Sneaky, Sneaky

by hilzoy

Via firedoglake: the Washington Post reports that the Republicans are trying to raise the debt ceiling again:

"A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit.

The provision -- buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint -- serves as a backdrop to congressional action this week. House leaders hope to try once again to pass a budget plan for fiscal 2007, a month after a revolt by House Republican moderates and Appropriations Committee members forced leaders to pull the plan.

Leaders also hope to pass a package of tax-cut extensions that would cost the Treasury $70 billion over the next five years. They would then turn Thursday to a $513 billion defense policy bill that would block President Bush's request to raise health-care fees and co-payments for service members and their families. (...)

With passage of the budget, the House will have raised the federal borrowing limit by an additional $653 billion, to $9.62 trillion. It would be the fifth debt-ceiling increase in recent years, after boosts of $450 billion in 2002, a record $984 billion in 2003, $800 billion in 2004 and $653 billion in March. When Bush took office, the statutory borrowing limit stood at $5.95 trillion."

I like this part: "buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint." I am weird enough to actually like reading budget documents, but even I don't always make it to page 121. Meanwhile, the Republicans will get to go on pretending to care about reducing the deficit by cutting the odd program that benefits people whose paychecks are barely enough to survive on, while cutting taxes that mainly benefit millionaires and hiding their massive increases in the federal debt ceiling on page 121 of a budget document.

The Democrats in Congress have a real plan to cut the deficit: PAYGO. All the Republicans have is subterfuge and empty gestures.

(Note: does anyone think that last sentence is excessively partisan or unfair? I thought before I wrote it, and as a description of Congressional Republicans on deficit reduction, I think it's accurate. If anyone wants to try to change my mind, though, feel free.)

Comments

[john miller]

Hilzoy, in regards to your last statement, yesterday CB mentioned that PAYGO is merely a nice phrase that means raising taxes. Not that he had a problem with that, but he, I think, would call it subterfuge.

That being said, yes you were partisan, but not unfair.

During the Presidential debates, Bush described PAYGO as meaning "you pay, and we go spend."

The Republicans believe in "we'll spend and your children and grandchildren will pay."

[hilzoy]

PAYGO is a serious way to reduce the deficit. You can reduce the deficit either by raising taxes or by cutting spending. In practice, we now have to raise taxes: the deficit is too large for us to cut it by cutting spending alone, at least if we're unwilling to, say, eliminate DoD.

PAYGO just forces anyone who proposes new tax cuts or spending increases to propose corresponding spending cuts or tax increases that make it revenue neutral. If, as Charles says, this means, in practice, raising taxes, then the Democrats are proposing to be revenue-neutral without talking about taxes explicitly, while the Republicans are talking about reducing the deficits while actually proposing to cut taxes. I don't see how we win the disingenuousness prize here.

[john miller]

I agree with you here. Just pointing out one possible response.

There is no doubt that taxes will have to be raised. The question is which ones.

That is pretty easy to answer.

Part of the problem is that none of this really makes it into the consciousness of the general public. People may talk about the printed media, but that has less and less impact.

And this will seldom come out on the visual media in any sort of clearcut way.

[cleek]

they're spending money as fast as they can, hoping that the next Dem will try to fix the deficit it by raising taxes - which will make the Dems unpopular, leading to more Republican votes.

[john miller]

Another interesting part of the article:

"They would then turn Thursday to a $513 billion defense policy bill that would block President Bush's request to raise health-care fees and co-payments for service members and their families. (...)"

Another example about how our CinC cares about the men and women in unifrom who are paying the price for his vainglorious war.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Republicans in Congress have not been shy about cutting "real" funding for the VA so far. Let's see how many are ready to stand up to Bush on this.

[Steve]

Charles essentially made a proposal for unilateral disarmament. Republicans are allowed to flat-out lie and claim they can make the tax cuts permanent while simultaneously cutting the budget in half by 2009 - something that is simply impossible - but if Democrats even try to spin then gosh, isn't it sad they aren't honest enough to present their plan in the least flattering way possible.

[Jesurgislac]

Steve, the acronym you're looking for is IOKIARDI.

[Jimbo2K6]

Seems a good time to start calling it how it is.

Republicans hate our government and are deliberately driving it into backruptcy, while simultaneously lining the pockets of their rich benefactors.

It seems pretty apparent at this point. It should not be difficult to convince the public of this now, and would make a magnificent campaign point.

Save America from the Republicans!