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Charles Pierce- Why Does America Need a 'Deal' to Not Blow Itself Up?
It appears that our elected officials have managed to agree that it is a good thing if the government keeps functioning and that it would be a bad thing if the entire world economy were to melt down. You have to give them credit.
"We successfully secured equal increases in funding defense and non-defense priorities," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. "We have extended the solvency of Social Security Disability Insurance and protected millions of seniors from a significant increase in their Medicare Part B premiums and deductibles next year. Most importantly, we have affirmed that the full faith and credit of the United States is non-negotiable and inviolable."
In other words—we've managed to keep the crazies at bay for a couple of years, and none of this will come up again to make the presidential candidates uncomfortable, and please don't stab us all, Dr. Bennie (The Blade) Carson. All American politicians now exist under the threat that Dr. Bennie The Blade will show up and slaughter them all. This is such a great election.
(A brief aside: so Doctor Ben used to maybe think about stabbing people. He grew up to be an acclaimed neurosurgeon. He's good with a blade. Hey, for me, this sounds like somebody making a constructive living out of what might only have been a childhood hobby.)
Naturally, the biggest threat to the deal comes from the flying monkey caucus.
Louisiana Republican Rep. John Fleming told reporters Boehner essentially "threw committee chairmen under the bus" and suggested this big deal was being dropped on members now because the committees failed to do their work. But, in Fleming's telling, House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Georgia, pushed back, saying that he was in fact working on fiscal reforms but was told by leadership to stand down. Roughly 10 House conservatives got up and complained in the meeting about the process of cutting a major deal and rushing it to the floor without going through regular order, lawmakers said. Rep. Walter Jones, a conservative from North Carolina, said he still was waiting on the details -- but added that he "would not be blackmailed" into voting for a debt limit increase. Across the Capitol, the complaints were just as sharp. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said, "It's too early to tell (but) I'm leaning no" on the budget deal. "I'm not necessarily in a position where I think it's in the best interest of our country," he said. Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn, the No. 2 in his conference, added: "It's a mixed bag, there is no question about it. I don't think you'll hear anybody popping any champagne corks."
If there were a substantial Democratic equivalent to this, there might be an equal amount of hell raised over the deal's finagling with the Social Security disability trust fund, which has been a target for conservative mendacity and vandalism for almost 30 years. (See, again, the story of Marcus Stephens.) I get a little nervous when I hear Nancy Pelosi talk about "extending the solvency" of the trust fund, because that's exactly the phrase Republicans use when they're talking about privatizing Social Security as a whole. And, while I understand the urgency of getting this deal done, it's hard for me to see the "reforms" of this aspect of Social Security as anything more than a sign that the whole program might be open for business at some later date, particularly if the flying monkeys in the House push new Speaker Paul Ryan in the direction in which Ryan has been dying to go for his entire public career. This is worth keeping an eye on.
more
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39193/budget-deal-celebrations/
7 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for posting.
Link from the link.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a1485/era-big-government-marcus-stephen-0400/
OUR LIVES ARE PLANETARY NOW, SMALL WORLDS AND GREAT ONES, whirling together and whirling apart, great bodies pulling at the smaller ones until their orbits nearly converge and the smaller worlds pay a dear price. That's what we have now--Kepler's republic, where Madison's rules bend to Newton's laws--and that's where our stories are formed and shaped to be told to us.
It's on one of those smaller worlds that Marcus Stephens died, on December 4, 1997. He was thirteen years old and he loved Jesus and the drums and his grandparents. He lived all his life in New Albany, Mississippi, a calcined old railroad town tucked into the Buncombe Hills. William Faulkner--who wrote that in the South, the past isn't even past--was born in New Albany. At the local library, bright and cheerful of an autumn's morning, the nice young volunteer lady says that she doesn't know where Brookwood Avenue is, and the past is suddenly there, pale but plain, like the faded writing on a sun-beaten depot wall.
"I think that's down in the colored part of town," the nice young volunteer lady explains. "We don't go down there much."
Marcus Stephens lived most of his short life on Brookwood Avenue. He was born with a misconstructed heart; the wrong arteries and veins ran into and out of the wrong auricles and ventricles. "Transposition of the major vessels" is what they call it. His heart gradually wore itself out. Marcus weakened as his heart did. He lived his entire life on medication and borrowed time.
FULL story at link.
