Tea Party, GOP, Democrats: Mano a Mano

03 August 2011 |permalink | email article

A grim President Obama, speaking after the Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling, said that the measure had averted an economic calamity but warned that it would do little to revive the lagging economy because it cuts government spending and fails to include provisions to stimulate hiring, like an extension of the payroll tax cut.

That said, the president may have dug himself a deeper hole with the proposed so-called Super Congress, created by congressional leaders in the debt deal and requiring it to find $1.5 trillion in debt reduction over the next ten years. While the super committee should operate in the open and be responsive to the public there’s an underlying fear it will be an invitation for little transparency. There is no provision, as yet, for disclosure of those reports. 

Republicans Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will stand firm on debt reduction and no new taxes, while Democrats Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will battle to put everything on the table, including eliminating tax loopholes and overhauling the tax code to produce new revenue. Failure to reach some agreements this fall will trigger painful mechanisms such as defense spending and impact Bush tax cuts.   

Murdoch Should Worry

The Guardian reported that his U.K. tabloid staff is not off the hook yet. A person believed to be Stephen Kuttner, the former managing editor of News of the World was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. Kuttner showed up at a police station for interrogation but was arrested and released on bail. Rebekah Brooks, the paper’s former managing editor, and Murdoch’s closest tabloid confidante, was arrested on similar charged last month. 

Read ‘em and weep

In what amounted to a victory speech as the final vote approached on the debt ceiling he brokered, the senior senator from Kentucky reached what has been a career-long goal: to be this century’s Henry Clay. Only instead of being Kentucky’s “Great Compromiser,” McConnell is and wants to be the Bluegrass’s “Great Dismantler.” – Howard Fineman, Huffington Post 

“Go ahead tea party congress people. Put on your tri-corner hats, play your fifes and dance the minuet. Tea party like it’s 1779.” – Jon Stewart, railing against the Tea Party’s refusal to compromise on the debt deal. 

“The deal he just signed makes it impossible for the president and Democrats to launch any major jobs program – no WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps, no major lending program to cash-starved states and locales, no major new help for distressed homeowners. And so on. Nada.” – Robert Reich, Huffington Post

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