A Deranged Eric Cantor Takes The House Republicans To The Movies: "We're Going To Hurt Some People"

Florida psychopath, Allen West, overcome with adrenalin, jumped up and offered to drive the car

Tuesday evening DC was buzzing that Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy played a short clip from the Ben Affleck film The Town to try to rally support for Boehner's widely-- bipartisanly-- panned debt plan. Watch it... it's a prelude to the characters donning hockey masks bludgeoning two men with hockey sticks and then shooting one. That's the Republican austerity plan they're trying to shove down the nation's throat while holding the full faith and credit of the U.S. government-- and the economy itself-- hostage. White House Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer tweeted about it:


But Boehner limped back to his office to cut more out of Medicare benefits-- I guess that's what they meant by hurting someone... it was granny-- after dozens of Republicans, fearful of the huffing and puffing Tea Party coalition that runs the show over there now, said they wouldn't vote for it. Short of abolishing Medicare, Social Security and the whole social safety net, extremist sociopaths like Bachmann and Broun are never going to vote for anything that solves any problems. But it's just a matter of how many more Republicans can be cajoled into voting for something by taking away a few billion from society's most vulnerable here and a few billion there.

While Boehner and Cantor and their crackpot caucus was going through their messy little passion play, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was expressing a very different perspective on the same topic:

I was very relieved to hear the president make the crucial distinction between wasteful spending and expensive tax giveaways on the one hand and Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the other. He got it exactly right when he said, "Most Americans, regardless of political party, don’t understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don’t get. How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don’t need and didn’t ask for?" As a responsible government, we cannot and must not pass the buck to working families and retirees who are already struggling, and I thank the president for saying so.

I’m encouraged by the fact that Sen. Harry Reid’s budget plan completely preserves Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I remain concerned about what his proposed $2.7 trillion in cuts would mean to working families and retirees, but am heartened by his unwavering support for these three crucial programs. Speaker Boehner’s proposal, in contrast, has rightly faced criticism from all political angles and stands no chance of passage. He wants to eliminate $1.8 trillion in program and assistance funding-- almost certainly including steep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – without a dime of new revenue, from billionaires or anyone else. His plan treats the national budget as back-of-the-envelope arithmetic rather than an economic engine for this country. The American people will not be sorry to see it fail.

I and many of my House Democratic colleagues have made our position very clear: we will not support any reduction in Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits or eligibility. Our constituents sent us to Washington to work for their interests first and foremost. They did not send us here to force a default crisis or make ideological demands at the nation’s expense. Speaker Boehner should be asked why his plan mortgages his constituents’ futures so CEOs and multi-millionaires don’t have to pay another cent to help our economic recovery.

So far 80 Democrats have signed onto the letter Grijalva and Keith Ellison wrote-- Reps. Baca, Karen Bass, Bordallo, Brown, Carson, Christiansen, Chu, Yvette Clarke, Hansen Clarke, Clay, Cleaver, Cohen, Conyers, Critz, Cummings, Danny Davis, DeFazio, DeLauro, Deutch, Doggett, Edwards, Farr, Fattah, Filner, Frank, Fudge, Garamendi, Al Green, Gutierrez, Hahn, Hinchey, Hirono, Holmes Norton, Holt, Jesse Jackson Jr., Sheila Jackson Lee, Hank Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Kaptur, Kildee, Kucinich, Barbara Lee, John Lewis, Lofgren, Lynch, Maloney, Markey, McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, Moore, Nadler, Napolitano, Olver, Pallone, Payne, Pingree, Rangel, Reyes, Richardson, Richmond, Rothman, Roybal-Allard, Tim Ryan, Sablan, Schakowsky, Serrano, Stark, Sutton, Bennie Thompson, Tierney, Tonko, Towns, Waters, Waxman, Frederica Wilson, Woolsey, and Wu. One Member, John Garamendi (D-CA) issued a statement that encompasses what more and more Democrats are talking about:

If Congressional Republicans insist on gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and student aid as an absolutist precondition to raising the debt limit, then I encourage the President to simply pursue the Constitutional option failsafe already available to him.


The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States […] shall not be questioned.’ Let’s stop questioning it then. A functional country always pays its debts, and the Constitution mandates it. The President is obligated to uphold the Constitution.

I’m all for genuinely faithful negotiations, but that’s not what is happening here. I don’t take kindly to hostage taking-- especially when the hostages are the full faith and credit of the United States and every American who hopes to retire with dignity.

My preferred solution is a balanced compromise that includes smart revenues and targeted cuts, but with the radical fringe of the Republican Party now firmly in control, this option is fading by the day. Their zeal is putting our country on a path toward reckless default for no good reason, potentially precipitating a recession, hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, and hyperinflation. It’s very difficult to negotiate with glassy-eyed ideologues that came to Congress with a pledge to create a United States government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I do not believe it is reasonable to expect Democrats in Congress to vote for tens of billions of dollars in cuts from the foundational social services that prevent millions of seniors from falling into absolute destitution in exchange for a deal. This should be a routine vote to stop an easily preventable manufactured financial crisis. I’m willing to have a debate with Congressional Republicans on destroying or preserving the institutions that have created America’s middle class but not under the shadow of a looming politician-made catastrophe.

By the way, when told Cantor and McCarthy had shown his film to get the teabaggers whipped up into a frenzy, Ben Affleck suggested the rightists use a more appropriate film next time they have to whip votes to benefit their wealthy patrons. "If they're going to be watching movies, I think "The Company Men" is more appropriate," said Affleck, referring to a tragic movie that focuses on the plight of middle age men who have been laid off during the recession.