Pelosi: My Deficit Committee Members Will Oppose All Entitlement Benefit Cuts

[NJMaverick]

Quote:The debt limit fight is over, but the fight over entitlement programs will continue for months. In the weeks ahead, the leaders of both parties in both the House and Senate will name three members each to a new committee tasked with reducing the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion.

The ultimate makeup of that committee is key. It will determine whether this Congress will pass further fiscal legislation, and, thus, what the major themes of the 2012 election will be.

At a pre-recess press conference Tuesday afternoon, TPM asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) whether the people she appoints to the committee will make the same stand she made during the debt limit fight -- that entitlement benefits -- as opposed to provider payments, waste and other Medicare spending -- should be off limits.

...........

"That is a priority for us," Pelosi said. "But let me say it is more than a priority - it is a value... it's an ethic for the American people. It is one that all of the members of our caucus share. So that I know that whoever's at that table will be someone who will fight to protect those benefits."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/...?ref=fpblg

[Cha]

I'm thinking there are more than quite a few Americans will be interested to learn if their medicare is going to be taken away by the terrorists.

[zorritta]

This is what I don't understand about Americans - they voted in Tea Partiers! Who are there EXPRESSLY to make drastic cuts that, yes, will definitely reduce the budget deficit (which we all agree is important), but in the process will utterly decimate the lives of that exact same group of people - who can afford it far less than other groups.

I may be wrong, but isn't a large demographic of Tea Party voters middle-class, working citizens? The same citizens that WON'T benefit from Tea Party political moves? Where is the disconnect here? Are we just not educating the American public how politics actually WORKS?!?!

[Cha]

(08-02-2011 03:27 PM)zorritta Wrote:  This is what I don't understand about Americans - they voted in Tea Partiers! Who are there EXPRESSLY to make drastic cuts that, yes, will definitely reduce the budget deficit (which we all agree is important), but in the process will utterly decimate the lives of that exact same group of people - who can afford it far less than other groups.

I may be wrong, but isn't a large demographic of Tea Party voters middle-class, working citizens? The same citizens that WON'T benefit from Tea Party political moves? Where is the disconnect here? Are we just not educating the American public how politics actually WORKS?!?!

Hi zorrita, the middleclass teabaggers are notoriously working against themselves..carrying water for those like the Koch bros, who fund them, and Ginny Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, who is a big teabag. She invited the freshman gop class of 2010 in for orientation and tea, of course.

[RoyGBiv]

(08-02-2011 03:27 PM)zorritta Wrote:  This is what I don't understand about Americans - they voted in Tea Partiers! Who are there EXPRESSLY to make drastic cuts that, yes, will definitely reduce the budget deficit (which we all agree is important), but in the process will utterly decimate the lives of that exact same group of people - who can afford it far less than other groups.

Actually, whether spending cuts will reduce the deficit is not all that certain. If you make cuts that causes the economy to crash in some way, your deficit actually goes up anyway because tax revenues go in the toilet. The lack of tax revenue from our extreme loss of GDP at the end of Bush's term is one of our problems now.

And cuts almost certainly will not reduce the debt (which is the real problem in the long term). The reason is that our structural debt problem is the rising cost of health care. The only cuts that would tackle the long term debt would require cuts so drastic that it would make Cantor's plan look sane.

Quote:I may be wrong, but isn't a large demographic of Tea Party voters middle-class, working citizens? The same citizens that WON'T benefit from Tea Party political moves? Where is the disconnect here? Are we just not educating the American public how politics actually WORKS?!?!

Well, there's the tea party, and there's the people at the rallies. The tea party, as such, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch brother's. The guy deemed responsible for the first rumblings of a "tea party" and who led it actually disassociated himself from it when it got taken over and used as a front for right-wing Astroturf.

Plus, there's a black guy in the White House. Racial prejudice has been trumping economic self-interest since the dawn of racial prejudice.

[OptimistesMaddie]

(08-02-2011 03:27 PM)zorritta Wrote:  This is what I don't understand about Americans - they voted in Tea Partiers! Who are there EXPRESSLY to make drastic cuts that, yes, will definitely reduce the budget deficit (which we all agree is important), but in the process will utterly decimate the lives of that exact same group of people - who can afford it far less than other groups.

I may be wrong, but isn't a large demographic of Tea Party voters middle-class, working citizens? The same citizens that WON'T benefit from Tea Party political moves? Where is the disconnect here? Are we just not educating the American public how politics actually WORKS?!?!

You are correct but you see the believed that they would be untouched, it's the other loafers that would get touched.

[jaxx]

Good for Pelosi. After Boners remark that they won't appoint anyone who would go for revenue, they better just pay attention.

[OptimistesMaddie]

(08-02-2011 05:19 PM)jaxx Wrote:  Good for Pelosi. After Boners remark that they won't appoint anyone who would go for revenue, they better just pay attention.

Doesn't it go against the Republican mantra of running the government like a busineses? Businesses exist to make revenue

We need to use Boehners words against him.

[jaxx]

I agree OM, and Boner just keeps giving us the soundbites to use.

[zorritta]

I'm learning more and more how true you are, RoyGBiv. The more I hear what economists from US (and the World! http://www.npr.org/2011/08​/03/138946257...bt-debate) are predicting, the more I feel like I should just buy myself a bunker and hunker down until someone starts speaking sanely again.