By Steve Benen
With Republicans announcing their six members of the 12-person Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka “Super Committee”)
yesterday, all that was left was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) making her selections.
She announced her choices this morning: Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
Brian Beutler had
a good summary of the relevant background all three will bring to the process.
As a member of the bipartisan deficit discussion group, convened by Vice President Joe Biden, that laid the groundwork for the debt limit deal, Clyburn — the third ranking Democrat in the House — publicly backed certain entitlement benefit cuts. Specifically, he said negotiators should at least consider further means-testing of Social Security or reduce benefits across the board by reducing Cost of Living Adjustments. <…>
Van Hollen is the Dems’ top budget guy in the House. He’s one of the party’s chief antagonists of the GOP budget, which calls for phasing out Medicare, and was also a member of the Biden working group. Publicly, he’s been an advocate of approaches to deficit reduction that pair about one dollar of tax increases with about three dollars of spending cuts. He recently cited the Bowles-Simpson framework as a counterpoint to the Republican plan. Their proposal largely punted on controlling health care costs, but called for eliminating all tax expenditures, and ensuring indefinite Social Security solvency with a combination of benefit cuts and revenue increases.
Becerra was a member of the Bowles-Simpson commission and he voted against their plan from the left. He’s the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee and will likely be progressives’ main ally on the Super Committee.
I can appreciate why, given the panel’s responsibilities, it makes to scrutinize all of the members’ records as they relate to entitlements. We’re looking for clues as to what to expect.
But I suspect the key takeaway from the House Democratic selections is that all three are key, close allies of Pelosi, and they will very likely be representing her interests during the negotiations.
moreAnother view, via Daily Kos:
Pelosi strengthens Democratic Super Congress team with leadership picks<...>
Pelosi's picks: Democratic whip James E. Clyburn, caucus vice chair Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles and Chris Van Hollen, ranking Dem on the Budget Committee. Becerra voted against the recommendations of the Bowles Simpson deficit commission last year, and Clyburn and Van Hollen are loyal Pelosi lieutenants.
Pelosi said in a statement that the committee must focus on jobs and economic growth, time any spending cuts and tax increases in a way that does not further hamper short-term growth, and "ensure that wages grow with productivity."<...>
She laid out her bottom line for a "grand bargain" that "reduces the deficit by addressing our entire budget" i.e. tax increases, "while strengthening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," i.e. no benefit cuts in entitlements.
Those are the marching orders for these three, apparently, but they'll have to contend with the less-than-always-stalwart Democratic senators and the six Republicans who have sold their souls to Grover Norquist. So how do these three look when it comes to potential capitulation to the unmoveable no taxes coalition? Not bad.
Rep. Clyburn, number three in Democratic leadership in the House, has previously been problematic for progressives, since he has
advocated for a retirement age increase and the
chained CPI fairly recently. But according to
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20110810/NEWS/308100004/Jim-Clyburn-Lindsey-Graham-call-debt-talks">this report from a local news source, he's backed off, saying that "he would be unwilling to support increasing the retirement age for Social Security and he doesn't think the government's spending problem is entitlement programs."
Clyburn said GOP demands for entitlement reductions and tax cuts are dishonest.
"This is just blaming poor people for the problem ...while fat cats get another tax cut," he said, adding that the argument that raising taxes kills jobs is a "fiction. It just is not true."
That's good news. As is the pick of Becerra, who Pelosi also chose for the original Catfood Commission, where he was a "no" vote, and also a member of the leadership, the Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Meteor Blades has
noted of Becerra, "(h)e is the highest ranking Latino in the Democratic caucus and is its vice chair. He is a member of the Progressive Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus, and is a strong ally of Nancy Pelosi. He has backed increased benefits for the poor."
Van Hollen, as former DCCC chair and the ranking member on the Budget Committee is a solid partisan who undoubtedly understands just how critical it is to Democratic prospects in 2012 to protect social insurance programs. But he's also got a solid record of supporting workers and the middle class. As MB noted, he was one of just a handful of members who accepted "a Philadelphia group's challenge to try to live on a food-stamps budget for a month." So he gets it, as much as any Democratic member.
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