21 Things Republicans Have Demanded In Exchange For Not Shutting Down The Government Or Tanking The Global Economy

— BY JUDD LEGUM ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Since the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2011, they have repeatedly attempted to use the prospect of a government shutdown or a debt default as leverage. A shutdown would furlough close to a million federal workers and cut off essential services for millions more Americans, while a default on U.S. debt, even according to Speaker John Boehner, could devastate the global economy. While the recent debate has focused on Obamacare, that is just the latest in a series of demands made by Republicans. The following is a list of things that have been, at various times, demanded by Republicans under threat of a government shutdown or default:

1. A balanced budget amendment [Link]

2. Approving Keystone XL [Link]

3. Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood [Link]

4. Medicare privatization [Link]

5. Tax reform, as outlined by Paul Ryan [Link]

6. The REINS Act, which would require Congress to approve significant federal regulations [Link]

7. Means-testing Social Security [Link]

8. Defunding Obamacare [Link]

9. Allowing employers to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control [Link]

10. An expansion of off-shore drilling [Link]

11. Preserving all the Bush tax cuts [Link]

12. “Trillions” in budget cuts [Link]

13. Slashing funding for food stamps [Link]

14. Protecting mountaintop strip mining [Link]

15. Stripping the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases [Link]

16. Loosening regulation on coal ash [Link]

17. Delaying Obamacare implementation by one year [Link]

18. Repealing a tax on medical devices [Link]

19. Eliminating Social Service Block Grants [Link]

20. Expanding drilling on federal lands [Link]

21. Restricting the child tax credit [Link]

In just over 2 years, Republicans have been successful in extracting around $1.7 trillion in budget cuts or 72% of the total deficit reduction over that period. Under President Bush the government never shut down and the debt limit was raised five times with bipartisan support and without conditions.

---

This material [the article above] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Click here to subscribe.

Related articles

• 21 Things Republicans Have Demanded In Exchange For Not Shutting Down The Government Or Tanking The Global Economy (thinkprogress.org)

Congress, the Fiscal Cliff and Tee-ing Off at Taxpayer Expense

Congress has adjourned until after the November election, but much is left on the table. Perhaps most notable are the “fiscal cliff” and Sequestration. In addition, they’ve done nothing yet wit the Farm bill which expired on Sept. 30, eliminating certain farm policies.

The Fiscal Cliff
Reports are coming in that Congress will attempt a long-term fix for the “fiscal cliff” during the lame duck session, establishing a framework for large reforms to be discussed in 2012. The “fiscal cliff” refers to the combined effects of the expiring Bush tax cuts and the mandatory Sequestration — both of which take effect in January 2013 if Congress takes no action. (The Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act, HR 8, lays out the House Republican proposal for tax reform negotiations.)

One tax break set to expire at the end of the year is the temporary payroll tax reduction (reducing rates from 6.2% to 4.2%), which was put in place as part of the ARRA (Stimulus package) and extended in December 2011. (See bill report for HR 3630.)

The Farm Bill
The 2008 farm bill officially expired on Sept. 30, eliminating certain farm and dairy policies. While the Senate passed its version of the 2012 farm bill (S 3240), the House did not pass their version, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM Act, HR 6083) before they adjourned.

Sequestration
In August 2011, bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate passed the Budget Control Act, which established “Sequestration” — automatic, across-the-board cuts to federal spending to take effect on January 2, 2013 — if Congress does not act on further deficit reduction. The Sequestration requires $109 billion annually in federal spending cuts, resulting in a 9.4% reduction in defense discretionary funding and an 8.2% reduction in nondefense discretionary funding.

As far as I’m personally concerned, defense can use a serious haircut. Congress will scream and hollar about not being able to cut military spending for our troups, but believe me, there’s a lot more waste, fraud and abuse going on in the military complex that steals resources away from our troops that needs to end.

It’s time to stop maintaining things like championship golf courses on a large number of those bases as well as stop funding golf tournaments on those courses. It’s time to end the practice of high government officials and military elites being able to tee-off worldwide at taxpayer expense. They may only be spending “millions” ($15M) not “billions” with which to support their habits, but you and I know that when you’re out of work, a mere $15 can make a big difference in your life.  If the GOP is so gung-ho on privatizing things … hey, why don’t they sell those assets, apply those monies toward debt reduction, and privatize the courses.

The supply chains for the military services need some serious re-organization efforts.  Each “supply” division in each services suffers from some very serious waste, fraud and ineffectively-managed cost over-runs on contracts for goods and services.  Why do we have separate supply organizations for each service?  Why do we not have one over-arching supply division with subdivisions for each service to better take advantage of efficiencies? Why do they keep awarding contracts to suppliers who continually experience cost over-runs or time-delays, or who provide inferior products (body armor)?

It’s time to close an inordinately large number of overseas bases that were set up for “cold war” defense … well … the cold war ended under Reagan.  Why do we continue to send large amounts of taxpayer money beyond our shore to enrich private base contractors, like corruption-plagued former Halliburton subsidiary KBR?

“Why” have we never closed a huge number of overseas bases, and for “what purpose” are we still staffing and maintaining them?  Are they truly for our nation’s defense?  Or, are they merely for the protection of the interests of the multi-national corporations?  If their sole purpose is to protect the interests of the multi-national corporations, that’s another candidate for the GOP’s favorite activity: privatization.  As far as I’m concerted, they should closed and the multi-national corporations, that believe they should pay NO taxes, should pay for their own security.

Economic Rapture Might Be around the Corner

If the deficit disappears, our economic nightmare might finally come to an end.

By Salvatore Babones

It’s January 25, 2001, the first week of the Bush presidency and more than half a year before the September 11 attacks. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testifies before the Senate Budget Committee, asserting:

“If current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach $800 billion in fiscal year 2011. The emerging key fiscal policy need is to address the implications of maintaining surpluses.”

As the poet William Wordsworth put it, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive!”

The 2011 fiscal year ended with a $1.3-trillion deficit. How did America go from a state of “burgeoning federal surpluses” (in Greenspan’s words in 2001) to “extraordinary financial crisis” (the way he put it in 2010) in just one decade? Two words suffice: tax cuts.

Forget the recession and the Bush-Obama stimulus packages. Those are history.

The recession ended three years ago — at least in terms of economic growth. So why aren’t the deficits disappearing?

The problem is that taxes are just too low. Most Americans will shudder to hear those words, but it’s the truth. Taxmageddon? Bring it on.

If Congress does what Congress does best and takes no action by New Year’s Eve, both the Bush and Obama tax cuts will expire. On January 1, 2013:

• The Bush tax cuts on high-income filers will expire, returning the top marginal rate to its 1990s level of 39.6 percent.
• The alternative minimum tax will be restored for a large number of high-income filers that are currently exempt.
• Social Security employee payroll taxes will return to 6.2 percent from their current reduced level of 4.2 percent.

Other automatic mechanisms will result in spending reductions, including the elimination of extended unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployed. Long-overdue Pentagon spending cuts will also go into effect.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that these automatic tax increases and spending cuts would immediately cut the federal budget deficit in half, returning it to a manageable level.

The downside? According to the CBO, such a sudden tightening of the federal budget would reduce real economic growth from a projected 4.4 percent to just 0.5 percent in 2013.

I think we can have a lot of confidence in those projections. “Budget,” after all, is the CBO’s middle name.

But economic growth of 4.4 percent if only we keep our current low tax rates? I think CBO economists may be living the same low-tax fantasy as much of the rest of the economics profession.

Some facts: According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the last time real national income grew at a rate over 4 percent per year was in the high-tax 1990s.

The economy grew by over 4 percent a year four years in a row: 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.

That’s right. The last four times the economy grew by 4 percent were the four years before the Bush tax cuts. Go figure.

In the decade since the Bush tax cuts went into effect the highest recorded growth rate was 3.5 percent, in 2004.

Now, it just might be that roaring economic growth is right around the corner. Happy days will be here again if only Congress and President Barack Obama can take the tough actions necessary to prevent tax cuts from expiring.

Keep the candy coming and everything will work out just fine.

On the other hand, this might be the best time in history for a do-nothing Congress to deadlock over the issue and let the tax cuts expire.

It’s hard to know what direction the economy will take. But no one doubts that if the tax cuts expire, the deficit will disappear. And if the deficit disappears, our economic nightmare might finally come to an end.

Economic rapture may be just around the corner.

---

Salvatore Babones is an American sociologist at the University of Sydney and an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow. His book on the American economy, Benchmarking America, is due out in 2013. www.ips-dc.org
Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)

No More Corporate Tax Breaks

by Alan Grayson, Democratic Candidate for Congress from Florida

Yogi Berra once said: “You can see a lot by just looking.” This is what you see if you look at corporate income tax revenue, as a percentage of GNP, since World War II:

I came up with this chart myself (hold your applause, please), after downloading the data from the White House’s website, here. Corporate income tax revenue has dropped all the way down from 7.2% of GNP at the end of World War II to only 1.2% last year.

Go to a different government website, do a little arithmetic, and you’ll find that corporate profits are now 12.7% of GNP. Some division then tells you that corporations are paying less than 10% of their income in taxes.

Wow! That’s a tax rate that might make even Mitt Romney blush.

Under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporations are people. Well, it appears that they are people who pay little or nothing in taxes.
Ben Franklin said: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” For corporations, though, neither is true.

There is something of a consensus among Washington, D.C. policymakers that corporate income taxes ought to be cut. That seems to be why the Obama Administration, unbidden by the Republicans, stuck in $100 billion in corporate tax breaks (“accelerated depreciation”) into the so-called “compromise” bill that extended the Bush tax breaks for the rich through this year. (A bill that I voted against, by the way.)

That consensus is wrong. Based on this data, the notion of more corporate tax giveaways is laughable. If you care anything about the federal deficit, then corporate income tax revenues need to be higher, not lower.

If we simply returned corporate income tax revenue, as a percentage of GNP, to where it was six years ago in 2006 (2.7% of GNP), then we would reduce the federal deficit by over $200 billion a year. That is roughly fifty times the amount by which the “Buffett Rule” would reduce the deficit.

Fifty times as much.

Why isn’t this all over the newspapers, radio and TV? Why aren’t our so-called leaders saying something about this? As Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra’s manager during most of his playing days with the Yankees, once asked, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

Ryan-Romney Budget Gives Away the Store

Congressman Paul Ryan has finally endorsed Mitt Romney as his preferred candidate for president.   Yeah, like we didn’t expect that coming.  Thus, it should be no surprise that both Romney and Ryan support the same key budget tenets — massive cuts to programs critical to its economic security of middle class Americans, and ending Medicare for our nation’s seniors as we’ve known it and paid into throughout our working careers — all so they can transform our nation’s wealth into outrageous tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

There budget plans would

• Turn Medicare into a voucher program to help pay for massive tax cuts to the wealthiest.
• Turn Medicaid into a block grant program that can easily be underfunded or diverted by states for other purposes.
• Protect tax loopholes that benefit oil companies and hedge fund managers.
• Repeal Health Care Reform, re-opening the do-nut hole, re-instituting pre-existing conditions and increasing health care costs to every American by thousands of dollars for not just medical premiums and services but in increased taxes as well.
• Make arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle-class families like education, environment and clean energy.
• Provide large new tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, above and beyond any permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts
• Not balance the budget and in fact, would increase our national debt.

But beyond the deep cuts in programs, those cuts mean some serious job losses in the public sector.  That means the Republicans intend to dump more Americans into the unemployment roles and simultaneously slash the safety net that would have assisted them.

Romney has said he is on the same page as Ryan – even “applauding” Ryan’s budget – so America’s seniors and the middle class need to take note of what this budget means to and for them.  Here’s a press release from the Obama/Biden Campaign that compares the two GOP budgets.  Is that where you think American should be going?  Do those represent your priorities for America?  If not, then get of your duff and get out there and fight for our ticket!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Obama/Biden Campaign

THE RYAN-ROMNEY BUDGET PROMOTES GIVEAWAYS TO OIL COMPANIES, WALL STREET,
AND THE WEALTHIEST WHILE SENIORS AND THE MIDDLE CLASS FOOT THE BILL

“Governor Romney has said he is on the same page as Congressman Ryan, so America’s seniors and the middle class should take note of what that means for them. The Romney and Ryan budgets would turn Medicare into a voucher program, increase health care costs to seniors by thousands of dollars and make arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle class families like education and clean energy, all while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and protecting taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and hedge fund managers. And by repealing health care reform and cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid, Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan would deny coverage to approximately 50 million Americans who currently have it, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients and people with disabilities. We can’t do the same thing and expect a different result – Governor Romney has embraced a carbon copy of the policies that led to the economic crisis.” — Ben LaBolt, Press Secretary

ROMNEY-RYAN BUDGET: TAX CUTS FOR THE TOP, DEEP CUTS FOR THE MIDDLE-CLASS

The budget released today by Rep. Paul Ryan mirrors the radical policies supported by Gov. Mitt Romney: massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, privatize Medicare and deep, arbitrary cuts that hurt middle-class families.

	Ryan’s Path to Poverty	Romney Budget Plan
Mutual Admiration	“Look at what he put out! This is a great development. … This tracks perfectly with the House budget.” — Ryan on Romney’s budget,  Washington Post, 11/4/11	“When Paul Ryan put his plan out in the first place, I said it was a major advance, a big step forward, we were on the same page.”  — Romney on Ryan’s Medicare plan New York Times, 2/1/12
Privatizes Medicare	YES. Turns Medicare into a voucher program that shifts costs to seniors.	YES. Similar voucher plans make seniors pay $6,350 more a year. Charges seniors more for prescription drugs and preventive care. Increases payments to insurance companies by $100 billion and repeals other reforms, accelerating the exhaustion of the Medicare trust fund to 2016.
Breaks Bipartisan Deal on Spending	YES. Deep cuts to domestic spending would break the bipartisan agreement. Cuts would cost jobs and hurt average Americans, slashing investments in education, clean energy and scientific and medical research.	YES. Proposes similarly deep cuts to discretionary spending that would also break the bipartisan deal. Holding true to his promise to balance the budget would require deeper cuts to all domestic spending than the House plan.
Huge Tax Cuts for the Wealthy	YES. Extends all of the Bush tax cuts. Provides trillions more in tax rate cuts weighted towards the rich without specifying how to pay for them.	YES. Extends all of the Bush tax cuts. Provides $5 trillion in tax cuts weighted towards the wealthy without specifying how to pay for them.
Deep Cuts in Medicaid and Healthcare Coverage	YES. Repeals health reform and cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid over the decade. Deny coverage to up to 60 million people, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients, and people with disabilities.	YES. Repeals health reform and cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid over the decade. Deny coverage to up to 53 million people, including low-income children, pregnant women, nursing home patients, and people with disabilities.
Repeals Key Protections in Wall Street Reform	YES. Rolls back key protections in Wall Street Reform designed to prevent future financial crises and end the era of “too big to fail.”	YES. Repeals all of Wall Street Reform,  even though it creates no budget  savings.

---

End note:  Absent from the Obama/Biden press release above was the restoration of the sequestration cuts that were made to military spending which takes up, by far, the largest portion of spending in the federal budget.  It is time to put our money “where our mouth is” and stop putting money into more and more weapons of destruction and involving our Country in one armed conflict after another.  Maybe we should mandate that every Republican is required to watch that new “Bully” film.