New Caucus Seeks Bipartisan Path to Avert Fiscal Ruin
A group of freshman Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have embarked on a quest to mend Congress from the inside out, from accountability to civility.
The Fix Congress Now Caucus launched last month with a goal to get members around the table — even one caucus leader’s dinner table — and an inaugural legislative effort to see that lawmakers won’t take home pay if they don’t pass a budget and appropriations bills on time.
Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) told PJM that the idea to band together sprang from discussions with the other caucus leaders, Reps. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). The No Budget, No Pay Act is Cooper’s bill, and its co-sponsors include caucus leaders and some of the other members of the fledgling caucus, who are Reps. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), Jeff Landry (R-Fla.), Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.), Diane Black (R-Tenn.), and Bill Flores (R-Texas).
Rigell called the caucus a “deliberate effort focused on one thing, and that is to strike at the heart of what is threatening the future of our county — our dysfunctioning Congress.”
As the owner of a car dealership turned lawmaker, the congressman said he’s been bothered by the tendency in Washington to “shut down and stop communication” when impediments arise. “People who are successful in business, who are successful in other areas, know that’s precisely when you do need to talk,” Rigell said.
He and his wife keep a Washington home specifically to bring Republicans and Democrats together around good food and good company, “so we could begin to help in our own way to heal this country.”
“It’s so severe, we can’t stay on this path,” Rigell said. “We’ve got to start talking with each other. We need to spend less time at the podiums and more time at a kitchen table.”
Besides enjoying the Rigells’ home cooking, the caucus has another credo: “civility is not weakness.”
I don’t know one Democrat that wants this country to go into bankruptcy.
Mulling what another person wants, or claims to want, is a well paved highway oft-traveled by conservatives. What matters is what will happen if we arrive at the place we’re headed now, with our in-place policies and others set to roll out over the next few years, the shining path to insolvency: a bond market collapse and hyperinflation (or default), massive gubmint shutdowns, the equities will take such a blow that the retirement wealth a guy might still have after the hammer came down in 2008.
Who care what a so-called Blue Dog wants? He’s a member of the Democratic party, which has been openly and quite effectively socialist in its sayings and deeds for decades now. So maybe he’s confused, or lying, or both, but his struggle for “bipartisanship” is phony. What we need more than ever before right now is stark partisanship. But the RINOs are quaffling on whether to do that, whether to do the right thing, whether to make good on their sworn oaths.
Nah.
Damn! Beat me to it. Good call Anonymous.
Blue Dog Dems are still Dems. They will vote Dem. If they were so concerned with the fiscal future of America they would repudiate their party, leaders and money and come over. Short of that, they cannot be trusted, and they will NOT help America.
We’ve got to, someday, grow up and realize that the marxists on the other side, want to destroy America. There is no middle ground with us and them. Thier is no bipartisanship with them; we’ve been down that road before with our RINOs joining with them and it has led to our predicament.
“Blue Dog Democrats,” what a laugh. Today a “conservative” Democrat is a socialist instead of Marxist. There is no such thing as a “conservative” Democrat.
We are headed towards a parliamentary government here in the United States. Partisan divisions have become so bad and so entrenched that the only way things will get done in the future is if one party controls all of Congress and the White House. The only way the Democrats were able to pass their entire agenda from 2008 to 2010 was because they controlled both Congress and the White House. It was a disaster, but they got everything they wanted passed. And, if they didn’t obssess so much over ObamaCare, they probably would have passed a lot more. This will be the only way to pass substantial laws from now on in Washington, if one party runs everything. If you have a situation like we have right now, where control of Congress is mixed with an unpopular president, nothing will get done at all. It took us over 200 years to do it, but we managed to toss out the Constitution and turn back into a British form of government. George Washington is probably weeping somewhere right now.
Common ground does not exist. One side must win and one side must loose to decide the path of our nation.
Take a look at the results in Wisconsin. Do you honestly think the whole state suddenly lost all its Democrats? Really?
“If I wanted America to fail”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc
– vote as Pelosi commands.
I’m sure there are some “good” Democrats. But they need to take their party back from Marxists.
If they don’t agree with what the President and the Democratic party are doing, if they don’t agree with where they are taking the party, and this country, why aren’t they getting on TV, going on Fox, on CSpan, on CNN and saying, “I don’t agree with the President on this!” “I think Harry Reid is wrong in this case!”
A year or so ago, Bill O’Rielly went on “The View” and got in trouble for saying we have “Muslim Problem.” Thing is, I agree with him because until the the clerics and national figures and the less radical muslims stand up and say “This isn’t right!” We will continue to have a Muslim problem.
And until these so called Blue Dog Democrats stand up and say “I’m not socialist and I won’t support these socialist/Marxist/Progressive Policies that will do more harm to this country than good.” We will continue to have a Democrat Problem.
Moderate democrats are akin to “peaceful” Muslims. They read from the same set of instructions as the radical element.
The only way for conservatives and liberals to work together is for conservatives to surrender principle. We’ve seen this game before.
The problem is not partisanship, it’s out of control spending that is threatening the solvency of the United States.
We spend over 40% MORE than we earn, this CANNOT continue forever and it WILL NOT, ask Greece and the rest of the (F)PIIGS how it’s working out for them.
The $16 trillion dollar question is – Will Congress and the Administration get serious about managing the finances of the country before the loaded gun is put to our heads? If we wait until after it will be to late…
If it’s 4 more years then the answer will be NO. If Romney is elected, the answer is MAYBE provided the “Reagan play book” is used to full effect and our energy policy becomes “drill everywhere NOW”.
Remember, Argentina, Russia and even Zimbabwe still exist despite hyper inflationary collapse. Should the US dollar join Zimbucks in the failed currency club we will still exist but as a destitute third world country that is at the mercy of others.
Obama did promise change… and he is delivering…
This caucus is a pathetic joke. Democrats have an ideology opposed to liberty. How can you “fix” anything with a political party that is hostile to freedom? Of course the left will extol the virtues of this joke of a caucus because when you can get Republicans to work with Democrats to “get things done”, and all the other horse crap this group says that they stand for, the result is one thing; more adopted liberal policies and bills hitting the House floor.
Caucuses, party, home district and every other special interest has NO PLACE on Congress’ floor.
As any constitutional professor should know these people are sent to Washington with the proviso that they legislate in the best interest of the country as a whole and not to favor unduly any cause not within that scope.
Within the constraints of the constitution.
But, of course, the leftist party — including the blue dogs — believe that the US contitution is nothing but fog or toilet paper, and readily break their oaths.
The sad part is that it has been knocked so far out of whack that most of the Rep party congress-critters are all too willing to compromise away their oaths of office before the bargaining begins… which is exactly what this caucus appears to be doing.
My dear learned senoratorial college the hornerable and completely perverted Mr Frank, Would you please refrain from calling our president, Bush hitler. And we will try and refrain on Colling your persident Stuped N….r.
The Blue Dog Dems pretty much all voted in line with the Indonesian Dog-Eater’s anti-American agenda, from beginning to end. They are not Blue Dog Dems, but just run-of-the-mill leftists who are up to their eyeballs in culpability for the damage that the Ineligible Indonesian Imbecile has wrought. Any GOPer who would look to collude with these low-lifes are unworthy of representing anything about America. They are idiots and scum. I hope each and every one of these dolts is primaried out of political existence for their dangerous idiocy. It’s enough that we have the Crybaby Boner who has caved to The Precedent on everything through 2011 – even after the Tea Party put him back in power in order to specifically NOT work with the Indonesian.
Frankly, this group of GOPers has done nothing but stab the base in the back since the day they were swept back in in 2010, starting with that insane collusion with the dems for that criminal lame duck session and continuing up to the present. If the House GOP had any brains or integrity, they would have tossed the Crybaby from leadership back in March 2011 when it was clear what a total failure and wimp he is.
I’m voting GOP in 2012 just to get the Indonesian, Dog-Eating America-hater out (since America has no chance at all if he gets re-elected) but that is the last GOP vote I will be casting. 2012 is it. I’ve had enough of these cowards who can’t even take a mandate given to them and act on it. Instead, we get the Crybaby allowing the Dog-Eater to force American debt to be downgraded (as that could ONLY have happened because the Dog-Eating Retard kept threatening to not service our debt, even though there was more than enough money coming in for it, even without raising the debt limit) and then they allowed him to blame them for it … and the GOP took it. But, that wasn’t nearly enough. THen we were treated to the Crybaby expressing how he “understood” the Occupoopers (which was amazing because the Poopers were so incoherent that they didn’t even understand themselves) while he never showed even a tenth that deference to the Tea Party.
This new gang of GOP cowards and idiots is just another slap at the base. Enough.
Has anyone in this Caucus bothered to start with the basics, remove the stimulus spending from the baseline? If you cannot grab low hanging fruit, reforming entitlements is unlikely. Pick off some easy savings, the public would support this tactic, the stimulus bill remains unpopular, why is it embedded in the baseline. Rep. Ryan, your silence on this has been troubling.
GOP Freshmen, educate yourselfs, baseline budgeting is a major problem.
Peter Schiff: Economic Reality Bites 06 Jun 2012
http://marketplayground.com/2012/06/06/peter-schiff-economic-reality-bites/
It’s silly for people to say the Republican members of this caucus are selling out. They are reaching out to try and bring needed reforms to Congress. They are promoting the No Budget No Pay Act and Term Limits and other very much needed reforms. What’s wrong with doing that, and bringing Dems along in support of those things, and not calling eachother names in the process? Look at the voting records of the Republican members of this caucus, and I’m certain you will find they are not squishy. I’m willing to bet they’ve voted to repeal the affordable care act, voted for the Ryan budget, voted for the RSC budget, voted to reduce spending at every opportunity. They’re not squishy, they’re just trying to do their freaking jobs and reform Congress for the better. Seems like something we should be high-fiving them for.
The appropriate starting point is with a balanced federal government — “on-budget”, “off-budget”, “discretionary”, “non-discretionary”, the whole shebang — this fiscal year. Not 20 years down the road. Not 5 years, not 3 years. NOW. Then, over the next, e.g. 30 years, pay down the insanely humongous federal government debt.
The second or third step is to point out that taxes and fees are already way way way too high… but that there is a tiny bit of room to increase import tariffs, room to eliminate the huge numbers of product-specific exemptions and bring the average up from 2% to 5% or 9%, for instance, without going all protectionist/trade warrior. Within 5 years eliminate income extortion.
Second or third is to cut unconstitutional spending — eliminating some such functions and programs and activities totally and immediately, while phasing out others over the next 5 years.
4th is to actually draft such a bill. Don’t shop it around. Just write it up and put it in the hopper. See who leaps to kill it and who leaps to be a co-sponsor. In November, dump the mean-spirited killers and re-elect the fiscally and constitutionally minded kinder and gentler co-sponsors… but in the mean-time, push the House “leadership” to move it through committee to the floor for a roll-call vote. If the so-called “leadership” balks, dump them in November. Contribute to their primary opponents, talk them up to your relatives, friends, and neighbors.
Where’s the compromise? It’s a matter of which spending is eliminated immediately and which ones are phased out over the next several years. It’s whether the federal government debt is totally paid off in 20 years or 50 years. It’s whether the average import tariff goes up all at once to 9%, or increases gradually over the next 5 years, to top it out at 9% or 5%, whether income extortion goes through a gradual phasing out by lowering brackets 20% at a time or immediately (but at the very least float the amendment to rip this evil leftist scheme out of the US constitution; the Liberty Amendment is an excellent model); compromise is whether the Socialist Insecurity Abomination is phased out gradually, beginning with allowing everyone to opt out and receive a lump-sum fraction of what they had had extorted from their earnings or spread it over 5 years or dumped this year; compromise is in how to go about privatizing and making voluntary Medicare and Medicaid; how to bring all control of schools back down from federal to state to county/parish to local area (township, borough…; OK, with a few exceptions where a combined, 2-county high school would have only about 500 students) while retaining the constitutional ability to track and report on that aspect of the state of the union.
IOW, I don’t see much serious effort or serious proposals even among the so-called “Tea party” Republicans.
When I hear the word “civil” or “civility” I know it’s someone who is fixated on quashing freedom of political speech.
“remove the stimulus spending from the baseline”
No base-line! No “off-budget” vs. “on-budget”! No “discretionary” vs. “non-discretionary”!
Every one of these terms was invented to promote over-spending and unconstitutional spending.
If you spent $x in FY2011 and you spend more than $x in FY2012 before inflation adjustments, you have increased spending, not cut it.
And since over-spending this last fiscal year was in the neighborhood of $1.3T, then $1.3T ($1.3 trillion = $1,300G = $1,300 billion for the non-computer/non-science folks) is the minimal amount that MUST be cut this fiscal year. Not $0.2T (=$200G=$200 billion) spread over 10 years!
Well, it’s encouraging that they’re trying to leave the dialogue open. If we stop talking to each other, bad things will indeed happen (Civil War era teaches us that), but I hope this doesn’t become an excuse to compromise principles.