”

For those who can’t watch clips online, Graham’s on-air comments about the “rude awakening” awaiting the White House were pretty remarkable.

“In February or March you have to raise the debt ceiling. And I can tell you this, there is a hardening on the Republican side. We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to let Obama borrow any more money or any American Congress borrow any more money until we fix this country from becoming Greece. And that requires significant entitlement reform to save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy. Social Security is going bankrupt in about 20, 25 years. Medicare is going bankrupt in 15 or 20 years. [...]

“Yes, we will play that game, Mr. President, because it’s not a game. The game you’re playing is small ball. You’re talking about raising rates on the top 2% that would run the government for 11 days. You just got re-elected. How about doing something big that’s not liberal? How about doing something big that really is bipartisan? Every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. How about manning up here, Mr. President and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming Greece.”

It’s rare for a prominent public official to put this much nonsense into a 90-second television appearance. Graham’s comments make absolutely no sense, and his threat to hurt the nation on purpose is, for lack of a better word, nuts.

“We’re not going to let Obama borrow any more money”? Actually, as Graham should know, raising the debt ceiling is about paying the bills for spending that’s already happened.

“Social Security and Medicare” are going bankrupt? No, actually they’re not.

The United States is at risk of “becoming Greece”?  That’s just plainly stupid.

Continue reading here…

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· 8:32 AM

It’s immoral to cut Medicare to pay for George Bush’s lies

I couldn’t agree more with John Aravosis of America Blog.

The following article is spot on in it’s condemnation of the Obama administration considering possible Medicare cuts to help pay for the deficit which in fact, was brought on by two unpaid wars and an unpaid prescription program during the George W. Bush administration.

Aravosis correctly attributes George W. Bush’s lies in the lead up to the Iraq war and the subsequent neglect of the Afghanistan initiative, to the approximate 3 trillion dollar cost of both wars which ultimately led to a soaring deficit.  Not to mention the ten year, unpaid for Bush Tax Cuts, all of which got us into this deficit mess in the first place…

America Blog

I cannot believe that Democrats are even considering raising the eligibility age for Medicare as part of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

First off, $15bn a year is hardly significant savings, and that’s what you save (at a maximum – some argue it’s significantly less) when you raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67: a whopping $15bn a year.

Bush tax cuts and Iraq, Afghanistan are causing the deficitBush tax cuts and Iraq, Afghanistan are causing the deficit.

You know how much George Bush’s little venture in Iraq has been costing us per year? In FY 2011, $46 billion.  That’s three times the savings from cutting Medicare.

And overall, the damn war is going to cost us $3 trillion,  according to Joe Stiglitz. $3 trillion for George Bush’s lie. But let’s cut all of our Medicare coverage for two years in order to pay for the Republican party’s lie of the decade, along with their other lie of the decade, Bush’s tax cuts, that supposedly were going to pay for themselves.

The tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined eat up the lion’s share of the deficit over the coming years.  (See the chart to the right.) So let’s cuts Medicare instead!

Just to be clear, those tax cuts and Bush’s little wars are going to be paid for by cutting your and my Medicare coverage.

Nice.

You don’t see John McCain and Lindsey Graham calling for any hearings on why were lied to about any of those subjects, do you?

Continue reading here…

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· 12:10 AM

Michigan Governor Snyder Slammed For Sneaking Through Anti-Union Rules

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will surely feel the blow-back from his unethical actions last week…

Alan Colmes’ Liberaland

The Detroit Free Press, which had endorsed Rick Snyder for governor, went after him for pushing through a right-to-work law, calling it a “failure of leadership” and a betrayal of voters.

For two years, we supported Snyder as he took painful steps to restore Michigan’s fiscal stability and confront a crisis in which plunging tax revenues and mounting obligations to retired workers threatened to cripple the state’s cities and school districts.

We criticized the governor for signing legislation that burdened a woman’s right to choose, condoned discrimination against gays, and beggared colleges and universities to pay for business tax cuts.

But we also indulged many compromises Snyder maintained were necessary to advance his pro-growth agenda. And when ideologues on the right and left mounted campaigns designed to hamstring state government by limiting its authority to raise revenues, regulate labor relations, and fund critically needed infrastructure, we joined the governor in opposing them.

In short, we trusted Snyder’s judgment.

That trust has now been betrayed — for us, and for the hundreds of thousand of independents who voted for Snyder with the conviction that they were electing someone more independent, and more visionary, than partisan apparatchiks like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker or Florida’s Rick Scott.

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