McConnell: The White House Is Pulling for a Super Committee Failure
EmailSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY., today suggested that the White House is pulling for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the so-called Super Committee, to fail because success would step on their storyline of Republican obstructionism.
After leaving the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon, McConnell was asked about Senator Charles Schumer’s prediction yesterday that the Super Committee would likely fail to strike an agreement on a plan to cut $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years “because our Republican colleagues have said no net revenues.”
Responding today, McConnell said Schumer (D-NY), the Democrats’ primary messenger, is indicative of how Democrats and the White House want this committee to fail.
“It’s pretty clear when Chuck Schumer speaks, he’s speaking from the most partisan Democratic position,” McConnell said today. “And it does raise your suspicion that the folks down at the White House are pulling for failure. Because you see, if the Joint Committee succeeds, it steps on the story line that they’ve been peddling, which is that you can’t do anything with the Republicans in Congress.”
McConnell said the six Republicans on the 12-member committee from the House and Senate want an outcome and “do not believe failure is an option.”
The Super Committee is now just 15 days away from its deadline to reach an agreement on a proposal to cut $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next decade.
While normally he stays away from commenting on the work of the Super Committee, today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV., blasted Republicans for adhering to anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist too much.
“The difficulties we find is that in every one of these discussions, Grover Norquist seems to be in the room,” Reid said. “That’s Grover Norquist who seems to be elbowing his way into all these rooms where we’re having these meetings. It’s a shame that Grover Norquist is present in all these meetings we have…. I’m hopeful that the Republicans on the Super Committee will break away from this.”
The sticking point in the Super Committee is the partisan divide on taxes. Republicans are staunchly opposed to new tax revenues and rejected the Democratic plan recommending a $1.3 trillion increase in tax revenues as part of a $3 trillion plan that included an overhaul of the tax code.
The committee has until Thanksgiving to come to an agreement on a plan to achieve a $1.5 trillion cut to the deficit over the next decade. If they do not, the trigger options — $ 1.2 trillion in deficit savings split between Medicare and defense spending, as negotiated during the debt ceiling deal — would be enacted through a sequestration mechanism.
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Senator Reid is right about Grover Norquist. He and the ATR pledge have done more harm to this country than Osama bin Laden. America’s credit rating is going to drop to junk bond status if Norquist and the pledge signers continue to drive the Republican Party. I believe that the current Republican party’s nominees are going to be beaten so badly next year, that the Republican Party will be reborn under a new name, and that it will attract men like Ike Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Buckley, who were conservatives that knew how to govern, and that did not pander to corporate or the 1% interests. The Anti-Federalists masquerading as the Tea Party are going to disappear as well. The original Anti-Federalists lost their argument when the Constitution was drafted, as they should have. Had they been successful, America would have lost both world wars in the 20th century. And now, Iran poses a problem that is in the same order of magnitude that Hitler was in the 1930′s. And it’s going to take a strong Federal government and the resources that only tax revenue can provide to deal effectively with the danger Iran poses. The OWS movement is going to grow in importance because their message makes so much sense. The lower and middle classes are getting screwed, blued and tattooed, as we used to say in the Navy 50 years ago, as are Hispanics, and they’re all going to vote overwhelmingly against the GOP.
Think about it: Reagan couldn’t get nominated today by the GOP because he had been an active union member for years. He got fairer deals for all kinds of actors and actresses who were being screwed over by the studios; better working conditions, better pay, more job security – all the things that are anathema to today’s Republicans in power. We’re going to have a civil war without bullets, but with ballots. The country needs a reborn conservative party that meets the standards of a true Republic – one that hews to the principles that Abe Lincoln espoused when he founded the party, which are several miles away from where the GOP is today.
Posted by: Steve Hamilton | November 8, 2011, 9:52 pm 9:52 pm
Mitch McConnell represents, probably better than any other elected official, what George Washington warned about in his final address to the American people, when he warned of the “evils of Party”. I saw and heard him say, on TV, “everybody knows that higher taxes kill jobs”. Well, I was the Chief Financial Officer of several successful companies, over a 25 year period, and I don’t know it. This mindless parroting of Grover Norquist will be the death of the current Republican party. It’s a lie; I believe that none of the signers of the ATR pledge could describe a convincing cause and effect scenario that would lead anyone with half a brain to Mr. McConnell’s conclusion. At least, that’s what my 25 years in the financial trenches of several businesses taught me. These guys are pandering to the 1%, and it’s going to come back to haunt them. No-one except the historians will remember them in 20 years. And the historians will remember them for the enormous damage they have caused the country, where future generations will be paying the hundreds of billions of dollars in extra interest costs, resulting from the drop in America’s credit rating that will be caused by the tremendous uncertainty created by these ideologues, as they interfere with the effective running of the country’s business.
Posted by: Steve Hamilton | November 8, 2011, 10:09 pm 10:09 pm
Of course they are.
The GOP was crazy to let Obama pull that deal off……..he got more than he expected, by a long shot!
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 9, 2011, 12:20 am 12:20 am
I’m sorry Mitch, but you’re absolutely insane… get some help, seriously. Quit blaming the Democrats for everything you and your party is doing. I can’t believe anyone even listens to this garbage.
Posted by: Jason | November 9, 2011, 12:57 am 12:57 am
So to sum it all up, the Republicans are willing to see the military gutted by this automatic trigger becuase they don’t want to do the necessary thing of raising tax revenues. Great that’s a happy story right their…NOT! What the hell happened to the pro-military GOP party if Reagan? Reagan by the way raised taxes on the rich 11 times. They need to dump the anti-tax BS and vote to kill that stupid auto trigger too, the stupercommittee was the dumbest idea anyways.
Posted by: Zach | November 9, 2011, 11:43 am 11:43 am