Why I May Filibuster New START Many of us have been concerned that the START Treaty would weaken our national security, and recent revelations of previously undisclosed talks with Russia on missile defense and movement of Russian tactical nuclear warheads only raise more questions that must be answered. I’ve asked for the full negotiating records, as have been provided to the Senate on previous treaties, but the Obama administration has continually denied that request and promised that missile defense was never part of the negotiations with Russia. But we have now learned that the State Department did in fact meet with Russia to specifically discuss missile defense, after months of denying these discussions ever took place. With the additional news that Russia moved warheads near the borders of our NATO allies this spring — warheads that are conspicuously not covered by START — it’s time to get some straight answers and for the State Department to provide the full negotiating records. The START Treaty could severely weaken America’s ability to defend our people and our allies against missile attacks from nations like Iran, and we need all of the facts on how this treaty was agreed to. Additionally, I will use every tool available to oppose an attempt to rush the debate over the START Treaty during this lame-duck session of Congress. The newly elected Republican senators have signed a letter asking our leadership to postpone debate on START until they take office in a few weeks and have ample time to review the details. Americans didn’t vote in November to ram through the Obama administration’s wish list this December. — Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) is chairman of the Senate Steering Committee and member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
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COLLAPSE 
Pro Publica has been maintaining a list of bailout recipients, updating the amount lent versus what was repaid.
So far, 938 Recipients have had $607,822,512,238 dollars committed to them, with $553,918,968,267 disbursed. Of that $554b disbursed, less than half — $220,782,546,084 — has been returned.
Whenever you hear pronunciations of how much money the TARP is making, check back and look at this list. It shows the TARP is deeply underwater.
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Where is the Money?
Pro Publica
http://bailout.propublica.org/list
‘Young Guns’ Talk to Young Voters Washington —The House GOP’s Young Guns — Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — hosted a town-hall event at American University on Monday night. While the purpose of the campus get-together was ostensibly to promote Young Guns, the trio’s 2010 campaign manifesto, it also served as an introduction of sorts: a meet-the-coeds moment for the rising stars of the new Republican majority. As Ryan said, “I don’t think of myself as that much older than you; I’m in the X-generation and you’re in the Y-generation.” Ryan, it seemed, was the favorite of the young crowd — for good reason. In 1991, while still an undergraduate, he spent a semester at AU, taking credits while interning with the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. “It wasn’t too long ago that I was hanging around,” Ryan laughed, as he tried to recall his favorite neighborhood dive bars. “These are the bars you’ve probably never even heard of, because they’re already out of business.” But it wasn’t all banter. The crowd, over 100 strong, peppered the three lawmakers with a barrage of questions, from who really runs their Twitter accounts — each admitted to having some help — to pressing issues like tax cuts, immigration, and health care. Perhaps, since it was the evening before a huddle between GOP leaders and President Obama at the White House, the GOP congressmen struck a notably bipartisan tone in their responses, urging the students to consider their party’s policy positions. “Democrats are not our enemies, they are our adversaries; they are our adversaries in the battle of ideas,” Ryan remarked at the outset, as he outlined his fiscal concerns. “Our enemies are the people who fly our planes into buildings, who use roadside bombs against our soldiers. But in this battle of ideas, this is a very, very momentous time in this country. I mean, the future you are about to face when you graduate from here is going to be decided in the next few years. This is one of those sort-of pivotal times in this country, in our nation’s history, where the next few years will determine what America is going to be the 21st century.” “We have a debt crisis coming in this country, there are no two ways about it,” Ryan continued, to nods in the audience. “The question is: Do we get ahead of it? Do we preempt it? Do we prevent that from swallowing us, like what’s happening in Europe?” If the country does not address the debt, he warned, the United States risks mirroring Old Europe, where “you turn on the TV and you see France, young people coming onto the streets, in their teens and their twenties, throwing Molotov cocktails” to protest governmental action on entitlements. “We want to have an opportunity society,” Ryan said. Following Ryan’s impassioned words, Cantor, the incoming House majority leader, and father to two college students of his own, joked about being the graybeard of the group. “I know that many of you are facing final exams in the next couple weeks,” he said to groans. “Believe me, I get it,” he said, referencing his own children’s reluctance to return to the quad following Thanksgiving weekend. Still, he applauded the group for showing some initiative, even as tests loom. “I guess you could have taken the route that Paul did, hanging out at the bars tonight, but we’re excited that you are here.” Cantor made clear that he saw the midterms “not necessarily as an endorsement by the American people, young and old, for Republican leadership. It was, in fact, a repudiation of the direction the public has seen over the last couple years. In fact, all of us would make the case that it’s not just the last couple years that turned America off; it is probably the last decade or so.” “It is not just about Republicans being in this spot; Democrats are as well,” Cantor said. “We are all facing some very difficult choices as far as how we go about focusing this country.” Turning to the current debate about extending the Bush-era tax cuts, Cantor argued that it will directly affect the economic future of the assembled. “It is the certainty connected with the extension of existing rates which will allow small businesses and large to have the confidence they need to go about putting money to work again.” One student asked about former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who’s widely considered to be a potential 2012 presidential candidate. He asked the congressmen about whether they could support him as the GOP nominee, especially since they’re working against repealing Obamacare and he ushered in a state health-care system to the Bay State. The Romney question, unsurprisingly, made for some squirms. Keep reading this post . . . |
Before the holiday, Steve Moore and Richard Vedder had a good op-ed on why they think higher taxes won’t reduce the deficit. They write:
This is exactly the opposite of what the tax-increase lobby in Washington is preaching today. For example, Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the president’s deficit reduction commission, suggested at a briefing several months ago that there will be $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Sound familiar? Reagan used to complain that he waited his entire presidency for the $3 of spending cuts that Congress promised for every dollar of new taxes he agreed to in 1982. The cuts never came.
We’re constantly told by politicos that tax increases must be put “on the table” to get congressional Democrats—who’ve already approved close to $1 trillion of new spending in violation of their own budget rules over the last two years—to agree to make cuts in the unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Our research indicates this is a sucker play. After the 1990 and 1993 tax increases, federal spending continued to rise. The 1990 tax increase deal was enacted specifically to avoid automatic spending sequestrations that would have been required under the then-prevailing Gramm-Rudman budget rules.
As an economic matter I’m basically in their camp, though I think you can make the case that many Americans are charged too little for the amount of government they get. My solution would be less government.
But as a political matter, what would be wrong with offering the following deal: All tax hikes must be triggered by spending cuts. As I understand it, most of the tax hikes in the White House commission’s plan come from elimination of tax breaks, the actual rates would be lower. Regardless, however you define tax increase, why not say they can’t kick-in until the spending cuts have been enacted? There’s a similar argument in the immigration debate. Some folks, including me, are sympathetic to the idea of some kind of tough amnesty if it’s the last amnesty, ever. But amnesty without securing the border is a sucker’s game, as we learned in the 1980s.
Why not have liberals play the role of Reagan this time? Let’s have the spending cuts first and then, once Congress has proved its seriousness, discuss tax policy. We know we need the spending cuts no matter what. Even many liberals agree with that. Then they can complain about how they’re waiting for their promised tax hikes.
Deficit Panel Will Vote Friday on ‘Stronger’ Plan
Deficit commission co-chair Erskine Bowles echoed his former boss in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, declaring: “The era of deficit denial in Washington is over.”
Bowles and his fellow co-chair, former senator Alan Simpson, praised the commission’s hard work and announced that the final report will meet its Dec. 1 deadline. Commission members will receive copies of the plan later this evening before it is released to the public tomorrow morning. In order to give members time to review the plan, the co-chairs said they will wait until Friday to vote on it. “We’ll meet tomorrow, we’ll discuss the plan, and we’ll ask for their decisions by Friday,” Bowles said. “Some will indicate tomorrow where they stand.”
The plan needs the backing of at least 14 of the commission’s 18 members in order to be considered for congressional approval. Bowles said that while he couldn’t predict how many members would support the final plan, he was confident the commission’s work had been a success. “Al and I couldn’t be happier with where we are in the process,” he said. “Regardless of how the vote turns out, I think we’ve won and we’ve won big.”
Bowles said the final plan was better than their initial recommendations, or chairman’s mark, released Nov. 10. “The plan we submit tomorrow…it’s not going be some watered down version of the chairman’s mark, that I can guarantee you,” Bowles said. “We have met with and listened to every single member of this commission and we think they have made this plan stronger.”
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truth
12/02/10 18:07
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Something is very wrong with the State Dept. and the obama administration when the full details of this Start Treaty are not open and transparent to ALL elected members of the Congress. We have TWO parties, not one. This is a Constitutional Republic, not a DICTATORSHIP. The fact that there are lies and evasions by our govt. to Congressional elected members is a major problem. Congressional members earn at least 174,000 per year to legislate-- to write, read, debate, and vote on bills that they understand fully--. Their job is not to OUTSOURCE their job to left wing groups such as the apollo alliance or others to write the bills for them, some 2300 pages that even the democrats do not read, but vote on blindly like dumb robots. How dare they outsource their jobs of legislating-- of writing the bills, how dare they not read them? Look at the unintended consequences of obamacare, all the lies that members were told--would not increase costs, could keep our own doctors, etc. and even the democrats did not read the bill but blindly voted for it, like dumb robots. How dare they! This is a Constitutional Republic, not a DICTATORSHIP. All 100 Senators, and 435 members of the House of Representatives should be involved in all the bills, not just blindly voting on them. The administration and the State Dept. better not be lying to Congress or the American people. Congress should be outraged and fight for the legislative branch not to be usurped or bypassed or ignored or consumed by the executive. Where is the outrage that the EPA, the FCC, Energy, and other depts. basically doing their own thing, making their own "laws", ignoring the will of the majority of the American people??? Ignoring Congress??? Do we not have 3 equal branches of the govt. any longer?
B Anthony
12/02/10 17:47
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I think the fact that the State Dept. and the Obama Administration have not been forthcoming to all members of Congress and the American people about all the particulars concerning the details is a major reason to filibuster. How can the govt. lie and mislead Congress- all members. Too many bills have been voted on without any reading of those bills, even by democrats! How dare anyone vote on any bill without knowing fully all of the details of the bill. These people are paid 174.000 per year and they do not read the bills. The legislative branch is not even writing the bills, other left wing groups are and the members are required to vote yes without any discussion, debate, knowledge or questions???
What is going on?? Dictatorship? There are 100 Senators, and 475 Congressional members... They ARE PAID by the American people to do the job of writing,reading, debating, and voting on bills--not outsourcing their jobs to other groups and then voting blindly without knowledge, just like the obamacare bill. Look at all the unintended consequences of that bill, costs skyrocketing, employers getting waivers or dropping coverage, and members of Congress not even reading that bill before voting on it. Shame on all of them!! How dare they. They get paid alot of money and benefits to do their jobs and they have failed.. All members deserve to know what is in the bills, not just democrats. Heck, most democrats don't even know what is in their bills. They are all dumb robots. Can we get some real leaders in our Congress!!!
Wildhorses
12/02/10 16:51
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If this is such a win-win, why not let Demint and others see the document and the process leading up to it? After all, doesn't the Senate have a constitutional role in international treaties?
ColdWarrior
12/02/10 16:40
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I know that Kissinger, Schultz, Baker and Colin Powell endorse the treaty: External Link
. On the other hand, Richard Perle and Edwin Meese seem to think President Reagan would not have endorsed it. No matter how well they knew him, Meese and Perle are engaging in speculation, while Kissinger et al. are simply expressing their support for what they see as a win-win for the United States, Russia, and the world. If I can be confident that missile defense will be advanced and not affected by this treaty--and I am satisfied by the confidence exhibited by these former secretaries of state--then I would have to urge Senator Demint to endorse it as well.
LibertyMark
12/02/10 16:38
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@Conan776 - So what? Now Russia is our buddy? Didn't they just sell missile defense components to Iran? Wake up and smell the threat
@RiotLibrarian - "He should be honest..." Did you READ the piece?
@Polo Bear - What you get for reading the Constitution! FDR abrogated this Article II Section 2 a loongggg time ago, and the Senate has been looking the other way ever since! Do your own googling, you will be appalled.
Get real, folks, the Lame Duck Congress has one job and one job only right now: Extend the Bush tax cuts (really, prevent the Obama Tax Increases). that's it!
Everything else should be left until after the 112th Congress is sworn in. The people have spoken and repudiated this Congress.
TommyJeff
12/02/10 16:30
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Quick tip for a sitting Senator: Know how to do your job.
You cannot filibuster a treaty - read Senate rule 30.
Recently elected senators have no legislative rights until January 3rd - read the U.S. Constitution, Amendment 20.
Andrew
12/02/10 16:23
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Yeah, Riot, the military also "strongly and almost unanimously" opposed the Iraq surge. How'd that work out for them?
ColdWarrior
12/02/10 16:22
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Sure Conan776, the Cold War did end twenty years ago, but it's still an extremely dangerous world full of many nukes that aren't American. Our nuclear arsenal is considerably smaller than during the Cold War; it's about one-quarter the size of our nuke arsenal at the end of the Cold War. The thing is, if we're going to reduce our nuclear arsenal further, we'd better make sure we get something CONCRETE in return for it. Only lunacy would dictate unilateral reduction when the Russians and the Chinese are still armed to the teeth.
12/02/10 16:11
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"why I MAY filibuster..."
Such resolve.
Conan776
12/02/10 16:06
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C'mon, Senator. The Cold War ended 20 years ago. Can't we please reduce our massive nuclear arsenal and reap a peace dividend yet?
RiotLibrarian
12/02/10 16:03
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He should be honest and admit that this is about denying Obama a victory, and has nothing to do with national security. The military has come out strongly and almost unanimously for this treaty, and Republicans are treating the military brass with absolute derision on this matter.
Sorry, I trust the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all of the heads of U.S nuclear programs for opinions on nuclear policy before I trust that of a market researcher.
Polo Bear
12/02/10 15:58
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Why the need for a Filibuster? I may be wrong here, but i thought Treaties required 2/3 of the Senate to be ratified, which by my math would be more than the 60 required to break a Filibuster.
I have to admit, math has never been a strong suit.
LauraLHollis
12/02/10 15:56
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Why ask the State Department for the negotiation records? Can't you just get them from Julian Assange?