MSNBC: Politico's Vandehei says Dems won't agree to spending cuts and R's won't raise revenue

[flpoljunkie]

Facts don't matter with Vandehei and others sitting around the table on Morning Joe--except for Eugene Robinson-who was ignored when he pointed out the Dems had made concessions but that the Republicans refused to move. The 'pox on both their houses' meme must be perpetuated--by lazy journalists. Emphasis mine.

Dems raise pressure on GOP, say they’ve met demands on revenue
By Erik Wasson - 11/17/11 02:32 PM ET

Supercommittee co-chairman Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Thursday that Democrats on the panel have “met” the GOP’s desired revenue level for a deficit-cutting deal and that the ball is in the Republicans’ court to restart negotiations based on that offer.

“We have met their offer on revenue, but we have said that it has to be fair to the American people and done in a way that doesn’t put the burden on working families and addresses the issue of putting people back to work,” Murray said.

Democrats have offered to accept $876 billion in spending cuts in exchange for $400 billion in total revenue, including $250 billion in tax increases. In previous offers, Democrats had demanded an equal number of tax increases and spending cuts.

A Democratic aide said the latest Democratic counteroffer made last Friday has the same level of revenue as the GOP offer written by Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.), one of the Republican supercommittee members. Toomey offered $250 billion in tax increases, but his offer also would lower marginal tax rates permanently, giving the wealthiest U.S. households an 8-percentage-point tax cut.

Democrats are insisting that Republicans drop demands to extend Bush-era tax rates.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/194349-murray-democrats-have-met-gop-on-revenue

[flpoljunkie]

1. E. J. Dionne has it right...

A balanced deal would be nice but it’s now impossible — and not because of some vague congressional “dysfunction” the media like to talk about. Sane fiscal policies are blocked because one party refuses to accept the need to roll back the excesses of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If Congress does nothing, those tax cuts go away. That’s why a “failure” by the supercommittee to endorse a deeply flawed deal is actually a victory for sensible deficit reduction.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-we-can-succeed-through-supercommittees-failure/2011/11/16/gIQA7hLXSN_story.html

[flpoljunkie]

2. Paul Krugman agrees...

Failure Is Good
By PAUL KRUGMAN

November 17, 2011

Why was the supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.

In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a job-creation strategy. Try getting a leading Republican to admit that the Bush tax cuts increased the deficit or that sharp cuts in government spending (except on the military) would hurt the economic recovery.

Oh, and let me give a special shout-out to “centrist” pundits who won’t admit that President Obama has already given them what they want. The dialogue seems to go like this. Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?” Mr. Obama: “I support a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.” Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?”

You see, admitting that one side is willing to make concessions, while the other isn’t, would tarnish one’s centrist credentials. And the result is that the G.O.P. pays no price for refusing to give an inch.

So the supercommittee will fail — and that’s good.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/opinion/krugman-failure-is-good.html?_r=1

[flamingdem]

7. Who will call out another pundit on TV? They get away with that crapola

all of the time, enough already.

[torotoro]

3. Bush-tax Cuts WILL be Made Permanent -- Bookmark this.

[karynnj]

4. I hope you are wrong, but there is many a hostage that can and will be taken

My concern is that it is again an election year. In 2010, when we were in far better shape, the Democrats could not even be pushed into a vote that raised just the taxes on those under $250,000, stating that the fall back position would be doing nothing, so they would all disappear. There concern was that they, not the Republicans would suffer at the polls if they had to cast a vote. At the time, it was said that only about 5 Senators argued strongly to have a pre-election vote - and the only two I saw named were Durbin and Kerry. This shows that most had no perspective longer than the time to the next election.

After the election, when it was clear that 2011 would be tough with a RW dominated Republican party controlling the House, They were willing to halt EVERYTHING in the Senate via procedural stalling techniques - and even the "moderate" Republicans held the line. We only needed one plus the number of defecting Democrats to end each filibuster. In essence, Obama traded the two extension to get unemployment extended (something that used to be routine at that level of unemployment) and a very needed small amount of stimulus. His tough choice - giving the economy a bit more of a chance and helping some of the hardest hit or sacrificing them to eliminate ALL the Bush tax cuts - which on the low end would destimulate the economy.

It is hard to figure out what the choices will be in the 2012 lame duck session - everything is a variable. We could be facing a Republican House, Senate and President - likely enough to even pass the Bush cuts if they expired at the beginning of the year - or we could lose the Senate, but gain the House (due to the fact that in 2006 we won many seats that were purple or even red violet!) We could win all three.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. I hope that we win all three

but even if we do win all three, it will be impossible to get a supermajority in the Senate this go around, so the Republicans would likely just keep up with their rampant obstructionism unless they get penalized in some way. President Obama and the Dems should not only campaign for a Democratic Congress again but they need to campaign for a government that functions like it's supposed to and call out the Repubs for their obstructionism since 2009. Hopefully, we'll at least get a lot of the teabaggers out of the House.

[karynnj]

9. If the Democrats are lucky enough to win all three -

if they win the Senate with at least about 2 extra, they should change the filibuster rule. It is really clear that they should have gone for it after the 2010 election - maybe changing the filibuster requirement to say 53 - 55. There are reasons not to make it 51. Part of the problem is that as one law maker said in the past if the other side could get 55 or so votes, there was no filibuster.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. Something needs to be done about the filibuster

The Republicans have abused it beyond all recognition and it's clearly making it impossible to get anything done. That shouldn't even be debatable but it really needs to be hammered home to the public so that everybody clearly understands what the Republicans have been doing and why government has been so dysfunctional since 2009 (actually, this basically started in 2007 but Bush was still POTUS and would've been able to veto everything anyway- though their strategy kept Bush from having to officially veto things that were popular). Right now the Republicans have virtual lock on Congress even though they don't technically control the Senate numerically. The Senate wasn't supposed to require 60 votes to conduct normal business let alone be able to prevent virtually everything from being debated/voted on.

[yodermon]

5. "Permanent" has no meaning in this context. Might as well say

"Bush-tax Cuts WILL be made Magenta"

[Maraya1969]

6. Who do we call to remind that we know they are greedily trying to save their own money?

Republicans in Washington wealthy; they refuse to raise taxes on the rich just to making sure they personally don't have to pay any of their own money.