Payroll Tax Cut Fight: House GOP Leadership Offers 10-Month Extension Without Offsets

Huff Post- First Posted: 02/13/2012  2:37 pm Updated: 02/13/2012  3:37 pm

By- Luke Johnson and Michael McAuliff

WASHINGTON — House GOP leaders announced Monday they were putting forward a “backup plan” that would extend the payroll tax cut for ten months, while cleaving it from a similar extension of unemployment insurance benefits and what’s known as the “doc fix,” a measure needed to prevent dramatic cuts in Medicare reimbursements. The plan would not be offset by cuts elsewhere, the announcement said, meaning the cost of the tax cut would be added to the deficit.

The announcement, made quietly on a day Washington is digesting the president’s budget proposal, is a stark reversal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took the floor shortly after the statement was emailed to reporters and spoke only of the budget.

“Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance, and the ‘doc fix,'” said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a statement.

The House leaders said in the statement that the plan was not their “first choice.”

“If Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith, Republicans may schedule this measure for House consideration later this week pending a conversation with our members. Democrats’ refusal to agree to any spending cuts in the conference committee has made it necessary for us to prepare this fallback option to protect small business job creators and ensure taxes don’t go up on middle class workers.”

A Democratic aide familiar with the talks said that Republican leadership had privately conceded the issue in negotiations on Friday, though word had not leaked out over the weekend.

“Whether the payroll tax cut moves separately or as part of the larger package, the Republicans have already said they will give up trying to pay for it by slashing medicare or with other harmful cuts,” said the aide.

MORE HERE

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Grayson on the Fed bailout: “If you’re not a Wall Street bank, you’re screwed”

Bloomberg: Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion

By Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz – Nov 27, 2011 4:01 PM PT
Bloomberg Markets Magazine

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. No one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. Betty Liu reports on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Enlarge image Kenneth D. Lewis Former CEO of Bank of America Corp.

On Nov. 26, 2008, then-Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed “one of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world.” He didn’t say that his firm owed the central bank $86 billion that day. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

More:

VIDEO: Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing of May 5, 2009.

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Social Security & The Deficit: Keeping the Promise

Pushing Crisis: GOP Cries Wolf on Debt Ceiling in Order to Impose Radical Pro-Rich Agenda

DEMOCRACY NOW  July 22. 2011

President Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner are allegedly close to a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the deal is coming under fire from both congressional Democrats and Republicans. Part of it calls for lowering personal and corporate income tax rates, while eliminating or reducing an array of popular tax breaks, such as the deduction for home mortgage interest. Some Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage on Thursday because the Obama-Boehner agreement appears to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as Obama’s promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich. We’re joined by economist Michael Hudson, president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of “Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.”

Read more or view video at Democracy Now
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Republican House Speaker John Boehner quits debt talks

BBC, 23 July 2011

• Obama: It’s hard to understand Watch
• Boehner: White House like Jell-O Watch

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has walked away from crunch debt ceiling talks at the White House with US President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said Mr Boehner had rejected an “extraordinarily fair deal” that would have included $650bn (£400bn) of cuts to entitlement programmes.

The president said he had been willing to take “a lot of heat” from his party.

Mr Boehner told a news conference afterwards that Mr Obama had “moved the goal posts” by demanding a tax hike.

President Obama said he wanted a meeting with congressional leaders, including Mr Boehner, at the White House at 1100 (1500 GMT) on Saturday.

More here…

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• UK cuts interest on Ireland loan
• Markets rise on Greek aid package
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Democrats Target John Boehner With Mocking Medicare Ad (VIDEO)

Democrats Target John Boehner With Mocking Medicare Ad (VIDEO)

HuffPost- Michael McAuliff

First Posted: 04/20/11 09:37 AM ET Updated: 04/20/11 11:13 AM ET

This story has been updated to include additional reporting.

WASHINGTON — After getting mocked by GOP operatives for launching an “offensive” on 25 vulnerable Republicans with minuscule ad buys Tuesday, Democrats are turning the tables with a new stunt aimed at putting some muscle behind their Medicare media campaign.

And they’re doing it in the district of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

In an email sent to supporters around 9 a.m. Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel challenged donors to pony up $25,000 by midnight — in order to run a pointed spot in Boehner’s backyard.

It would mark the DCCC’s first TV buy of the 2012 cycle.

“Let’s go big,” Israel writes, offering to splash the spot featuring an older man mowing lawns with his walker and doing a strip tease to afford his Medicare under the budget plan written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) earlier this month.

“After House Republicans rammed through a disgraceful budget that would end Medicare — while giving millionaires and billionaires another tax cut — we knew we had to have an eye-popping response,” Israel said.

“We just cut a creative new ad to break through the clutter and take the fight directly to Republican Speaker John Boehner,” he said. “I won’t ruin the ending for you, but trust me, this ad is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”

The gambit comes a day after the DCCC launched a radio campaign that the National Republican Congressional Committee derided as both a scare tactic and a joke.

“[Democrats] are continuing to use partisan scare tactics and insist on the ability for Washington to continue spending money we don’t have,” the NRCC’s Paul Lindsay emailed reporters.

“Well, if you have heard their radio ad you’re one of the lucky few,” Lindsay added. “Based on early reports on the size of this buy, they are spending a whopping $60.00 in many of the 25 districts.”

$25,000 will likely impress the GOP a little more, especially in a district like Boehner’s where relatively small sums can go a long way.

The publicity also will likely aid the DCCC’s effort to spread the ad further.

WATCH:

UPDATE: 11:01 AM

Lindsay said he wasn’t tickled by the spot, and suggested the ad left out what was actually obscene — what he described as the Democrats’ unserious approach to the deficit.

“Steve Israel was smart to leave out the X-rated part of this ad,” Lindsay said. “That’s the version where Democrats tease Americans into believing their party is serious about tackling the deficit, dance around the issue until Medicare is obsolete, strip seniors of the benefits they have been promised, and force small businesses to foot the bill when the time is up.”

Democrats point to Congressional Budget Office estimates that say the GOP plan to shift seniors into the private insurance market with a voucher-like program will raise their out-of-pocket costs.

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Reid: GOP Threatening Shutdown Over Family Planning Funding

Reid says GOP threatening shutdown over family planning funding, Boehner avoids talking specifics

by Jed Lewison for Daily Kos

Fri Apr 08, 2011 at 11:32 AM EDT

In separate statements late this morning, both Harry Reid and John Boehner agreed that we are very close to an agreement to prevent a federal shutdown, but said an agreement had not yet been reached.

Reid said both sides had agreed on the numbers, but that Republicans continued to insist on banning funds for family planning and Planned Parenthood.

Boehner’s brief statement offered no specifics on the state of negotiations other than to say that he believed we were on the cusp of a deal. He offered platitudes about cutting spending, and urged the Senate to pass the House’s so-called “troop funding bill.” Boehner’s statement, which amounted to no more than three or four sentences, seemed to be focused more on keeping up the appearance of brinksmanship and maintaining support from his caucus than on actually addressing whatever issues remain outstanding.

For his part, Reid said he was “appalled” and “personally offended” that Republicans continued to insist on the Planned Parenthood funding ban. “Men and women should be outraged,” Reid said. “Republicans only have a few hours left to look in the mirror and realize how shameful it wold be” to block a deal over family planning and women’s health services funding. “The tea party is trying to move its extreme social agenda, issues that have nothing to do with funding the government. They are willing to throw women under the bus, even if it means shutting down the government.”

Reid said tea party opponents of Planned Parenthood and family planning funding had a right to debate their views, but that holding the government hostage was unacceptable.

Assuming that a deal is reached today (and I bet there will be one), what will probably happen is that the Senate will take up the so-called “troop-funding” bill that House Republicans passed yesterday, and substitute a “clean” CR to keep government open for a few more days while the details of the deal are written into legislative language. Democrats have already put the House bill into the Senate calendar, making it clear they are contemplating this course of action. If the Senate passed the a clean CR, it would head back to the House, which could pass it later today.

MORE HERE

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Libyan Airspace ‘Under Control’ As Two Sides Meet

Libyan Airspace ‘Under Control’ As Two Sides Meet

Huffpost- First Posted: 03/25/11 08:48 AM Updated: 03/25/11 08:48 AM

BENGHAZI, Libya — France declared Libya’s airspace “under control” on Friday, after NATO agreed to take command of the no-fly zone in a compromise that appeared to set up dual command centers and possibly new confusion. Coalition warplanes struck Moammar Gadhafi’s forces outside the strategic eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES)

Representatives for the regime and the rebels were expected to meet formally for the first time Friday, in Ethiopia, in what the U.N. described as a part of an effort to reach a cease-fire and political solution.

The overnight French and British strikes on an artillery battery and armored vehicles were intended to give a measure of relief to Ajdabiya, where residents have fled or cowered under more than a week of shelling and fighting between rebels and government troops. Explosions also could be heard in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before daybreak Friday, apparently from airstrikes.

“Libyan airspace is under control, and we proved it yesterday, because a Libyan plane in the hands of pro-Gadhafi forces, which had just taken off from Misrata in order to bomb Misrata, was destroyed by a French Rafale,” Adm. Edouard Guillaud said on France-Info radio.

But the compromise that puts NATO in charge of clearing the skies still leaves the U.S. responsible for the more difficult task of planning attacks on Gadhafi’s ground forces and other targets.

Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center and scattered checkpoints but facing relentless shelling from government troops on the outskirts. Residents are without electicity or drinking water, and many have fled.

The U.S. military said coalition jets flew about 150 on Thursday, about 70 of them with American planes.

“The operation is still focusing on tanks, combat vehicles, air defense targets – really whatever equipment and personnel are threatening the no-fly zone or civilians on the ground in such locations as Ajdabiya and along some other areas on the coast,” Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke told reporters from aboard the USS Mount Whitney.

The U.S. has been trying to give up the lead role in the operation against Gadhafi’s forces, and NATO agreed late Thursday to assume one element of it – control of the no-fly zone.

MORE HERE

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Who Loses In A Government Shutdown?

The Real Losers In A Government Shutdown

HuffPost- Howard Fineman

First Posted: 02/18/11 04:44 PM Updated: 02/20/11 07:59 AM

WASHINGTON — The plane hasn’t taken off, let alone crashed, but the pilot and co-pilot are already on the intercom blaming each other for catastrophe.

That’s what’s going on as President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner maneuver toward a March 4 deadline for extending or changing this year’s federal budget. They are issuing preemptive “I told you so”s, hoping to insulate themselves from blame if no deal is reached and the government shuts down.

The president moved first. He rarely issues veto threats, never mind carrying them out. But he ordered his Office of Management and Budget to issue one on his behalf last Tuesday. In essence, he said that if Congress sent him a deep-cut bill like the one House Republicans are gleefully crafting, he’d veto it. Having warned them in advance, he was saying, he couldn’t be blamed if the GOP went ahead.

On Tuesday, Boehner — eager to stay ahead of his Tea Party Republican Guard — answered back. For his part, he said, he would refuse to consider a plain bill to temporarily extend the existing budget in its current form past March 4. Having warned the president in advance, he was saying, he couldn’t be blamed for the shutdown.

So, if there is one on March 4 — and we seem headed almost inexorably in that direction — who will suffer the most politically?

History is not really a guide. The last big shutdown, in 1995, ended up being a clear winner for then-President Bill Clinton, but primarily because of the hubris and overreach of the then-Republican Speaker (and potential 2012 presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich managed to make the whole drama look like a matter of personal pique. Go back and look at the famous — and, for Gingrich, devastating — front page of the New York Daily News. It showed Newt as a baby with a bottle; politics is a game of comparison, and he made Bill Clinton look mature.

MORE HERE

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Democrats To Republicans: Where Are The Jobs?

Democrats turn ‘Where are the jobs?’ chant on GOP

By CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press

Feb 17, 9:17 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans won sweeping victories last November by taunting Democrats with “Where are the jobs?” Democrats are now throwing those taunts back, saying it’s Republicans who will knock thousands of Americans out of work with their demands for deep cuts in federal spending.

The attacks have caught Republicans at an awkward moment, as they shift their chief emphasis from creating jobs to reducing the size of the government and its deficits. They are finding it hard to claim they can do both at the same time.

Republicans say a smaller government eventually will spur private-sector job growth. Many economists challenge that claim, noting that the government helps pays for research, infrastructure, education and other programs that provide both public- and private-sector jobs. GOP leaders already acknowledge that thousands of government workers would lose their jobs in the short run under the $61 billion cost-cutting bill House Republicans are pushing this week.

If that happens, “so be it,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “We’re broke.”

MORE HERE

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House Voted To Kill F-35 Engines

House Votes To Kill F-35 Second Engine Program

HuffPost- Elise Foley

First Posted: 02/16/11 03:48 PM Updated: 02/16/11 05:44 PM

Amanda Terkel contributed reporting.

WASHINGTON — More than half of the House Republicans voted on Wednesday to earmark $450 million in funds for a duplicative fighter-jet engines that the Department of Defense has repeatedly said it does not need. But a bipartisan coalition, including just over half of GOP freshmen, voted against the F-35 engines, approving an amendment to strip an expenditure long bemoaned as pure pork, but defended by members of Congress from the states who would benefit from the project.

Support for or opposition to the project had more to do with region than party. Members from Ohio and Indiana, where General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce would build the fighter engines, unanimously backed the extra engine. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio is an outspoken supporter of the jet engine, but didn’t cast a vote, observing the speaker’s tradition of abstaining. The opposition from inside his party to a pet-project of Boehner’s is a rebuke to the speaker.

MORE HERE

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