Rally at Toomey's Office at Noon Today

Sen. Pat Toomey (Tea Party-PA) is a favorite son of both the Club for Growth and the teahadists. Pennsylvania's junior Senator believes in magic -- he believes that tax cuts create revenue. Not only did he sign Grover Norquist's anti tax pledge and voted no on raising the debt ceiling, he believes the best course of action during the 2008 financial meltdown would have been to do nothing and let the chips fall where they may.



Of course, this meant that he was deemed to be eminently qualified to become a member of the "Super Congress."



If you believe that what Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the country needs is jobs and not tax cuts. If you believe that the past decade of tax cuts for the "job creators" has only made the rich richer and not produced the promised jobs. If you believe your own lying eyes and not the smoke being blown up your ass, then this rally is for you:



August 2011 Recess Action

Station Square - Toomey's Office

100 West Station Square (Map)

Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Thursday, August 18th, 12:00 PM

This action is being sponsored by many groups including MoveOn, OnePittsburgh, We Are One, Democracy for Pittsburgh, and, undoubtedly many more.



There's strength in numbers -- join us!



Many of the groups are meeting at the Stattion Square T station at 11:45 to walk over together.



Also, if you listened to Lynn Cullen's show yesterday, you know to expect to see her and Pittsburgh City Paper Editor Chris Potter there too.

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"Tea Party! America Thanks You!" Video

I have some questions

Since our credit rating has been downgraded do we all need to apply collectively for a free credit report? If one of us goes to something like freecreditreport.com and forgets to stop the trial version are we all on the hook for the monthly fees thereafter? Can we all call Standard and Poors and get them to at least put a notation beside it saying that we dispute it?
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yep

Via The Onion:

Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal Required Tough Concessions By Both Democrats And Democrats Alike
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Mike Doyle, Joe Biden, and Political Frustration

The fallout from the debt-ceiling vote continues to be felt.

From Politico, today:

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Some clarification from The Trib, later today:

If only he'd said "hostage-takers" instead of "terrorists."

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, said he wasn't comparing Tea Party members with terrorists when he used the word during a closed-door caucus meeting Monday, but was expressing frustration at President Obama's negotiating tactics, which he said gave in too quickly to GOP demands in the debt ceiling debate.

"Had I simply said hostage-taker, there wouldn't be this reaction. I certainly wasn't out to defame anybody," said Doyle, who couldn't recall the exact statement he made. "I wasn't talking about the Tea Party. I was talking about the tactic (of) telling us if we don't go along with this bad deal, they're going to blow the economy up."

Before we go any further, let's review some of the rhetoric the tea party has used in the not-so-recent past:

• Obama with a bone through his nose.
  
• Obama as Hitler.

Then there's Ann Coulter:

• Anti-war politicians are gutless traitors.
• Liberalism is treason.

So let's not spend too too much time wringing our hands in despair over how uncivil Congressman Doyle may have been. Unless, of course, they have real thin skin.

By the way, why isn't anyone complaining about how Senator Rand Paul called President Obama a hostage taker? He did:

“With the president holding the American economy hostage, I would prefer to think of myself as a Freedom Fighter,” Paul said in a statement.

Hey, don't terrorists take hostages? Will we be seeing Tea Party favorite Rand Paul apologizing any time soon for his inappropriate rhetoric?

Just asking.

But crude political metaphors aside, what was Doyle thinking? In a phone interview on Tuesday evening, he stressed out frustrated he was with the Obama administration. It was that frustration that bubbled over into the "terrorist" metaphor.

He was frustrated at how the Obama Administration's fumbling of these "negotiations" (I mean really, how do you "negotiate" with those who won't compromise?) has left the Democratic party in a bad situation. How can we do any infrastructure now? He asked. How can they work on any of the Administration's policies now? It wasn't a compromise, he said. It was a surrender.

He was frustrated at how the Tea Party is running the GOP. Speaker Boehner has no control over the caucus, he said. Who are we negotiating with? When the Speaker floated his own plan, his own caucus rejected it.

He was frustrated that the Democratic Party doesn't want to defend itself. There are too many timid Democrats. If we're not willing to defend ourselves, he said, we'll loose.

He was frustrated at the surrender. Me, too. Me, too.

It's time to slip on the battle armor, he said, and fight a little bit.

Hear, hear.

Satan Sandwich Passes Senate

The Shit Satan Sandwich passed in the Senate 74 to 26.
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The Trib On The Debt Ceiling

Again, it's what they leave out that matters most.

From today's editorial page at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"Saving" the nation from an anticipated default caused by Washington's own fiscal disregard, the deal cobbled together Sunday in the 11th hour amounts to yet another excuse for even more egregious spending -- not a course correction.

No mention of the fact that most of that "egregious spending" happened while a Republican was in the White House.

And then there's this:

What the nation gets, instead, is a short-term "fix" that raises the arbitrary debt ceiling, which already has been jacked up 11 times in the past decade. This continues the same ineffectual thinking, the same partisan brinkmanship masquerading as a fool's definition of leadership.

Yes, that's all true. But not in the way the Braintrust wants you to think.

Jacked up 11 times in the last decade. So that's 4 under Obama and 7 under Bush. Think Progress has a chart:

Look at how many times the debt ceiling was raised under Dubya. Look at how much it was raised by. Look at how many GOP Senators voted for it.

The "partisan brinkmanship" the Trib derides is simply this. It's Ok If You Are A Republican.

Did you know that Republican Presidents have raised the debt ceiling much much more than their Democratic counterparts in the last 30 years? The debt ceiling was raised almost 200% under Ronald Reagan alone.Again, a chart:Betcha didn't know that.

Tell me again about the liberal media?

The House Vote - How The Locals Voted

First the vote::

After months of partisan impasse, the House on Monday approved a budget agreement intended to head off a potential government default, pushing Congress a big step closer to the conclusion of a bitter fight that has left both parties bruised and exhausted.

Despite the tension and uncertainty that has surrounded efforts to raise the debt ceiling, the vote of 269-161 was relatively strong in support of the plan, which would cut more than $2.1 trillion in government spending over 10 years while extending the borrowing authority of the Treasury Department. It would also create a powerful new joint congressional committee to recommend broad changes in spending -- and possibly in tax policy -- to reduce the deficit.

All but one member of the Pennsylvania delegation to The House voted for the bill - Congressman Doyle. In a press release he explained his vote:

I voted against S. 365 because I believe it will kill jobs and choke off economic growth while making life harder for the Americans who are struggling the most.

I believe the federal government’s skyrocketing national debt is a problem the United States must fix – and that it will require substantial sacrifice for us to do so – but I strongly oppose the approach taken in this bill, which I believe to be both counterproductive and unjust.

I recognize that we need to cut spending as part of the solution. That’s why I voted last week for Senator Reid’s plan to cut $2 trillion in spending over the next ten years. But the Republican cuts-only approach won’t stop the growth in the national debt, it won’t grow the economy, and it won’t create jobs.

In fact, spending cuts in the middle of an economic crisis slow the economy down and choke off job growth – as recent economic figures for the second quarter have shown.

Unless we grow the economy, spending cuts won’t get the deficit under control. That’s why I believe that Congress must enact a more comprehensive approach that includes tax reform along with spending cuts.

The other reason I opposed the debt limit bill was my belief that getting deficits and the debt under control should be accomplished with shared sacrifice, and not by dumping all of the burden on the most vulnerable members of our society. So, for example, this bill doesn’t ask profitable companies and the wealthiest Americans to share the sacrifice through higher taxes. On the other hand, it makes cuts in student loan programs and eliminates the firewall for defense after only two years. That’s not my idea of shared sacrifice.

I voted twice to raise the debt – once for a clean debt limit increase with no strings attached, and once for the Reid plan, which would have raised the debt limit and cut $2 trillion in spending. I am deeply pleased that, in the end, Congress didn’t allow our government to default on its obligations, but I couldn’t support a bill that I believe will do real, substantial damage to our economy, deny essential aid to struggling households, and slow or stop the creation of American jobs.

Congressman Jason Altmire, our other local Democrat in the House, voted in favor. His explanation:

Addressing this nation's fiscal responsibilities can't be done by listening only to the views of extremists of either political party. All along, I've called for a centrist approach to reduce spending and lay the groundwork for long-term deficit reduction. This package makes the responsible cuts in Washington's long history of over-spending without harming Social Security, veterans' benefits and military pay. Because this debt limit increase does not put us back in this situation six months from now, this bill provides a sense of certainty to our financial markets that have been unhappy with the process involved with fulfilling our credit obligations. The American people wanted compromise, a solution from the middle, and today Democrats and Republicans delivered that to them.

Do you want fries with your sugar-coated Satan sandwich?

You want fries with that?
Via the examiner.com:

While the president seemed to breathe a deep sigh of relief that a deal was struck, members of the Democratic caucus were less than enthusiastic about the plan. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver dismissed the deal as “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich” and “a shady bill.”

Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said, “This deal trades people’s livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals,” adding that “the lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want.”

Looks like we do negotiate with terrorists after all

The Deal: All cuts and no revenue.
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Song of the Day

NSFW!


Song for the day...for the week...for the year...

(h/t to Sherry at after the bridge)
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Seriously?

I've gotten on conservative mailing lists before, but holy hell, how did I get on this one?!?

Revenue and the Debt Ceiling

As regards revenue, we don't have it! Via Think Progress:

As of July 13, 29 public companies had more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury Department, according to the site Zero Hedge based on numbers from Capital IQ. It’s a stark reminder that if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, the government won’t have nearly enough money to continue funding essential services and programs.

Regarding the debt ceiling:

Sabotaging the President By Sabotaging the Economy

Club For Growth To Republicans: Trigger A Default, Or Else!

[sigh]
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More On Toomey's "Pay China (And The Banks) First" Bill

Remember that bill?

We updated you on it here. Before we go any further, we should reiterate who would get "paid first" with Toomey's bill. In my blog post, I quoted TPM and they wrote:

According to economist Dean Baker, who heads the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the debt is fairly spread out, but a disproportionate chunk is held by large financial institutions -- the same institutions that triggered the financial crisis. That crisis, and the economic downturn it created, cost the Treasury a tremendous amount of revenue, and accelerated the country's march toward its debt limit. Now, many of those same financial institutions want to be at the front of the line if the country nears default.

That's who Toomey wants to pay off first.

The bill's been tabled. For more, here's Dan Malloy of the P-G:

The Toomey bill -- brought to the floor as an amendment to a patent reform bill and co-sponsored by Louisiana Republican David Vitter -- would have required the government to service the debt first if the cap is reached. Toomey argued this would take the threat of a default off the table, thus giving him and his cohorts more room to negotiate budget concessions (probably the real reason the bill went down).

Toomey mixed it up with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke about his proposal in hearings, but the Obama administration kept up its line that failing to raise the debt ceiling would bring on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or something like that. Congressional Democrats also had a snappy nickname for the bill: Pay China First (pay no mind to the fact that most of the debt is domestically held).

That last link goes back to the Christian Science Monitor piece mentioned by TPM. But let's put some nuance into Malloy's "most is domestically held." From the CSM:

At the end of 2010, about 53 percent of US debt held by the public was held domestically, according to a recent study from the Congressional Budget Office.

Within this slice, the largest category is individuals – Treasury notes are good solid additions to any portfolio. US individuals hold 12 percent of the country’s debt. Next under the domestic category comes the Federal Reserve, which holds 9 percent of US debt, then pension and retirement funds, mutual funds, and state and local governments.

Foreigners hold about 47 percent of US public debt. And yes, the largest foreign holder here is China – but only by a hair. Chinese investors are owed 9.8 percent of US debt. Next comes Japan, at 9.6 percent, and the United Kingdom, at 5.1 percent.

53-47 ain't that much of a spread. So yes most is domestically held (and of that a large chunk is held by some of the same financial institutions that triggered the downturn in the first place) but almost the same amount isn't. And about 10% of the National Debt is owed to the Chinese.

That's who Toomey wanted to pay off first. Good thing he failed at getting his bill passed. Let's hope he continues to fail similarly.

The message from the GOP is that money protects money and the rest of us will just have to learn to sacrifice.

More on Toomey's "Pay China First" Bill

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey has a great idea for if (IF) the Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

TPM has a closer analysis of who would get paid (hint: it ain't only China):

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) recently proposed a stop-gap measure to prioritize paying off interest on U.S. debt in the event that the country reaches its debt ceiling. Democrats have attacked this plan as a "pay China first" proposal, which will disadvantage American retirees and veterans who are also owed money by the Treasury.

But who would really get the money? Well, yes, China. But so too would many other countries, institutions, and individuals in the United States. The Christian Science Monitor has a handy breakdown here.

About 53 percent of U.S. debt held by the public was held domestically. Says CSM, "Within this slice, the largest category is individuals - Treasury notes are good solid additions to any portfolio. US individuals hold 12 percent of the country's debt. Next under the domestic category comes the Federal Reserve, which holds 9 percent of US debt, then pension and retirement funds, mutual funds, and state and local governments."

According to economist Dean Baker, who heads the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the debt is fairly spread out, but a disproportionate chunk is held by large financial institutions -- the same institutions that triggered the financial crisis. That crisis, and the economic downturn it created, cost the Treasury a tremendous amount of revenue, and accelerated the country's march toward its debt limit. Now, many of those same financial institutions want to be at the front of the line if the country nears default.

As I wrote back then, money protects money - and the rest of us will just have to sacrifice.

Even the House Republicans are "quietly dismissive" of the Toomey plan:

The conservative Republican Study Committee, which boasts a membership that comprises two-thirds of the Republican Conference, is pushing a bill that would forestall a “must pass” vote in Congress by giving the Treasury Department added authority to prioritize debt payments and prevent a full default if the ceiling were reached.

The legislation “assures lenders that their investments in the United States government are entirely safe,” said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), the lead House sponsor. “Congress will still have to deal with the issue of the debt limit. It simply takes a default off the table.”

[Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner has called the legislation, originally authored by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), “unworkable” and potentially “quite harmful.”

Boehner has ignored the proposal, and GOP leadership aides are privately dismissive of it. One staffer said the bill would give “unprecedented power to the White House and the Treasury Department to pick who’s going to get paid.”

Yea, that's the reason it's such a bad idea. The House Republicans fear the wrong people might get paid first!

Money protects money.