Obama on Supercommittee: GOP refused to listen to the voice of reason

Obama on Supercommittee: GOP refused to listen to the voice of reason
Jason Clayworth

The following are remarks President Obama made today in regard to a congressional committee’s failure to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade. Read GOP presidential candidate statements here and statements from Iowa’s congressional delegation here.

Good afternoon. As you all know, last summer I signed a law that will cut nearly $1 trillion of spending over the next 10 years. Part of that law also required Congress to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion by the end of this year.

In September, I sent them a detailed plan that would have gone above and beyond that goal. It’s a plan that would reduce the deficit by an additional $3 trillion, by cutting spending, slowing the growth of Medicare and Medicaid, and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.

In addition to my plan, there were a number of other bipartisan plans for them to consider from both Democrats and Republicans, all of which promoted a balanced approach. This kind of balanced approach to reducing our deficit — an approach where everybody gives a little bit, and everyone does their fair share — is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans — Democrats, independents, and Republicans. It’s supported by experts and economists from all across the political spectrum. And to their credit, many Democrats in Congress were willing to put politics aside and commit to reasonable adjustments that would have reduced the cost of Medicare, as long as they were part of a balanced approach.

But despite the broad agreement that exists for such an approach, there’s still too many Republicans in Congress who have refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise that are coming from outside of Washington. They continue to insist on protecting $100 billion worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans at any cost, even if it means reducing the deficit with deep cuts to things like education and medical research. Even if it means deep cuts in Medicare.

So at this point, at least, they simply will not budge from that negotiating position. And so far, that refusal continues to be the main stumbling block that has prevented Congress from reaching an agreement to further reduce our deficit.

Now, we are not in the same situation that we were — that we were in in August. There is no imminent threat to us defaulting on the debt that we owe. There are already $1 trillion worth of spending cuts that are locked in. And part of the law that I signed this summer stated that if Congress could not reach an agreement on the deficit, there would be another $1.2 trillion of automatic cuts in 2013 -– divided equally between domestic spending and defense spending.

One way or another, we will be trimming the deficit by a total of at least $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years. That’s going to happen, one way or another. We’ve got $1 trillion locked in, and either Congress comes up with $1.2 trillion, which so far they’ve failed to do, or the sequester kicks in and these automatic spending cuts will occur that bring in an additional $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Now, the question right now is whether we can reduce the deficit in a way that helps the economy grow, that operates with a scalpel, not with a hatchet, and if not, whether Congress is willing to stick to the painful deal that we made in August for the automatic cuts. Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts.

My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.

We need to keep the pressure up to compromise — not turn off the pressure. The only way these spending cuts will not take place is if Congress gets back to work and agrees on a balanced plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. That’s exactly what they need to do. That’s the job they promised to do. And they’ve still got a year to figure it out.

Although Congress has not come to an agreement yet, nothing prevents them from coming up with an agreement in the days ahead. They can still come together around a balanced plan. I believe Democrats are prepared to do so. My expectation is, is that there will be some Republicans who are still interested in preventing the automatic cuts from taking place. And, as I have from the beginning, I stand ready and willing to work with anybody that’s ready to engage in that effort to create a balanced plan for deficit reduction.

Now, in the meantime, we’ve got a lot of work left to do this year. Before Congress leaves next month, we have to work together to cut taxes for workers and small business owners all across America. If we don’t act, taxes will go up for every single American, starting next year. And I’m not about to let that happen. Middle-class Americans can’t afford to lose $1,000 next year because Congress won’t act. And I can only hope that members of Congress who’ve been fighting so hard to protect tax breaks for the wealthy will fight just as hard to protect tax breaks for small business owners and middle-class families.

We still need to put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads and our bridges. We still need to put our teachers back in the classroom educating our kids.

So when everybody gets back from Thanksgiving, it’s time to get some work done for the American people. All around the country, Americans are working hard to live within their means and meet their responsibilities. And I know they expect Washington to do the same.

Thanks.

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/11/21/obama-on-supercommittee-gop-refused-to-listen-to-the-voice-of-reason/

"The American people have made it very clear that they believe the wealthiest people in the country - who are doing phenomenally well and are paying the lowest effective tax rate in decades - must start sharing some of the burden of deficit reduction. The American people have made it clear that they favor closing tax loopholes for profitable corporations. The American people have made it clear that it is time to take a hard look at mushrooming defense spending.

"Unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress won't do what big majorities of Americans want Congress to do. The only way Republicans want to lower deficits is by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, while providing even more tax breaks for millionaires and profitable corporations.

"Now, with more than one year to go before automatic spending cuts take effect, there is time for Congress to do what the American people want."

http://www.politicususa.com/en/bernie-sanders-super-committee?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politicus+USA+%29

They may feel confident that they can transfer to blame to us, as they've been so successful at doing, or maybe they're so set up they don't need another term come election time.

What despicable human beings.

statement (and he put his hand up on his forehead in the salute gesture), and just now he said Obama showed strong leadership. And Howard Fineman called Obama's veto threat a "shrewd move."

ETA: As expected, Matthews just said Obama reminded him of JFK or Reagan-a strong leader.

On his meds again he is, poor tweety.

Hopefully is aware that Democrats (including his allies) have been smeared here as selling out and caving, and their pages are filled with vile comments towards them.

The republicans will never give him or America one so screw them.

for whom NOTHING will be good enough - EVER!!!

"But despite the broad agreement that exists for such an approach, there’s still too many Republicans in Congress"

THAT IS PRACTICALLY THEIR PARTY PLATFORM

The voters who keep sending them to Congress? Obviously not so much.

That's who this statement is ultimately for.

:rofl:

OMG TOO FUCKING FUNNY!!!!!

Obama played tit for tat, knowing the result, but hoping for the best. Either way he wins.

Yes it is pretty funny that someone could think that Obama is ignorant of Republican policies. Naive that they might actually work with him, but he's learning quick.

HOW'S IT ALL WORKING OUT??? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45346041/ns/us_news-life/#.TsWucbJBmt8

PULL YOUR HEADS OUT PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! Obama may be "winning" in your mind but in the real world? NOT SO MUCH.

This has to seep through a bought media and an army of paid propagandists and marketers. But eleven months from now, seven out of ten voters will see which side their bread is buttered on, and then we'll have four years of near-total control of government to finally set things straight.

It's past time for patience in dealing with Congressmen only interested in destroying his Presidency!! Where has patience gotten Obama so far? I'm sick of his "bending over backwards" and trying to be conciliatory towards them. Patience my ass, he should have grown a spine long ago and dealt with them in a forceful and focused manner.

Thanks to our patience, eleven months of it, the Republicans are unelectable. They're on the wrong side of the tax issue, which breaks 70-30 with voters. They cost their richest benefactors billions by torching our nation's credit rating. They just pissed all over one of their most important voter and finance bases by dicking around and getting half a trillion dollars taken away from the Department of Defense. Defense contractors will only get that money back by shifting their money and support to Democratic lobbying firms and Democratic campaigns.

Not a damned one of the Republicans' crazy-ass bills has passed both houses of Congress in a year. The tax cut issue is completely out of reach, except as the issue which is going to flip the House and generate 400+ electoral votes for this President's reelection. They're going to have to beg for money from the angry people they just screwed. The people spending the money have now noticed that all previous money spent over the past year was for worse than no returns, it turned out to be for industry-threatening negative gains. And not a single damned Democrat had to vote to cut defense spending to do it; instead, they let the GOP do it all by themselves...

...by being patient.

Now there's no need to be conciliatory, and just as immediately, the President announced that he would no longer act so. The Republicans compromised away their ability to further delay, compromised away their ability to extend the tax cuts, compromised away their lobbying and political funds, and compromised away their viability in the next two elections, if not for another decade beyond that.

They've been very patiently fucked without a kiss, and soon it will be time for them to walk home.

He should have been knowledgeable of Republican policies all along!! WTF!! A little late to be finally learning of them and finally "catching on" to their despicable policies and how they are only interested in destroying his Presidency!! My God, how naive is he? I think it is a little late also to be finally playing "catch up" with the scum of Congress.

That's the past. We have him now. And he's been damn remarkably consistent. He's now learned that post-partisanship is a waste of time, but at least he's using a strategy that renders the negative results irrelevant. Win win, Obama won.

Have you seen the compromises offered by the Dems? They are way worse than the triggered cuts would be. Deep cuts in medicare benefits, for example. We can only hope that Obama fails here.

We did see a lot of conflicting accounts of what people close to people said was in the deals. Many were things like agreeing to means test Medicare, asking people who could afford it to pay higher co-pays. Here, the devil is in the details - what is the threshold of the means test. In addition, I don't think the automatic cuts that will come to Medicare have been completely defined - or at least I have not seen any detail.

To some degree, part of the difficulty for the Democrats on the choice of the cuts proposed and the automatic cuts is that the automatic cuts completely protect Medicaid and Social Security and the cuts to Medicare are limited to a relatively small percent. The things that will bear the greatest burden are all the social programs that help the poor more than anyone else.

In essence, it could have been a split between the interests of the middle class and the poor. However, by NOT agreeing to get about a $1 billion from tax increases, the Republicans made it simpler - rejecting the agreements that the Republicans agreed to was in the interest of both the poor and the middle class. I assume if Obama were to agree to anything, it would include the tax increases, meaning that the amount needed from cuts will be far less.

Not to mention, the economy is doing slightly better than the budget anticipated. That affects the numbers in two ways - somewhat less unemployment payments and somewhat more tax revenue. This was why Kerry, Van Hollen and Baucus all pushed to have a stimulus within the deal - because as Van Hollen said the economy operating on far less than full employment is one of the biggest problems.

To me, the best thing that has happened is that the Democrats, in the end, made the issue a choice between seniors social security, medicaid for the poor, pell grants for college students vs preserving the tax cuts that are scheduled to expire. This needs to be amplified as much as possible. It is the true choice the country is making - and it is part of what OWS is about - the Republicans choice leads to a continually expanding income gap.

How many people do you know who benefit more if the Republicans win the argument? People don't vote just their economic interest - unless they see their future threatened and, for many, the Republican plans will do just that.

This Ezra Klein article details how bad the automatic cuts are - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-defense-cuts-arent-the-biggest-problem-with-the-trigger/2011/11/21/gIQAyORTiN_blog.html

Those cuts will likely directly hurt the middle class less, but they might hurt the poor more. In addition, as is laid out, they hurt everyone by directly impacting our ability to compete.

I guess there is one thing I do disagree with you about. We do know the details of at least one offer that the Dems on the supercommittee made, and it was worse than the triggered cuts would be (in my opinion anyway). I agree that in principle a deal could be better than the triggered cuts if it had sufficient tax increases to avoid seriously harmful cuts in non-defense spending. But I don't see that happening. I also hope that I am wrong.

I did read several accounts that contained a lot of detail as to what was in it, but they were not in agreement. That is why I said that we don't really know the details. The comparison is to a bill where the actual things impacted are listed - we didn't have that. (For instance, it did have means testing for Medicare payments which I think already exist for some parts of Medicare where the premium differs by income (I think this is true). There were some claims it raised the age - and in other a flat rejection of that. )

On the other hand, we do not have a lot of detail on how much would be cut from which programs. So, for neither alternative do we have a sound enough description of what would change in either case. The Klein article suggests to me that the Baucus alternative might have spread the shared sacrifice more to the middle class (as well as obviously the very rich) than the automatic cuts would - though there are lots of middle class students benefiting from Pell grants.)

The Republican offer is genuinely worse as it actually shifts more wealth to the very top, while harming both the middle class and the poor.

What I wish some organization had done was to create say 10 mock "families" and asked that the impact on them be computed and public - to the degree it could be estimated.

can be found at http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3605

The analysis identifies some of the details of the plan as unavailable, and it's not the most recent Democratic plan, but it makes me very wary about what the Democrats might be willing to agree to. And there is no way Democrats will want let alone get serious cuts to defense. So to me, the best outcome possible is apt to be the triggered cuts.

Some of it was likely very accurate. Some of the points reflected the reality of the need to get at least one Republican vote for the plan. This alone is why the revenue number had to be lower - as it was it was rejected as too high.

I actually worry that the Democrats MIGHT vote for McCain's bill to get rid of the military cuts. Do you really see the Nelsons, Lieberman, McCasskill etc contingent voting for something that leads to them being called "soft" on terrorism. The nightmare scenario is that Obama might veto it - and the Congress overrides it - to be spoken of as rejecting Obama.

I also think some of the concessions - like means testing Medicare are preferable to cuts for the poorest of the poor. (Even though I am more likely to be impacted by the means testing and am near SS age) One problem the Democrats have is that the choice of cuts to discretionary spending for the poor OR to entitlements is a choice they previously never had to make - Democrats were for both. One thing that is a little disconcerting is that many Democrats focus on the latter because that is where the votes are. What Democrats Can agree on is that the first two steps need to be stimulating the economy, which, in and of itself lowers the deficit and increasing the taxes of the wealthiest from an historical low.

"Some of the points reflected the reality of the need to get at least one Republican vote for the plan." It's the need to get Repug agreement that will likely make any Bill to reduce the deficit a piece of shit. The debt deal was dumb. It created the problem you refer to: "One problem the Democrats have is that the choice of cuts to discretionary spending for the poor OR to entitlements is a choice they previously never had to make."

I hope it all works out well, and without the Republicans it would. But the Democrats have set themselves up for disaster here.

that many Democrats hated, but felt they had to back Obama because they feared the Republicans really would let the country default.

My point was that until circumstances proved beyond a doubt that there was no agreement that would be better than the automatic cuts, the right thing to do was to act in good faith, working as hard and striving to be as smart and as creative as possible to get a deal. Then having the honesty to say that you failed. This is what the Democrats on that committee did.

What they lost was their time and for some possibly some respect from people who had liked them, but that was part of doing the unpleasant job that they took on. I would guess that all know they did everything they could.

The deal in Aug. set the Dems up for disaster.

As for the committee, it seems to me, based on the information available, that the Dems were willing to give away too much to get too little. I do concede, however, that I don't have all of the details of the offers that were made.

- because the details were not known.

In saying if it was too little, I think the point of comparison has to be with the default - not the current status quo - but, as that might not be as written in stone as it appears, it really becomes very complicated.

In addition, the deal they wanted had a stimulus piece that was extremely important for the economy, the country and the deficit. I don't like the chained CPI, but changing it now does not mean that it will be permanently chained. The metric has (and should have been) changed many times in the past. I think means testing is not as bad as drastic cuts to the safety net - as it hits people more able to afford the higher premiums. (Some said that there was talk of raising the Medicare age, but that was denied - that would be a disaster - and the savings to the government can not be estimated looking just at Medicare, because the government would likely have to pay a lot through Medicaid and the healthcare plan as many people between 65 and a higher age would not be working and have little income.

It is clear that POLITICALLY, any agreement to cut Medicare or SS would hurt more than the automatic cuts (other than those to Medicare) because they hit groups more likely to vote. However, the automatic cuts will hurt the poorest of the poor more than anyone else.

What we do know is that the final Republican offer was so far worse than the automatic cuts were better by enough that the Democrats completely rejected it - with Senator Kerry calling it "unconscionable", which is a pretty strong word.

Many of the greatest generals in military history appear all the greater because they faced inept opponents.

John Boehner is certainly inept, and also highly predictable. He always goes in the direction of greed. All the President had to do was lay down the rope, and Boehner rolled around on it until he hog-tied himself.

Sometimes it takes a Nathaniel Banks to make a Stonewall Jackson. That guy is definitely the opponent we want to have.