Congressman Ron Barber fired off a press release blasting House leaders for leaving Washington yesterday without resolving the fiscal-cliff showdown following the spectacular failure of House Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B”:
U.S. Rep. Ron Barber today criticized leaders of the House of Representatives for leaving the Capitol for the holidays without addressing the impending fiscal cliff—now less than two weeks away.
“We must stop this political gamesmanship and get serious about reaching a bipartisan agreement that will set us on the path to long-term deficit reduction,” Barber added. “House leaders spent most of the week wasting time and further damaging the American people’s trust instead of coming up with a real proposal. My constituents are fed up with this nonsense and so am I.”
The House left Washington this evening less than two weeks before the nation is scheduled to go over the “fiscal cliff.” That is the term given to a series of tax cuts scheduled to expire and deep budget cuts that will be imposed Jan. 2, unless Congress and the president reach agreement.
Barber opposed the Spending Reduction Act of 2012 today. The same bill, which slashes funding for several domestic programs, and would impose steep cuts on Medicare, failed the House in May with many Republicans opposed. Today it passed 215-to-209 with 21 Republicans and all 188 Democrats opposed. The Senate has said it will not consider the bill.
On Jan. 2, across-the-board, automatic spending cuts known as sequestration are scheduled take effect. That would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts — about half from the military and half from domestic programs including infrastructure, education, health care and public safety.
The Spending Reduction Act of 2012 would mean steep reductions in food assistance and school lunch programs, further cuts to the child tax credit and health care for kids, and eliminated funding for services for seniors and people with disabilities.
“We must stop this posturing and come to an immediate solution to extend the income tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses and stop sequestration,” Barber said today. “And we must have a balanced and bipartisan approach. That is the only way that we can create jobs, continue our economic recovery and address the deficit and restore faith that we can find common ground to get the nation’s financial house in order.”
Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler looks at what happens next:
Boehner has two problems: one with President Obama and another with his conference. And to the extent that he meliorates one he exacerbates the other. He can return to fiscal cliff negotiations with an empowered Obama, and try to eke out the sort of deal he just rejected, then pass it through the House next week, on a bipartisan basis at but a huge risk to his Speakership.
That’s the course he told members he’d pursue in the conference meeting Thursday night.
And the White House is open to it. “The President’s main priority is to ensure that taxes don’t go up on 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses in just a few short days,” said Press Secretary Jay Carney. “The President will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy.”
It sets up a scenario where Boehner’s old nemesis Nancy Pelosi is suddenly back in the driver’s seat, controlling the votes necessary to pass a deal.
But if a last ditch effort fails, or he chooses to rebuff Obama, he’ll set one of two unpredictable chains of events into motion.
He can still bring Senate-passed legislation to the floor, which would lock in the Bush tax cuts for income up to $250,000. That bill would face stiff resistance from many corners of his conference, but would likely pass with overwhelming Democratic support. it would leave unresolved issues like the sequester, Medicare physician reimbursement, expiring emergency unemployment benefits, annual appropriations, and the debt ceiling. And it would still leave him wounded leader, in a tough spot with his members.
Or he could turn toward the cliff, take the country over, try to breathe life back into his speakership, and grapple with the messy consequences next year.
New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait examines the political gamesmanship:
The point of Plan B was to fashion a parachute for Republicans for January. As it stands, if the new year arrives with no deal in place, Obama will have the upper hand. The full expiration of the Bush tax cuts will make the budget baseline more favorable, turning any change in taxes into a tax cut. And Obama, who is highly popular, will be able to attack Republicans, who are highly unpopular, for their insistence on keeping taxes low for the rich, which is highly unpopular, at the cost of raising taxes on the middle class, which is also highly unpopular.
Plan B was an attempt to give Republicans a talking point, a place to stand, as they endured the political pummeling Obama has in store for them. They would vote to preserve tax rates on all income under $1,000,000 a year, a measure that would spare millionaires themselves most of the coming tax hike, and give the government very little revenue. Then, the thinking went, the blame for the “fiscal cliff” would at least be more amorphous — Obama would blame Republicans, but Republicans would blame Democrats for not agreeing to their plan, which had passed the House.
Except now that it hasn’t passed the House, Republicans have no fallback.
Andrew Sullivan rounds up other reactions.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2012.
Neither side is SERIOUS.They’re both full of bull.The President wants $400 billion/year,The speaker wants $220 billion/yr (10 years is a myth) that still leaves a deficit increasing at least $700 billion/year on borrowed money.They use 10 years so they can backload cuts and taxes into the last 2 yrs.We need to let ALL tax cuts to expire and bring Government spending including defense back to say 2001 level and see where we are.Now they’re down to $200 billion,leaving $900 billion still to be borrowed each year
Raising taxes isn’t going to fix the problem. Quit spending. Quit giving money to all these foreign countries. Quit giving all the “free” handouts. There is no such thing as free….
Congressman Barber, You are full of it! Reduction is the key to balancing the budget, not raising taxes on anyone. Stop spending money on wasteful B.S. Why do we pay Pakistan to be our friend? Why are we funding any country in the middle east? I don’t even want to send funds of any kind to Israel. Assist them with armament and equipment if necessary and stand behind them as an ally but stop sending money to anybody.
People keep mentioning “raising” taxes when in all reality it is a matter of bringing the tax rates back to where they were before “The Decider” Baby Bush implemented the TEMPORARY tax cuts. Like the article says, the Republicans will have no fallback if the House doesn’t learn to negotiate.
I’m all for letting the tax cuts disappear for those who are in the earning group of the top 2%. Our representatives should also do away with corporate welfare (like trainmanswife comments above, “Quit giving all the free handouts”) and do some serious cracking down on those unpatriotic cash hoarders that establish off-shore accounts to “protect” their earnings from the government.
The level of greed that exists within the average Republican’s mindset is disturbing. Like when Mittens accused 47% of our citizens that they feel the need to be taken care of. Believe me, most of these people would love to be financially independent but that’s pretty tough when you’ve got greedy corporate mentality which cannot be sated even when they are already multi-millionaires & billionaires. It’s hard to become financially independent when these greed misers control & infiltrate our system at the core.
The United States is becoming a third-world nation right before our eyes. The sickening part about all this is that we have some of the wealthiest individuals in the world residing in this country. It’s high time for them to show some gratitude & support by giving back to the country that allowed them to prosper like this. Nobody needs several homes & automobile collections across the world, but your average person does need a hand up. The mentality of most Republicans & the top 2% wage earners needs a serious overhaul.
Foreign aid represents far less than 1% of the federal budget. Completely eliminating it, aside from being catastrophic for our foreign policy, would have no meaningful impact on the deficit.
azdc stop blaming bush , obama is the one running the country and he doing pretty crappy job too. All obama seems to be doing is spending throwing money away , stop being a oneway liberal thinker it not working…….
@ronjb441960:
I didn’t actually place any blame on Baby Bush, all I did was make a mention of pure FACT.
He was the one who implemented the temporary tax cuts. He was “The Decider” when it came to avenging Daddy for his failure in the Middle East, which has our country’s military budget hemorrhaging still. Baby Bush was a very small part of the facts I’m pointing out, but if you’re so concerned about me “blaming” him then go ahead & post all the positive things he did for our country.
Post Script: Helping the great divide between the rich & the poor, practically eliminating the middle class and supporting laws which continue to destroy our environment do NOT count.
Wow! All these dislikes and no facts to back them up. Typical teabagging morons must be the only people accessing these posts.
I agree with you AZ/DZ regarding the feedback from some on this string. It seems the Tea Bag faction in this country can only repeat what they have been told by Grover Norquist and Jim DiMint to name a few. Yes, we do need to look at spending and waste in our government. No doupt. But right now our economy is starting to turn around and we need to make sure there is revenue to keep moving forward. I don’t know how the GOP pushes back the cost of two wars, Prescription Plan B, and the bank bail out
I am already sick of Barber
It would be nice if Barber would DIRECTLY address the MAIN drivers of the debt/deficit…
The bloated USAmerican War Machine(s) — 1.3Trillion per year and still climbing — which exceeds the spending of the rest of the world’s nations COMBINED…
The failed for-profit, corporate sick care system — the one abandoned by EVERY other OECD nation in favor of Universal, NOT FOR PROFIT HEALTH CARE — for less than half the cost…
And the proximate causes: The collapse of the Ponzi-Scheme debt based “economy” and the massive tax cuts (mainly for the rich) while starting unnecessary wars put on the credit card…
Get on board, Ron! You barely got elected in a slightly Democrat district thanks to your unquestioning support for the war machine(s) and inability to take a stand on anything meaningful…