TPMDC Paul Ryan
Economy
Are Romney And Obama Competing For The Austerity Prize?
President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
The American economy will sink back into recession if Congress fails to unwind a messy coil of austere fiscal policies that will trigger automatically at the beginning of the year.
Across the spectrum, experts are imploring political leaders not to be myopic and unyielding: delay the budget cuts until the economic recovery really takes hold, but be ready with a more considered course of deficit reduction when that moment arrives.
Yet Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and their surrogates on Capitol Hill, are locked in a fight over which candidate and which party will more quickly and effectively reduce the deficit -- the opposite of what economists say we need.
The Obama administration and campaign trumpet data and articles showing that Obama's supposed spending binge is a right-wing fabrication. Paul Ryan -- the GOP's official spokesman on fiscal issues -- boasted that a Republican victory in November will give his party a mandate to turn his controversial spending-slashing budget into law.
"If we make the case effectively and win this November, then we will have the moral authority to enact the kind of fundamental reforms America has not seen since Ronald Reagan's first year," Ryan said.
At the same time, the parties are at pains to paint their rivals as the true merchants of austerity.
"Ryan also argued with a straight face on [Meet The Press] that the Ryan-Romney plan would avert the very European-style austerity on which it's modeled!" Obama strategist David Axelrod tweeted recently.
Resolving the tension between these two seemingly incompatible arguments -- more fiscally responsible, less austere -- turns out to be more difficult than adding up numbers on a ledger. But it provides an instructive look at what the candidates and parties stand for this election cycle.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Bush Tax Cuts, Center for American Progress, Douglas Holtz Eakin, Economy, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Spending, Stimulus, Tax Cuts
Paul Ryan
Senate Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly For Controversial GOP Budget
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Nearly all Senate Republicans joined their House colleagues in risky territory Wednesday by voting in support of the controversial GOP budget, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) -- a blueprint for the country's future that has become a political lightning rod and a defining document for the 2012 elections.
Among its most contentious features, the plan would phase out the existing Medicare program and replace it with a subsidized private insurance system for seniors; dramatically slash Medicaid spending and hand the program over to the states; cut food and nutrition programs for poor people; and allow interest rates on student loans to double; all while dramatically reducing taxes, particularly on wealthy Americans.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Medicaid, Medicare, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Student Loans
House Speaker John Boehner's demand Tuesday that the next increase in the debt limit be accompanied by dollar-for-dollar "cuts and reforms" apparently comes with a caveat: It doesn't apply to the GOP budget drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Ryan's House-passed blueprint would increase the nation's debt by $5 trillion over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The plan has the strong support of congressional Republicans and conservatives.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Deficit, John Boehner, Paul Ryan
Deficit
Who Really Caused The Deficit? (CHART)
President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
This week Republicans will attempt to move the national political conversation back to a familiar theme with a series of attacks on President Obama over the national debt. The GOP released a web video Monday bashing his "broken promises" on the deficit and previewed a major speech Tuesday by likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney on the issue.
Divorced from context, the numbers are uncomfortable for the President and are ready-made for pointed partisan attacks. Under Obama's watch the national debt has risen from roughly $10 trillion to $15 trillion, a record high. But to what extent are his decisions while in office to blame? The answer: very little. The vast bulk of the debt is the result of policies enacted during the Bush administration coupled with automatic increases in federal spending and decreases in tax revenue triggered by the economic downturn.
Those are economic facts of life known to experts but that often gets lost in the political debate (and which Obama's opponents are willing to obscure). So with the GOP's push to return the deficit to the center of the political conversation, here's quick reminder of the basic facts that you may have forgotten.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Bush Tax Cuts, Debt, Deficit, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Tax Cuts, Taxes
Budget
Dems Sharpen Opposition As GOP Advances Cuts To Poverty Programs
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
House Republicans advanced a measure Monday that shifts automatic defense spending cuts the parties agreed to last August as part of a bipartisan debt-limit deal to domestic programs aimed at mitigating poverty and working-class struggles.
In clearing the legislation, the Budget Committee put it on a glide path to passing the full House -- but that's when it falls into limbo. Senate Democratic leadership had a concise message for their GOP colleagues: Dream on.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Budget Committee, Budget Reconciliation, Debt Ceiling, Defense Spending, Deficit, Food Stamps, House Republicans, Lloyd Doggett, Patty Murray, Paul Ryan, Super Committee
John Boehner
House GOP To Shift Defense Cuts To Poverty Programs
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) speaks during a news conference on jobs on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 2, 2011.
As Congress returns from recess this week, House Republicans are set to advance legislation to replace automatic defense spending cuts they agreed to last year with cuts to programs for the poor and working class. The controversial measure is expected to pass the House and die in the Senate, making it largely a political exercise that allows the two parties to contrast the values at the heart of the 2012 election: Should the burden for addressing the country's long-running fiscal challenges fall to struggling people, or to the wealthiest people in the country?
The proposal -- which is an outgrowth of the budget the House GOP overwhelmingly voted for late March -- would cut some $261 billion from health care programs, food stamps, unemployment benefits and child tax credits, among others. It constitutes a violation of the GOP's end of the debt-limit deal, which included painful sacrifices for both parties if the Congress failed to reach a bipartisan deficit-reduction agreement.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Defense Spending, House Republicans, John Boehner, Military Spending, Paul Ryan, Senate Democrats
Paul Krugman
Krugman: Romney Would Govern Like Paul Ryan
Mitt Romney's diversity of policy positions over the last decade has left conservatives and liberals wondering: What would he actually do as president? Would he return to his former, more moderate self, or would he embrace the ideological fervor of the right as he did during the primary?
According New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, it's hardly a close call: A hypothetical President Romney would do pretty much what House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan tells him to do, because he won't have much of a choice politically. And that, he argues, would be a disaster for the economy.
"Romney -- well, who knows what Romney thinks. Romney's economic advisers are not crazy," Krugman told TPM in an interview. "But I think it's unlikely Romney would have the leeway [to break from the Ryan mold]." The presumptive Republican nominee for president has effusively praised Ryan and, during the primary, attacked Newt Gingrich for criticizing him.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Mitt Romney, Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan
Paul Krugman
Krugman Unloads On Paul Ryan
Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman fired back at Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) after the influential Republican laughed off the New York Times columnist's criticisms by saying, "I've always figured I've got three certainties in my life: Death, taxes and attacks from Paul Krugman."
In an exclusive interview following the release of his new book End This Depression Now!, Krugman told TPM, "That's not a substantive remark. I've never attacked him just for nothing in particular. I've gone after his arithmetic and said it doesn't add up at all. And he has never offered a response to that. All he does is make scary noises about the deficit, with mood music, with organ music in the background about how ominous it is, and then propose a plan that would in fact increase the deficit."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan
Stephen Colbert
Colbert Mocks Paul Ryan's Budget Cuts To The Poor
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert on Tuesday turned from politics to policy, focusing on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Catholic Bishops, Paul Ryan, Stephen Colbert, budget, the colbert report
Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan Hits Back At Catholic Critics Of His Budget
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Under fire from the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for writing a budget that cuts deeply into programs that help the needy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his vision in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University.
But his remarks were less an attempt to persuade his religious detractors than to undermine them, putting the Catholic Wisconsinite in the uncomfortable position of criticizing a frequent ally.
"I suppose there are some Catholics who for a long time have thought they had a monopoly of sorts," Ryan said. "Not exactly on heaven, but on the social teaching of our church. Of course there can be differences among faithful Catholics on this."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Ayn Rand, Budget, Catholic Bishops, Paul Ryan, Poverty
Debt
Top Congress Scholar Says Country Could Easily Fall Off Fiscal Cliff In January
Protestors demand "Cut Spending Now" near the Capitol building in Washington DC
A renowned congressional analyst thinks there's a good chance that the country could fall off a fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, no matter who wins this November.
At an American Enterprise Institute event on the future of Medicare Tuesday, AEI scholar Norm Ornstein outlined a scenario in which Congress falls on its face this winter, and fails to address the expiring Bush tax cuts and payroll tax holiday, automatic sequestration spending cuts, lapse of federal borrowing authority and other spending and tax provisions set to contract the budget automatically at the end of the year.
"Most of the cognoscenti in Washington say, Of course they'll reach an agreement because they can't not reach an agreement,'" Ornstein said. "Get inside the belly of the beast and you realize these days they can not reach an agreement."
Topics: Budget, Bush Tax Cuts, Debt, Debt Ceiling, Deficit, Medicare, Norm Ornstein, Paul Ryan, Payroll Tax Cut, Spending, Tax Cuts, Taxes, White House
Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan Questions Catholic Bishops' Opposition To His Budget
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) dismissed the concerns of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, after the powerful advocacy group criticized his budget for "failing to meet [the] moral criteria," of protecting human dignity, prioritizing the needs of the hungry and homeless and promoting the common good. He also suggested that the criticism itself might not represent the Bishops' consensus view -- an insinuation the group directly rejects.
"These are not all the Catholic bishops, and we respectfully disagree," Ryan said.
Here's video, courtesy of Faith in Public Life:
Topics: Budget, Catholic Bishops, GOP Budget, Paul Ryan, Pentagon budget
war on women
Republicans Recite Dem Attack Lines -- With Little Hope Of Success
Mitt Romney
For all the brainpower the parties put into prepping their talking points, you'd think an election as significant as this one would yield the most finely crafted political spin. Instead, on the key issues of the season, Republicans are picking up Democratic attack lines and hurling them back where they came from, word for word.
Democrats warn of GOP war against women. Mitt Romney, and the rest of the GOP, say the real aggressors in that war are President Obama and the Democrats. Democrats insist that Republicans want to end Medicare as we know it. Camp Romney says President Obama's health care law will end Medicare as we know it. Democrats say House GOP budget fails the fundamental test of fairness. House GOP budget guru Paul Ryan fires back, "The President's budget is not just a failure of math, but it also fails the fundamental test of fairness."
All that's missing are press releases that scream, "I know you are but what am I?!" Call it the Pee Wee Herman election.
Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, war on women
Budget
CNBC Anchor Whiffs On Obama Budget In White House Interview
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo
President Obama's top economic adviser Gene Sperling got heated in a Tuesday interview on CNBC, when anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed him on the federal budget. The exchange was so explosive that CNBC re-aired the interview on Wednesday -- in celebration of holding officials to account and setting the record straight for the public.
There were just a couple problems: Bartiromo initially elaborated on a false premise, and her subsequent line of questioning treated a GOP political stunt as if it was standard operating procedure on Capitol Hill.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Gene Sperling, Paul Ryan, White House
Barney Frank
Barney Frank Unloads On The 'Great Scam' Of Paul Ryan
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) unleashed a stinging attack on House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan in an interview with TPM, describing him as an ideologically driven extremist who doesn't deserve his reputation within the political establishment as a genuine fiscal hawk.
Labeling the House-passed GOP budget a "great scam," Frank cited its military spending hikes from current law levels as evidence that Ryan's primary goal isn't deficit reduction. He also cited Ryan's refusal to specify which tax loopholes he'll close as evidence of trickery.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barney Frank, GOP Budget, House Republicans, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Medicare/Medicaid, Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan, Tom Friedman
Barack Obama
Obama Attacks Romney, Republican Party In Fiery Budget Speech (VIDEO)
President Barack Obama
In the fieriest speech of his presidency Tuesday, Barack Obama lit into the Republican Party's vision for the country's future as outlined in the House GOP budget, and endorsed by his most likely election rival Mitt Romney.
Obama decried key planks of the Republican agenda -- particularly calls for large tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and a plan to phase out traditional Medicare -- which he took care to describe accurately, though in hostile terms.
And in response to questions from the audience, Obama urged the press not to confuse rancor over the parties' competing visions for the country as typical partisan bitterness for which Democrats and Republicans are equally culpable.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Bush Tax Cuts, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Taxes
Medicare
GOP Failing To Find Dem Cover For Privatizing Medicare
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY)
Republicans have a message on their plan to privatize Medicare: It's bipartisan. Democrats have a counter-message: Hell no, it's not.
As the GOP works to portray Rep. Paul Ryan's blueprint for Medicare as bipartisan, Democrats are working equally hard to keep their fingerprints off it. Dem operatives see the proposal -- which in 10 years would begin phasing out the existing program and replacing it with a subsidized exchange where seniors can shop for plans -- as a huge opportunity in the elections. House Republicans passed the plan last week without a single Democratic vote.
Now, Republicans are pushing to box in Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as a former supporter of the "premium support" concept.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Budget, DCCC, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, MEK, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, Ron Wyden, Steve Israel, Ways and Means Committee
Barack Obama
Obama: Ryan Budget Is 'Thinly Veiled Social Darwinism'
President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.
Today the presidential gloves really come off.
In a Tuesday speech hosted by the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., President Obama will deliver a broadside to the House-passed Republican budget, which calls for upending Medicare and making deep cuts to domestic social programs. Obama will describe it as a dark vision for America and draw a clear contrast with his campaign themes of reducing inequality and asking the wealthy to help pay down the nation's debt.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Economy, House Republicans, Medicare, Paul Ryan, White House
Paul Ryan
'I Really Misspoke': Ryan Apologizes For Comment On Generals' Integrity
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan admitted Sunday he "misspoke" when questioning the integrity of top generals on military spending needs, and said he has apologized to the Pentagon's top adviser to the president.
"I really misspoke," he said on CNN's State of the Union. "And I did not mean to impugn the integrity of the military in any way." Asked whether he has apologized to Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ryan said, "Yeah, I called him and told him that."
"It was not the impression I meant to give," Ryan added on ABC's This Week. "I talked to General Dempsey on it, and expressed that sentiment."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Defense Spending, Martin Dempsey, Military, Military Spending, Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan
Cue The Ads: GOP Votes To Privatize Medicare In Election Year
Brave or politically suicidal?
For the second year in a row, Republicans voted Thursday to effectively dismantle Medicare -- this time, just over seven months before a presidential election. And Democrats are salivating at the political opportunity, eager to hang the vote around the neck of the party's presidential nominee and its candidates in tough congressional races.
"A year ago, nobody was talking about Democrats having a shot at the House. Now we're talking about it," a Democratic leadership aide told TPM after the vote, a party-line 228-191 that didn't win a single Dem.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: House Democrats, House Republicans, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, Republicans
Bowles-Simpson
House Crushes Bowles-Simpson Budget
A budget resolution based on the work of President Obama's bipartisan fiscal commission went down in flames Wednesday night in the House.
A version of the Bowles-Simpson budget -- the commission never found the majority needed to report out an official one -- was defeated 38-382. The measure was offered by Reps. Jim Cooper (D-TN) and Steve LaTourette (R-OH) in the run-up to Thursday's vote on the GOP's updated blueprint written by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Bowles-Simpson, Jim Clyburn, Paul Ryan, Steny Hoyer
House Republicans
It's On: House GOP Preps For Vote On Radical Medicare Overhaul
Lost in the frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court health care arguments this week is an important development on Capitol Hill: House Republicans are poised to vote Thursday to drastically transform Medicare and spark another potential government shutdown battle.
The new budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) faces a floor vote Thursday -- it's a tweaked version of last year's blueprint that was relentlessly attacked by Democrats for "ending Medicare as we know it" in order to pay for large tax cuts for high-income earners. This year's blueprint also replaces Medicare with a subsidized insurance exchange, but keeps traditional Medicare alive as a public option among private plans that seniors can buy into.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: DCCC, Government Shutdown, House Democrats, House Republicans, John Boehner, Medicare, Paul Ryan, Ryan Plan
Budget
Simpson-Bowles Could Get House Floor Vote
House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.
Members of Congress from both parties like to lament the opportunity missed when President Obama didn't embrace the budget plan his deficit-reduction committee co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles unveiled last year.
They may have an opportunity to turn preening into action.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Alan Simpson, Barack Obama, Budget, Deficit, Erskine Bowles, Fiscal Commission, Paul Ryan, Taxes
Paul Ryan
Ryan Promises To Close Tax Loopholes, But Won't Say Which
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Appearing on two Sunday talk shows, the GOP's top budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan promised to close enough loopholes to pay for the large tax cuts in his budget blueprint unveiled last week -- but he repeatedly refused to specify any.
"We're proposing to keep revenues where they are, but to clear up all the special interest loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners, in exchange for lower rates for everyone," Ryan said on CBS' Face The Nation. "We're saying get rid of the tax shelters, the interest group loopholes and lower everybody's tax rates."
The plan does not point to any such tax loopholes, nor is it expected to become law. But the House Budget Chairman's suggested it isn't his job to specify which ones. His message boils down to this: Trust us, we'll get to it.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: House Republicans, Paul Ryan
Budget
How The GOP Budget Pulverizes Most Government Services (CHART)
House Republicans' latest budget is a slightly new twist on a familiar theme: low taxes, particularly on the wealthiest, financed by extreme cuts to government spending programs. Knowing the GOP's -- and, frankly many Democrats' -- penchant for high levels of military spending, this mostly means unfathomably deep cuts to domestic health care, education, science and other programs.
Here's the twist. Last year, Republicans took a lot of guff for their plan to turn Medicare in to a subsidized private insurance system. That wasn't just because they proposed to privatize the program, but because the subsidies they proposed were extremely meager -- that's how it saved so much money.
This year, the budget calls for more generous subsidies. Which means that to hit the same long-term deficit targets, Ryan has to cut even deeper into other programs.
Here's how it looks graphically.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Budget, Dave Camp, Education, Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Social Security
Raul Labrador
GOP Conservatives Gripe About New Ryan Budget
House Republicans aren't all sold on Rep. Paul Ryan's new budget.
Seven conservative House Republicans hosted a panel late Tuesday afternoon at the Heritage Foundation, none of whom committed to voting for the blueprint unveiled earlier in the day. One of them -- a member of the House Budget Committee -- said he's unequivocally opposed.
"I will be voting no," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). "It's not good enough."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Paul Ryan, Raul Labrador, Tim Huelskamp
Defense Spending
GOP Sparks New Battle Over Agreed-Upon Defense Cuts
House Republicans aren't just reigniting battles over domestic spending and Medicare in their new budget resolution. They're also instigating a war over military funding by seeking to replace automatic defense cuts both parties agreed to in the bipartisan debt limit deal to with major cuts to programs that benefit low- and middle-income Americans, such as food stamps and health care.
Democrats on the Hill and at the White House consider this a violation of the agreement they struck with Republicans last summer. The debt-limit legislation included a mechanism to force both parties to strike a balanced deal to reduce federal budget deficits: deep, automatic, across-the-board cuts to both domestic and national security programs. When the Super Committee failed in November, thanks largely to the GOP's refusal to back significant new tax revenues, it armed that bomb -- those cuts are now scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013.
Instead of reconsidering their anti-tax absolutism, Republicans want to go back on their end of the deal.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Defense Spending, Deficit, GOP Budget, House Republicans, Paul Ryan
Budget
Deja Vu: House GOP Reignites The Medicare Fight With Its Budget
On Tuesday, House Republicans unveiled an updated version of their controversial long-term budget -- a sweeping plan that envisions dramatically lower tax rates on wealthy Americans, deep cuts to federal support programs for the poor and the eventual phase-out of the existing Medicare system, which would be replaced by a subsidized private insurance system, including traditional Medicare as an option.
You can read the GOP gloss on their plan here. Among its claims: The latest "Path to Prosperity" "Restores economic freedom and ensures a level playing field for all by putting an end to special-interest favoritism and corporate welfare" and "cuts government spending to protect hardworking taxpayers."
The reaction from the White House was swift.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Budget, CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Dan Pfeiffer, Medicare, Patty Murray, Paul Ryan, Taxes
Medicare
Dems To GOP: No Cover From Us On Medicare Privatization Plan
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
When House Republicans unveil their 2012 budget on Tuesday, they are expected to include a Medicare privatization plan endorsed by one Democrat -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). That, Republicans will claim, proves their controversial overhaul proposal has bipartisan support.
Leading Democrats say they won't let the GOP get away with it.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Obamacare, Paul Ryan, Ron Wyden
Budget
New Report Creates Confusion, Spin Over Obama Budget (CHART)
A new Congressional Budget Office report has reignited the spin wars over President Obama's budget, and Republicans are eagerly blasting articles to reporters about how the administration would explode deficits and debt if left to its own devices.
But this line of attack is based on a questionable premise, familiar to veterans of the past year's budget wars.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Budget, Bush Tax Cuts, CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Medicare, Paul Ryan, Taxes, Timothy Geithner, White House
Harry Reid
GOP Inviting Election Season Government Shutdown, Reid Warns
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is warning House Republicans they'll be setting themselves up for another tea party-inspired government shutdown fight, unless GOP leaders buck their conservative rank and file and hew to the terms of last summer's hard-fought debt-limit deal.
House Republicans are prepared to introduce their budget resolution next Tuesday, and some signs suggest they'll call for cutting federal programs below the levels both parties agreed to in last August's debt-limit fight. On Tuesday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid laid down the Democrats' marker in no uncertain terms: Dream on, we'll never let you buck the deal.
"This wasn't a handshake, it was a law we passed," Reid told reporters on Tuesday at a weekly Capitol briefing. "And now, the Republican right wing in the House is trying to change the agreement we made as a matter of law. I guess they love government shutdowns, or at least the threat of them ... If they renege on the law, the agreement, they'll be forcing yet another government shutdown and a fight with the American people. That's ridiculous."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Harry Reid, Paul Ryan
Mitt Romney
The Many Misleading Claims In Mitt's Monday Medicare Memo
As part of an effort to reverse the public's perception of the parties' positions on Medicare, Mitt Romney's campaign is appropriating a common Democratic attack and using it against President Obama. To wit, it's Obama, not Romney and the GOP, who plans to "end Medicare as we know it."
There are multiple, and conflicting, facets to this claim, all of which are intended to obscure one fundamental fact -- the GOP broadly supports a plan that, over years, will phase out traditional Medicare, and replace it with a subsidized private (or private-public) insurance system for seniors; President Obama supports, and has signed into law, efforts to make the existing single-payer Medicare plan more cost-effective in order to avoid "ending Medicare as we know it."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Mitt Romney, Obamacare, Paul Ryan
Medicare
How The Affordable Care Act Could Quash The GOP's Dream Of Medicare Privatization
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
What if "Obamacare" not only helped save Medicare from fiscal doom, but also quashed the GOP's longstanding goal of privatizing the program? It's too early to know what will ultimately happen, but new evidence suggests that nightmare scenario for conservatives is within the realm of possibility.
In a development with potentially profound implications -- both for Medicare itself and for the broader ideological fight between the two parties over the role of government -- researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine believe that the growth in per patient Medicare costs has slowed, contra earlier projections that spending would soar at an unsustainable rate. More importantly, the researchers believe this trend will hold over time, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act's sweeping cost-control policies.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, IPAB, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Obamacare, Paul Ryan
Budget
Dems Irate As GOP Set To Break Debt Limit Deal
Signs mounted Thursday that House Republican leaders, under pressure from their conservative members, will submit a budget that calls for cutting federal programs beneath the levels they agreed to in the bipartisan August debt limit law. Democrats warned that violating the agreement could spark a government shutdown fight later this year.
Echoing Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, told TPM that the House GOP must not go down that road.
"Look, an agreement is agreement, and they should stick to the agreement," Van Hollen said in a brief interview. "And not otherwise risk ultimately messing up the entire process, with a worst case scenario of a government shutdown. They should recognize what the risks are in violating an agreement."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Budget, Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen, Chuck Schumer, House Republicans, John Boehner, Marsha Blackburn, Paul Ryan
House Republicans
Top Dem Warns House GOP Not To Renege On Budget Deal
Amid rumblings that House Republicans may break their end of a major budget agreement they struck with Democrats last fall, and possibly touch off another government shutdown battle later this year, a top Senate Democrat issued a stern warning to the GOP: Don't go there.
"We had a deal last August on the budget numbers, and we expect them to live with that deal," said Sen. Patty Murray (WA) -- a member of the Democratic leadership, high-ranking member of the Budget Committee and erstwhile co-chair of the Super Committee -- in an interview with TPM. "I have been astonished how many times they play with fire. Last August they almost shut the government down, a year ago they almost shut the government down, by trying to go to a place where most Americans don't believe we should be going."
Topics: Budget, Budget Committee, Deficit, House Republicans, Patty Murray, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Spending, Super Committee, Taxes
IPAB
Liberals Push Back Against GOP's Latest Salvo In Battle Over Medicare
President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.
House Republicans are set to advance legislation to repeal a key plank of President Obama's health care law -- the cost-cutting Independent Payment Advisory Board -- and have enlisted several Democrats for a cause that's central to the conservative goal of phasing out traditional Medicare.
On Tuesday, the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee is set to pass repeal of IPAB. The Ways & Means health subcommittee will also hold a hearing on it, bringing the measure closer to a floor vote, and advancing an ongoing fight about whether the government or private insurers should parcel finite health care resources.
While progressive health care reformers have effectively attacked the GOP's vision of a subsidized private health insurance system for seniors, they've been slow to close ranks around the health care law's competing vision of a leaner, more efficient Medicare. But there are signs this is changing.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Affordable Care Act, GOP, House Republicans, IPAB, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Medicare, Michael Burgess, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Ryan Plan, White House
Independent Payment Advisory Board
Will Dems Help GOP Quash Obama's Plan To Save Medicare?
Republicans are poised to advance repeal Wednesday of a critical provision in the health care reform law designed to preserve traditional Medicare -- and they've enlisted a number of key House Democrats for the cause. Victory isn't imminent, as Senate Dems aren't biting, but the growing defections help the GOP's long-term push to privatize Medicare.
With Medicare's trust fund set to be empty by about 2024, dramatic cost-cutting measures will ultimately be required. Republicans want to achieve this by transforming Medicare into a "premium support" program in which seniors are given a voucher to buy their own private insurance. President Obama has a different idea, and has already enacted the framework for it: a panel called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), set to take effect in 2014, comprising 15 appointed experts tasked with holding down Medicare payments to providers -- without cutting benefits.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, IPAB, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Paul Ryan
Independent Payment Advisory Board
Why Republicans Are Fighting To Repeal Obama's Medicare Cost-Cutting Board
House Republicans are poised to advance legislation this week to repeal President Obama's Medicare cost-cutting board, a provision enacted in the health care reform law. The Energy & Commerce Committee is set to mark it up this Wednesday, and the repeal bill already has enough cosponsors to pass the House. It's not expected to survive the Senate or Obama's veto pen, but the debate over this provision cuts to the heart of the battle over how to save Medicare in the long run.
Some background: The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is set to take effect in 2014, and would comprise 15 President-appointed and Senate-confirmed experts charged with holding down Medicare per-beneficiary spending by restricting reimbursements to providers. It is forbidden from cutting payments to beneficiaries. Congress can override the panel is by passing an alternate way to save the same amount of money, or with a three-fifths Senate majority. The health care industry has been outspoken in its hatred for IPAB. Republicans are united in their effort to kill it, and even some House Dems are on that page.
The question now is: Why is the party that's hell-bent on reining in Medicare pushing to repeal this powerful tool for doing just that? Part of it is to score political points by slicing off a key piece of the Affordable Care Act. But more importantly, Republicans don't want to keep Medicare in its current form. Many of them don't think that's feasible. They want to transition it to a privatized model a la the Paul Ryan plan, where seniors get a fixed subsidy -- or "premium support" -- to buy their own insurance on a private exchange.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Health Care, IPAB, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, Phil Roe, Richard Burr, Tom Coburn
Medicare Privatization
How Republicans Could Still Succeed At Privatizing Medicare
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Republicans may be backing off their famously toxic plan by Paul Ryan to privatize Medicare, but they've doubled down on the broader concept and are taking strategic steps to get there over time. Democrats currently have the upper hand in their battle to protect traditional Medicare for the future, but unless they thwart the GOP's drumbeat and build support for their alternate vision, it may not be for long.
There's little disagreement that Medicare is currently on an unsustainable trajectory, with costs spiraling out of control thanks in part to aging baby boomers. Democrats and Republicans both want to rein in Medicare spending, and the two sides increasingly agree that per-beneficiary outlays should be held down to per-capita GDP plus 1 percent, a substantial reduction from projections. But they strongly disagree on how to get there.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, President Obama, Ron Wyden, Ryan Plan
Tom Coburn
The GOP's Tactful Pivot From Ryan Medicare Plan -- And Why It's Important
Republicans are continuing their gradual pivot away from the Paul Ryan Medicare plan they once voted for overwhelmingly -- another tacit admission that the blueprint is too radical to pass. But they haven't given up on the concept -- far from it. In fact, they're searching for more tactful ways to bring it to fruition.
The latest evidence came Thursday, when Republican Sens. Tom Coburn (OK) and Richard Burr (NC) rolled out a sweeping new plan that would transition Medicare to a subsidized private insurance system while giving seniors the option to remain in the traditional government-run program -- think "Obamacare" exchanges with a public option.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Medicare, Medicare Privatization, Paul Ryan, Richard Burr, Ron Wyden, Tom Coburn
