TPMDC Jeb Hensarling: November 2011
Super Committee
Republican Acknowledges GOP Pushed Ryan Plan In Super Committee Negotiations
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
If you're having a hard time buying that one party was more reasonable than another in the Super Committee negotiations, read Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling's obituary for the panel in the Wall Street Journal. Specifically, check out this part about the GOP's big ask:
Democrats on the committee made it clear that the new spending called for in the president's health law was off the table. Still, committee Republicans offered to negotiate a plan on the other two health-care entitlements--Medicare and Medicaid--based upon the reforms included in the budget the House passed earlier this year....PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Republicans on the committee also offered to negotiate a plan based on the bipartisan "Protect Medicare Act" authored by Alice Rivlin, one of President Bill Clinton's budget directors, and Pete Domenici, a former Republican senator from New Mexico. Rivlin-Domenici offered financial support to seniors to purchase quality, affordable health coverage in Medicare-approved plans. These seniors would be able to choose from a list of Medicare-guaranteed coverage options, similar to the House budget's approach--except that Rivlin-Domenici would continue to include a traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan among the options.
Topics: Alice Rivlin, Bill Clinton, Bush Tax Cuts, George W. Bush, Jeb Hensarling, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, Privatization, Super Committee, Taxes
Super Committee
FAIL: Super Committee Comes Up Empty
Shutterstock/ Kajano
A whirl of last minute meetings and shuttle diplomacy weren't enough to help the 12-member deficit Super Committee reach agreement on anything. Late on Monday, co-chairs Jeb Hensarling and Patty Murray put the panel to bed in an official statement.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Bush Tax Cuts, Jeb Hensarling, Medicare, Patty Murray, Payroll Tax Cut, Super Committee, Taxes, Unemployment
Super Committee
Super Committee Chairs Prepare To Announce Failure
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Capitol Hill sources say that barring a highly unexpected, last minute development, Super Committee co-chairs Jeb Hensarling and Patty Murray will issue a statement on Monday acknowledging the panel's failure.
The development comes one day before the panel's drop dead date to submit a plan, and three days before the debt limit law requires them to report legislation to the full Congress. Failure will lock into place deep, across the board cuts to defense and security programs, a two percent cut to Medicare providers, and cuts to other domestic programs. Those spending reductions will kick in on January 1, 2013, unless Congress acts to change the law, or passes more targeted budget cuts and thus agrees to eliminate the automatic penalty.
Those cuts, along with the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, promise to be major flashpoints for the 2012 campaign, and lock in a tough legislative food fight over cutting spending and raising taxes.
Topics: Defense Spending, Jeb Hensarling, Medicare, Patty Murray, Super Committee, Taxes
Bush Tax Cuts
Pelosi To Hensarling On Medicare: You've Got To Be Kidding Me!
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
With just six days left until the Super Committee deadline, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) acknowledged Thursday that the panel is unlikely to agree on the sort of broad deficit-cutting bargain she and other Democratic leaders have pushed for. And she made a strong case that the GOP's allergy to taxes is the reason her expectations have diminished.
Specifically, she responded to Republican Super Committee co-chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) who on Wednesday said Democrats would have to agree to dramatic steps -- such as partially privatizing Medicare -- before Republicans would agree to substantial new tax revenues.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Bush Tax Cuts, Jeb Hensarling, Medicare, Nancy Pelosi, Super Committee, Tax Cuts, Taxes
Jeb Hensarling
Hensarling To Dems: Want Higher Taxes? Agree To Partially Privatize Medicare
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Shortly after catching heat from Democrats, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) addressed reporters in the Cannon House Office Building to revise and extend controversial Tuesday comments, which threw the Super Committee's prospects into doubt. But he indicated that the two parties are stuck in a standoff -- one they don't really have time for. And Republicans won't budge, he insisted, unless Democrats take agree to far-reaching plan to change Medicare.
"Something has to be at the Congressional Budget Office by Monday," Hensarling said.
Hensarling hinted that his hard line on new taxes might not be so hard ... but only if Democrats are willing to fundamentally overhaul Medicare.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Jeb Hensarling, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Privatization, Super Committee, Taxes
Super Committee
Dems Rip GOP Super Committee Co-Chair For Negotiating In Public
'Super Committee' members Sen. Patt Murray (D-WA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), September 7, 2011.
Another sign that the Super Committee's about to implode: Panel Democrats just scolded Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling for taking his bright lines public on Tuesday, contrary to the spirit of the negotiations, which have been mostly leak-free.
"We've been really working hard not to negotiate in public and not to negotiate through you folks but to talk to each other in good faith and try to work through a compromise," said Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) after a closed door meeting.. "I think when people go public and say what they're willing and not willing to do, it isn't as helpful as sitting at a table and trying to work through these things. "
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Jeb Hensarling, John Kerry, Patty Murray, Super Committee
Super Committee
Dems: Looks Like Republicans Are Declaring 'Game Over' For Super Committee
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Democratic aides were paying close attention to Super Committee co-chair Jeb Hensraling's appearance on CNBC Tuesday night. For them, the most worrying thing was this part:
"We have gone as far as we feel we can go," Hensarling said. "We put $250 billion of what is known as static revenue on the table, but only if we can bring down rates. We believe we can bring the top individual rate down to 28, 29, maybe at most 30 percent, bring the corporate rate down to the median of the EU, 25 percent. And on balance, we think that would be pro growth. But, listen, any penny of increased static revenue is a step in the wrong direction."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Jeb Hensarling, Super Committee, Taxes
Super Committee
FLASHBACK: Boehner Says He's 'Bound' By Defense Cuts In Super Committee Penalty
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
Republicans on the Super Committee are openly toying with the idea of reneging on the debt limit deal, which created a penalty designed to get panel members of both parties to compromise on cutting the deficit. If they actually try, though, they'll be rebuking House Speaker John Boehner, who only two weeks ago said he's obligated to follow through on his commitment.
The penalty, which will be triggered if the Committee fails, would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from both defense programs and Medicare providers. The former was designed to bring Republicans to the table, the latter, Democrats. Now even the committee's GOP co-chair is saying that if there's no agreement, he and congressional Republicans will fight to change the defense cuts -- in other words, he and others in the Republican will go back on their commitment.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Defense Spending, Jeb Hensarling, John Boehner, Medicare, Super Committee, Veto
Jeb Hensarling
Top GOPer On Super Committee Says No New Revenue, Games Out Strategy If Panel Fails
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
It's hard to see how the Super Committee can possibly reach a consensus by this time next week after Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling's appearance on CNBC Tuesday night. The short version is that he left the ball in Democrats court, and hinted that if the committee fails, Congress will spend the next year or so trying to change the terms of an automatic penalty to make sure that hundreds of billions of cuts to defense programs never take effect.
Hensarling claimed that if the committee recommended even a dollar of new net tax revenue -- the kind of revenue Dems are demanding -- it would constitute a step in the wrong direction. He said a GOP plan put forward by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) -- one which Republicans claim would raise revenues by nearly $300 billion over 10 years, but would also make the Bush tax cuts permanent -- is as far as Republicans are willing to go on revenues. But that's an offer Democrats flatly rejected as unserious. And unless one of the parties breaks cleanly with its publicly stated position, the committee will either fall well short of reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years as required by law, or will fail altogether.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Debt, Defense Spending, Deficit, Department of Defense, Jeb Hensarling, Leon Panetta, Super Committee, Taxes
Super Committee
Liberals Slam Super Committee Dems For Caving On Taxes -- But Did They?
Super Committee Members John Kerry and Patty Murray
Liberals and progressive groups are livid at a Sunday New York Times report, which reads as if Super Committee Democrats are about to capitulate to the GOP: spending cuts now in exchange for the promise of higher revenues later. But Democratic aides privy to the negotiations say the angry reaction misreads the Dems' position. And indeed the most recent Democratic offer to Super Committee Republicans would have squared this issue by automatically nullifying entitlement cuts if future tax legislation didn't raise revenues.
The Times story is based on a comment Republican co-chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) made on CNN's Sunday show State of the Union.
Under this approach, the panel would decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in details next year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline for the panel itself to reach an agreement. That would put off painful political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction stretched into the election year."There could be a two-step process that would hopefully give us pro-growth tax reform," Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the top Republican on the panel.
Progressives took this to imply surrender.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Jeb Hensarling, Medicaid, Medicare, MoveOn, Paul Krugman, Social Security, Super Committee, Taxes
Deficit
Super Committee Pressed To Raise Medicare Eligibility Age
The Democratic co-chair of President Obama's fiscal commission now says Democrats should entertain an increase in the Medicare eligibility age -- thanks in part to Obama's own health care law.
At a hearing before the deficit Super Committee, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles argued that the Affordable Care Act should allow Democrats to accept raising the Medicare eligibility age, because it creates a system of subsidized, guaranteed private health insurance for people who don't qualify for government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. And he outlined a plan -- framed as a pitch to Democrats -- that would total nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, including a higher Medicare retirement age.
"As I have thought about it...under the Affordable Health Care Act we provide subsidies for people who have really chronic illnesses and people who have limited incomes so they can afford health care insurance in the private sector," Bowles told the panel during an exchange with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). "And that didn't exist before the Affordable Health Care Act. That means that people 65, 66, 67 will still be able to get health care insurance. So as I think about it I could support raising the health care age for Medicare since we have other coverage available under the Affordable Health Care Act."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Deficit, Erskine Bowles, Jeb Hensarling, Medicare/Medicaid, Super Committee
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