dagblog - Comments for "'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body "

If you google fascism, you

trkingmomoe — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:16:23 +0000

If you google fascism, you will find as you read the description and definition, that indeed the far right is moving the country into fascism.

Because Hindenburg was having trouble forming a stable government in Germany during the early 1930's, he agreed to a committee of cabinet members to appoint a chancellor of the new coalition government. They appointed Hitler to be the chancellor, but only to be a figure head. The Nazis seized power after that.

Taking power from the congress to give to a committee when they won't do the job, that they are there to do, is dangerous. The president has the power when there is an emergency to act to protect the country.

WaPo Tweaking Mitch

Beetlejuice — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:13:19 +0000

In reply to 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

WaPo

Tweaking Mitch McConnell’s ‘escape hatch’

By Editorial, Published: July 19

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tweaking-mitch-mcconnells-escape-hatch/2011/07/18/gIQA9LOhMI_story.html

Since WaPo is off my radar map I missed this jewel. But it looks as if HuffPost maybe in the ballpark, just a week later.

Yves Smith at Naked

cmaukonen — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:19:44 +0000

In reply to I am not finding this story

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has a good take on it.

Nevertheless, both the Washington Post, which is taking up the deadline hysteria, and the more jaundiced Times are neglecting the most heinous aspect of the latest proposed remedy, which is to circumvent Constitutionally-prescribed legislative procedures. There’s no mention in the Times, and from what I can tell, only this oblique reference in the Post:

Then Congress would go to work to produce as much as $3 trillion in additional savings through an overhaul of the tax code and major changes to Social Security and Medicare, the biggest drivers of federal spending. To identify those savings, Congress would create a new bipartisan debt-reduction committee comprising 12 lawmakers from both the House and Senate, an idea offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

This innocuous description is incomplete and misleading. Ryan Grim explains what it really means in the Huffington Post (hat tip Guy S):

........snip......

The Tea Partiers make a fetish of invoking the Constitution when it suits them but will happily run roughshod over it when it conflicts with their pet wishes. Not that they are singularly guilty in this conspiracy against the public-at-large, but their faux holier-than-thou/populist pretense while aligning themselves with an elite power grab is particularly nausea-inducing.

I hate using the word “fascism” because overuse has weakened its bite, but trumped-up threat by trumped up threat, our government is moving relentlessly in that direction.

In other words it's an attempt to sidestep the tea party right and the progressive left. Both thorns in the side to the rank and file.

Quite likely it's my

Verified Atheist — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:41:12 +0000

In reply to 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

Quite likely it's my ignorance talking, but I like the idea of limiting the amendment process of bills. (I'm fairly certain that Articleman would disagree with me based on previous stuff he's written, and I'm also quite certain that he knows a lot more about the political process than I.) One thing that really bothers me is when bills get thrown together that contain dozens of unrelated pieces of legislation just to that legislator A can cover his/her tuchus by explaining why s/he couldn't/had to vote for a particular bill, only to have challenger B run attack ads lamenting for that other thing that was in the bill that legislator A did/did not vote for.

If a simple bill takes away important services, then it'll be clear exactly whose side these legislators are on. They won't have the usual cover.

As for the "mortgage deduction", I'd like to point out there's no such thing and there never has been. It's a mortgage interest deduction. Why on Earth would we want to encourage personal debt? (I say this as a hypocrite who just bought a new house and will be able to claim that deduction for the first time in his life.)

I am not finding this story

trkingmomoe — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 06:09:15 +0000

In reply to 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

I am not finding this story any where but in the blogs. This could be a scam. It sure has the blogosphere in a snit.

No thank you. Some of the

trkingmomoe — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:34:31 +0000

In reply to 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

No thank you. Some of the republicans have signed a pledge that they cling to in a way that has become a act of treason. They signed it to get support and money to help them get elected. Now they are all doing what Grover Norquist wants and not what is needed. Why should they get cover for that?

Well this would give us fewer

cmaukonen — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:09:05 +0000

In reply to 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

Well this would give us fewer targets to aim for when the revolution comes.