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30 Apr 2011 15:38

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Politics: Obama, GOP appear to agree: Big oil needs no tax subsidies

  • Obama Today, the president used his weekly radio address to suggest, in the wake of high gas prices and huge oil company profits, to remove the oil subsidies big oil companies enjoy. This might just be the time to pull it off.
  • GOP In this case … it appears that top GOP figures agree. John Boehner recently suggested removing corporate tax breaks for oil companies (which his staffers have tried to walk back), and Paul Ryan recently made a similar pitch. source

21 Apr 2011 21:14

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Politics: Paul Ryan not running for president, and other town hall fun

  • We don’t have the presidential candidates right now. The field hasn’t materialized yet, so we’re out there doing it ourselves.
  • Rep. Paul Ryan • Speaking yesterday at a town hall meeting in Clinton, Wis., where he noted that he had no plans to run for president. (We’ve said our peace, bro. You’re making a mistake.) Earlier in the week, Ryan was at the tail end of a chorus of boos, at a town hall in Milton, Wis., for his stance on tax cuts for the wealthy. But as Dave Weigel notes, other members of Congress who voted for Ryan’s budget plan didn’t face anything even resembling the rage-filled summer of 2009, where Barney Frank compared a woman to a “dining room table.” Guess those angry people have to start trying harder. (thanks handlebarr) source

18 Apr 2011 14:54

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U.S.: GOP Rep. McKinley not so sure about Paul Ryan’s Medicare

  • The Congressional Budget Office determined that some of the out-of-pocket costs could double for seniors and that sent up a red flag for me… I think we can do it another way and now I’m going to be curious to see what the Senate does. I want to be an independent voice here.
  • GOP Rep. Dave MicKinley • Speaking on Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed “Path to Prosperity,” which eliminates the traditional Medicare program (essentially, guaranteed health coverage) in favor of a voucher/privatized system. Quotes like these often strike us as noteworthy, specifically because it’s rather rare to hear Republican politicians break ranks around big policy proposals, especially when compared to Democrats. On the Democratic side, whether it’s Joe Manchin, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Bart Stupak (now retired), the list goes on — the conservative wing of the party last Congress provided a palpable thorn in President Obama’s side on a lot of his big initiatives. The GOP, on the other hand, always seems like an on-message, political machine — so to that end, we laud Rep. McKinley for speaking his mind on the hottest topic in Washington today. source

17 Apr 2011 20:29

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Politics: Timothy Geithner: Republicans will raise the debt ceiling (I hope)

  • I want to make it perfectly clear that Congress will raise the debt ceiling. They recognize it and they told the president that on Wednesday in the White House and I sat there with them and they said, ‘We recognize we have to do this and we’re not going to play around with it, because we know the risk would catastrophic.’
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Speaking with a hushed tone about the need to increase the debt ceiling, the kind of thing the GOP would possibly screw with the debt ceiling. The U.S. government has just $76 billion of breathing room right now, and need to pass an increase by July 8. Problem is, Republicans want a deal to go with this. “In addition to raising the debt limit we want financial controls, we want cuts in spending accompanying a raising of the debt ceiling.” said Paul “Fancypants” Ryan. “And that is what I believe they (Republican congressional leaders) told the president.” Oh God, they’re gonna screw this up. source

15 Apr 2011 11:34

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Politics: Three harsh criticisms Obama said into a hot mic last night

  • Say what you want about CBS’ Mark Knoller, but he gets stories. The dude may have a massive beard, but that beard is probably large enough to fit a high-quality tape recorder into. Which is why the White House correspondent was able to pretty much beat everyone else to a pretty killer Obama story this morning. (With audio!) See, Obama thought he was talking to donors. But he had an hot mic on that was accidentally pumping audio from the closed-door fundraiser into the press room, and Knoller caught it. Including the audio. While Obama said fairly harsh things about the White House IT department, like “We are like 30 years behind – we can’t get our phones to work,” the stuff he said about the budget situation and Paul Ryan had the strongest impact:
  • On health care “I said (to Republicans), ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. … You think we’re stupid?'”
  • On Planned Parenthood He reportedly told Boehner and his staff, regarding the controversial riders: “Put it in a separate bill. We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.”
  • On Paul Ryan “… the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill …” source

13 Apr 2011 16:59

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Politics: Surprisingly defiant tone for Obama in budget speech

  • So… how y’all feel about that speech? Reviews streaming in following President Obama’s remarks about U.S. budgetary issues are somewhat mixed, but that’s what you’d expect when the speech in question struck such a starkly firm, at times defiant tone. Indeed, the favorite words of the administration, like “bipartisanship,” “compromise,” and “common ground” were all there, but there was also a lot of base-feeding red meat to his pitch that likely inflamed conservative orthodoxy and left liberals feeling better than they had expected.
  • The Paul Ryan Plan President Obama flatly and sternly dismissed Rep. Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” stating the plan would “end Medicare as we know it,” has a “deeply pessimistic” vision for America, and there’s “nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”
  • The Tax Man plan? The crux of the President’s rebuttal is that taxes on our highest income earners not only must go up, but that they should go up — a marked departure from more moderate rhetoric he’s used in the past years, likely due to the opposition’s success in injecting the word “socialism” into the debate. source

13 Apr 2011 15:23

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U.S.: Obama has harsh words for the Paul Ryan budget

  • The fact is [Paul Ryan’s budget] is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.
  • President Barack Obama • Speaking about Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” which liberals have bemoaned for placing too much additional burden on the financially poor. Whatever you may think about Ryan’s proposal, the claim the President is making seems astute. The ideological battle between Democrats and Republicans in modern America is much more about public vs. private function than it ever truly ends up being about spending; both parties spend a ton without a second thought (the Republican’s ability to whitewash this fact must rank as a political marvel of the highest order). Rather, the Republican consistency has usually been to cut government’s role in social equity whenever they can, shredding elements of the social compact being only a political issue, not a moral one. As Paul Ryan said, his proposal isn’t just a budget, it’s a “cause.” source
 

12 Apr 2011 00:56

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Politics: Ron Paul trashes Paul Ryan’s budget proposal

  • We are dealing with a problem in Washington as a budgetary accounting problem and that’s not it. It’s a philosophy problem.
  • Ron Paul • Ripping into the terms in which the budget debate has been framed; his gripe is that the fundamental acceptance of America as a welfare state isn’t being challenged. He also trashed Paul Ryan’s budget plan, saying that it wouldn’t “come close” to “solv[ing] our problems.” This was all in a speech in Iowa; Paul is said to be leaning towards a third presidential bid. source

06 Apr 2011 23:26

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Politics: Paul Ryan: Tax the rich? Nah, just cut services for the poor

  • 67% of Paul Ryan’s spending cuts hit poor Americans source
  • » But don’t worry, not everyone gets the shaft under Ryan’s proposal. Although 2/3 of the savings derived from his plan come by cutting services for poor people, his budget does firmly protect–surprise!–George Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. In all fairness, letting those cuts expire would increase tax rates for the highest earners by an appalling 4%, but it would also save the country an additional $1 trillion over the next ten years. So let’s get this straight: Ryan wants to cut services for the poor and retain absurdly-low tax rates for billionaires. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be the new face of the Republican party?

06 Apr 2011 13:56

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Politics: Where will Obama come down on Paul Ryan’s proposal?

  • And, finally, there’s talk that we have a president who’s a Democrat — the party that created the American social contract of the 20th century. Initially, he focused on reshaping and extending that contract into the 21st. Now that the Republicans want to repeal it all, he’s nowhere to be found. Has anybody seen him? Does he still exist?
  • Washington Post opinion writer Harold Meyerson • From his editorial yesterday about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed budget. We find this pertinent because reflect’s what is perhaps the most unforeseeable and (if you’re a liberal, or even a moderate, or a conservative who believes in these social contracts) nerve-wracking element in the looming debate over Ryan’s budget, namely — will President Obama stand or fold? In Washington, few things have become as familiar a sound as the President’s voice saying words like “bipartisanship” and “compromise,” but his opposition rarely if ever cedes any credit for this, and rarer still gives anything back. Will this latest effort to privatize large swaths of the social contract be worth fighting for, or will the President take another opportunity to thanklessly bargain away his base’s enthusiasm with his political rivals? It’s truly hard to say. source