The leaders of President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission fear that, in former Sen. Alan Simpson’s (R-Wyo.) words, both Democratic and Republican leaders are talking like they’re “betting your country” in fiscal cliff negotiations.
Simpson notes that party leaders and the administration have made statements about whether going off the cliff would help their party more. “There’s something terribly bizarre and juvenile about that to think your party comes ahead of your country. I don’t go for that at all,” he said.
The other half of the debt duo, former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation with Simpson, said “it would be disastrous for the country” to go over that cliff.
“About two million people would lose their jobs. Unemployment would go to 9 percent,” Bowles said, warning that no deal would send the country back into recession. “…Moody’s and Fitch have said that they would lower our credit rating. That would cause our interest rate to go up. I don’t think the stock market has factored this in. Everybody’s taxes would go up.”
“The bizarre thing, not touching the entitlements. The entitlements are the engine on the train driving us to the cliff. They were on automatic pilot. Health care, it doesn’t matter what you call it, is on automatic pilot. And it’s going to squeeze out all the discretionary budget — defense, R&D research, all the things you love,” Simpson said.
Bowles said he’s slightly encouraged by “Kabuki theater” of negotiations evolving into a tango. “And, you know, any time you have two guys in there tangoing you have a chance to get it done,” he said.
“You look at the people on the periphery, what they’re saying. You have Dick Durbin, who is very close to the president, saying, gosh, you know, that he can live with means testing Medicare. He said he doesn’t like it, but he can live with it. You know, that’s high on the list of things that Leader McConnell has said he’s got to have to have a deal,” Bowles said. “And even Nancy Pelosi has said, look, this is not about rates, it’s about revenue. It’s about getting the money we need in order to reduce these deficits. So you’ve got to have spending cuts and you’ve got to have some revenue to get this done.”
Simpson defended his video urging young Americans to “stop Instagramming your breakfast and tweeting your first world problem and getting on YouTube so you can see Gangnam Style and start using those precious social media skills to sign people up on this baby” — aka the Simpson-Bowles plan.
“I said to those young kids get off your can, and they invented the phrase — they’re tired of seeing the can kicked down the road because when they kick the can down the road they’re the ones who are going to get it kicked right in the fanny,” Simpson said. “So, Erskine and I tried to help them. And if this has helped them to energize themselves and get volunteers and take on the sob sisters that say that we’re trying to is destroy all the old people in America, get serious. And if humor will do that, I think that’s great. Nobody has any humor in Washington. There ain’t none left.”
Here is just a reminder on this topic!
May 16 2012 Timeline Of Senate Democrats’ Refusal To Make Budget Plans Public
http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/budget-background?ID=b630d3bd-f985-4943-a87a-a746ecec6a51
Reid Calls Proposing a Democrat Budget ‘Foolish’ Elisabeth Meinecke Townhall Magazine May 21, 2011
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/elisabethmeinecke/2011/05/21/reid_calls_proposing_a_democrat_budget_foolish
– “Nutty” Simp.
I don’t think either of the men, Simpson or Bowles are nutty. Obama had put his reelection ahead of thinking about this country ever since he was elected. I have never felt that either he or his wife cared a whit about this country. Carter was a poor president but at least I never felt that way about him. Many politicians, on both sides, put politics first.There is very little care for this country among people from the baby boomer generation on. Kids learn no history and their lack of knowledge is considered amusing. Some people resent the money spent on wars. Well, this person resents the billions of dollars spent on wasted education. Not only money but time is wasted and the dummies emerge from at least 12 years of education knowing very little but feeling entitled to a lot of benefits.
We’ve got to have term limits on all political offices. The way it is now, all the careerist scum rises to the top. No wonder nothing gets done.
Term limits are not a solution. Rotate the office holders in and out and who becomes permanent? Party bosses and lobbyists.
That’s nonsense. Party bosses and lobbyists “invest” for the long term and having long term politicians in their pockets is their ideal situation.
Simpson-Bowles, a ready made plan. It may not be great, but at least serious thought and time and research actually went into putting the plan together. All this, too, was done in an effort to reach the goal: deficit reduction.
Probably, what the government will give us instead will be a hastily cobbled together piece of work, that both parties are using to cover their butts. Disgraceful, and not one of them is ashamed. Bill Whittle’s take that they are not serious people is painfully, and damagingly, on target.
Yes, term limits, maybe. Though, with these amoral people in office for a limited term, it could go bad.Think of the further damage they’d inflict in our country if they were untethered to their constituency for re-election. I always used to believe term limits’d fix things, but with this crew, now i believe it is wrong and I’d actually fear that.
My new, pie-in-the-sky plan to fix our gummint is way out there and calls for a much more radical idea:
Given that DC is so completely corrupted.
And given that even good people, who go to Washington, fall into that corrupted way, because their work in government immerses them deep in this rot. So deep that morality seems like a distant memory, a loser’s strategy.
The answer then involves two prongs.
One, a part time government as (I think) they have in Texas. The members’ll be a little bit like the National Guard in that they will have to have other jobs for their livelihoods. Computer conferencing will become the foundation of committee and research meetings.
And two, move the seat of the national government, rotate the site of the governing body at regular intervals to the state capitals. This is one way to air out the entrenched rot.
Add to this, a beautiful austerity plan that shrinks non-military government agency budgets by a tiny percentage every year – with the military budget being examined every year using a unique standard reflecting its unique role- and we might get a government that stops wrecking America. We might get one that would make us as proud of them as we are of the Founding Fathers. I cannot imagine one that is in greater contrast with our magnificent Founders than the one we have now, the scoundrels.
If you want to do what’s popular, ask a politician. If you want to do what is fiscally prudent, hire a CEO. Unfortunately, America hired the politician. So expect demagoguery and games.
Term limits don’t really work. We have those here in CO. The political vagabonds just wander from one position to the next.
Long ago, only the taxpayers were allowed to vote. Maybe we need a third House in the Legislative branch – a “Taxpayer’s House” where one dollar of Federal tax payment gets one vote. That would put an end to the practice of buying votes with other people’s money.
The Democrats, who have not submitted a budget in three years, run up trillions in debt and now they are worried about reducing the debt. Can anyone take the Democrats seriously any more?
Actually the Democrats have submitted a budget each of the past three years. It is a phantom budget in that by submitting nothing formal for House consideration/negotiation, the House has to execute continuing resolutions each year to keep the government offices open. These continuing resolutions fund all government activity based on the previous year’s funding levels with an annual increase of about 8%. This is a terrible flaw in our current system, but the obstructionist Senate leadership ensures that this process will continue throughout Obama’s second term. The House has no way to counter a Senate that refuses to act on any budget bills other than shutting down the government completely. The House leadership will not be able to withstand the media firestorm that action would create when social security checks don’t go out.
I got this email a long time ago and have saved it for just an occasion as this. It’s directed at Alan Simpson but could be directed at any of these career politicians that have helped us get where we are today. And I say to that – thanks guys. You dirty SOB’s!!! I’ve never researched this to see if its real or not but it doesn’t matter – the sentiment is crystal clear – and I agree with it.
======================================
Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security ” to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
Here’s a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana … I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is!
“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight!!!!!
1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) for FIFTY YEARS.
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and “your ilk” pulled the proverbial football away
from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and your “shill commission” are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now “you morons” propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because “you idiots” mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills.
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you “incompetent bastards” spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” to your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU:
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the “greedy” ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers.
And for what? Votes and your job and retirement security at our expense, you lunk-headed, leech.
That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch. NO, I did not stutter.
EVERYONE!!!
If you like the way things are in America delete this.
If you agree with what a Montana citizen, Patty Myers, says, please PASS IT ON!!!!
P.S. And stop calling Social Security benefits “entitlements”. WHAT AN INSULT!!!!
I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years “It’s my money”-give it back to me the way the system was designed and stop patting yourself on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks!
Hooray for Patty Myers — she’s right Simpson is ever has been a cowardly bum with a big mouth drawing off the dole. Yet the insane call him wise.
If only it were possible to shame these shysters, Ms Meyers email would do it. Unfortunately it isn’t.
An even bigger travesty and rip off is the propping up and increasing of the already lavish public employee pensions and retirement benefits while they attempt to deny us our own crumbs. If the average private sector worker could be made to understand how much they would have to earn throughout their careers to ensure the same cushy retirement as an equivalently salaried public sector worker, There would be taxpayer mutiny in a heartbeat. Under the proposed new tax rates (Fed and California)and given current market conditions, a private sector worker would have to earn nearly $250k before taxes to achieve the same retirement result as the $90k public employee. Who new there were so many of Obama’s “millionaires and billionaires” working for the government.
Allan Simpson lectures the people on SS. SS is not an entitlement it was set up as an insurance/annuity. We pay in all of our lives and we get to collect what was promised in the contract. Unlike Simpson who has sucked off the taxpayers teats for 40= years and somehow considers himself a PUBLIC SERVANT. He was payed well over wh+t he was worth, has a golden health care plan and his retirement % of pay is double what the private sector pays.
Here’s another reason NOT to listen to a thing Alan Simpson has to say: He was the brain behind the grandfather of all amnesties, the Simpson-Mazzolli bill, back in 1986 — the very reason we have the mess we have today. And he has the nerve to say the current Congress kicks the can down the road? Thanks to him, there will always be another amnesty and no effort to control illegal immigration. What a pig.