The Republican Congressional Election Platform Is Now Set In Cement

And it's simple: wage a war on women while destroying Medicare and drastically reducing social services in order to spend billions subsidizing the wealthy Oil and Gas companies that finance the political careers of conservative politicians. And it all came together Thursday when Boehner blundered into one albatross-like vote that will hang around GOP necks from now 'til November, the Ryan Budget, and then Harry Reid made the Republicans go on the record in favor of subsidies for Big Oil. Let look at the votes first.

Senate was simple. S.2204 was meant to repeal big oil tax subsidies. The Republicans filibustered it and when Reid called for a cloture vote he got a majority but not the 60 he needed. It failed 51-47, the only Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats, Mainers Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. (I hope Massachusetts voters are paying attention to who's being paid off by Big Oil. We'll get to that in a moment.) 4 oily Democrats-- Mark Begich (AK), Mary Landrieu (LA), Ben Nelson (NE), and Jim Webb (VA)-- crossed in the other direction and voted with the GOP and Big Oil Interests. These are Big Oil's 10 most heavily bribed senators in the current election cycle:


And career-long the ten still serving senators who accepted the most bribery from Big Oil and Gas:

John McCain (R-AZ)- $2,870,491
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)- $2,223,271
John Cornyn (R-TX)- $1,877,550
James Inhofe (R-OK)- $1,367,523
Miss McConnell (R-KY)- $1,154,011
David Vitter (R-LA)- $1,018,685
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)- $891,574
Roy Blunt (R-MO)- $760,598
John Thune (R-SD)- $649,462
Tom Coburn (R-OK)- $552,163

They give to both parties, but not in a balanced way. And the Democrats who are in on the take are overwhelmingly extremely corrupt conservatives. This has been the Big Oil bribery budget so far this cycle:


And this what they've doled out since 1990:


Now truck over to the House and you'll see a similarly unbalanced vote. All but 10 Republicans voted for Ryan's insane and destructive new budget. Not one Democrat voted for it. It passed 228-191. Three hours earlier the House voted on the Progressive Caucus' Budget For All. The corporate shills who are on the Big Business payroll-- from both parties-- fled from this one. There were only 78 affirmative votes. All 239 Republicans and 107 Democratic Party corporate whores voted against it. (And for those in Michigan trying to decide in the incumbent vs incumbent race between Hansen Clarke and Gary Peters, Clarke voted for working families and Peters, alas, voted for Big Business.) Strange reaction in light of a new study that evaluates the job creation measures of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Budget for All compared to the Republican budget. Their conclusions: the Republican Budget would destroy 4.1 million jobs in 2 years, while the Budget for All would create 3.3 million jobs.

Now let's take a look at what these votes mean. Senate vote for Oil subsidies first. President Obama, just before the vote:

Today, members of Congress have a simple choice to make: They can stand with the big oil companies, or they can stand with the American people. 
 
Right now, the biggest oil companies are raking in record profit –- profits that go up every time folks pull up into a gas station. But on top of these record profits, oil companies are also getting billions a year-- billions a year in taxpayer subsidies-– a subsidy that they’ve enjoyed year after year for the last century.
 
Think about that. It’s like hitting the American people twice. You’re already paying a premium at the pump right now. And on top of that, Congress, up until this point, has thought it was a good idea to send billions of dollars more in tax dollars to the oil industry.
 
It’s not as if these companies can’t stand on their own. Last year, the three biggest U.S. oil companies took home more than $80 billion in profits. Exxon pocketed nearly $4.7 million every hour. And when the price of oil goes up, prices at the pump go up, and so do these companies’ profits. In fact, one analysis shows that every time gas goes up by a penny, these companies usually pocket another $200 million in quarterly profits. Meanwhile, these companies pay a lower tax rate than most other companies on their investments, partly because we’re giving them billions in tax giveaways every year.
 
Now, I want to make clear, we all know that drilling for oil has to be a key part of our overall energy strategy. We want U.S. oil companies to be doing well. We want them to succeed. That’s why under my administration, we’ve opened up millions of acres of federal lands and waters to oil and gas production. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some. And just yesterday, we announced the next step for potential new oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic.
 
So the fact is, we’re producing more oil right now than we have in eight years, and we’re importing less of it as well. For two years in a row, America has bought less oil from other countries than we produce here at home-– for the first time in over a decade. 
 
So American oil is booming. The oil industry is doing just fine. With record profits and rising production, I’m not worried about the big oil companies. With high oil prices around the world, they’ve got more than enough incentive to produce even more oil. That’s why I think it’s time they got by without more help from taxpayers who are already having a tough enough time paying the bills and filling up their gas tank. And I think it’s curious that some folks in Congress, who are the first to belittle investments in new sources of energy, are the ones that are fighting the hardest to maintain these giveaways for the oil companies.
 
Instead of taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s never been more profitable, we should be using that money to double-down on investments in clean energy technologies that have never been more promising-- investments in wind power and solar power and biofuels; investments in fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and energy-efficient homes and buildings. That’s the future. That’s the only way we're going to break this cycle of high gas prices that happen year after year after year. As the economy is growing, the only time you start seeing lower gas prices is when the economy is doing badly. That’s not the kind of pattern that we want to be in. We want the economy doing well, and people to be able to afford their energy costs.
 
And keep in mind, we can’t just drill our way out of this problem. As I said, oil production here in the United States is doing very well, and it's been doing well even as gas prices are going up. Well, the reason is because we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil but we only have 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. And that means we could drill every drop of American oil tomorrow but we’d still have to buy oil from other countries to make up the difference. We’d still have to depend on other countries to meet our energy needs. And because it’s a world market, the fact that we’re doing more here in the United States doesn’t necessarily help us because even U.S. oil companies they’re selling that oil on a worldwide market. They’re not keeping it just for us. And that means that if there’s rising demand around the world then the prices are going to up.
 
That’s not the future that I want for America. I don’t want folks like these back here and the folks in front of me to have to pay more at the pump every time that there’s some unrest in the Middle East and oil speculators get nervous about whether there’s going to be enough supply. I don’t want our kids to be held hostage to events on the other side of the world. 
 
I want us to control our own destiny. I want us to forge our own future. And that’s why, as long as I’m President, America is going to pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy, which means we will continue developing our oil and gas resources in a robust and responsible way. But it also means that we’re going to keep developing more advanced homegrown biofuels, the kinds that are already powering truck fleets across America. 
 
We’re going to keep investing in clean energy like the wind power and solar power that’s already lighting thousands of homes and creating thousands of jobs. We’re going to keep manufacturing more cars and trucks to get more miles to the gallon so that you can fill up once every two weeks instead of every week. We’re going to keep building more homes and businesses that waste less energy so that you’re in charge of your own energy bills. 
 
We’re going to do all of this by harnessing our most inexhaustible resource: American ingenuity and American imagination. That’s what we need to keep going. That’s what’s at stake right now.  That’s the choice that we face. And that’s the choice that’s facing Congress today. They can either vote to spend billions of dollars more in oil subsidies that keep us trapped in the past, or they can vote to end these taxpayer subsidies that aren’t needed to boost oil production so that we can invest in the future. It’s that simple. 
 
And as long as I’m President, I’m betting on the future. And as the people I’ve talked to around the country, including the people who are behind me here today, they put their faith in the future as well. That’s what we do as Americans. That’s who we are. We innovate. We discover. We seek new solutions to some of our biggest challenges. And, ultimately, because we stick with it, we succeed.  And I believe that we’re going to do that again. Today, the American people are going to be watching Congress to see if they have that same faith.

And Americans who were watching saw the crassest form of political corruption in action. We watchged out senators-- or at least our corrupt conservative senators, the ones who are bought-and-paid-for shills of big oil-- refuse to eliminate $24 billion annually in uneeded tax subsidies to the 5 biggest oil giants, companies that made $137 billion in profits in 2011-- up 75% in the last year. Cool chart by Think Progress, huh?


In the House there's as much corruption per square inch as there is in the Senate; it's just mixed in with more parochial and degenerate insanity of an explosive sociopathic nature. Ryan's budget is sheer madness. If this toxic proposal ever did become law-- impossible that it would ever get by the Senate let alone be signed by the President-- it would be catastrophic for older Americans, for working class families, for students, all of whom are sacrificed on an alter of cutting another quarter million dollars off the taxes of the multimillionaires who already pay far, far, far too little in taxes. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) couldn't have been surprised but he was still pissed off when he spoke against Ryan's nonsense of the House floor Thursday:

“Last year, the Republicans moved a slash-and-burn budget proposal that would have eliminated Medicare and substituted for it a private voucher system, and would have implemented devastating cuts to Medicaid, education programs, medical research, and transportation, among other things. You name it, they wanted to devastate it.

“Now we turn to this year’s Republican budget proposal and, as one famous New Yorker would say: It’s déjà vu all over again.

“First, the Republican budget calls for a staggering $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations over 10 years. They claim to pay for this giveaway by closing unspecified tax loopholes. But this is a fraud. For loophole closing of this magnitude, the Republicans would have to get rid of all the tax breaks the middle class depends on-- ‘loopholes’ like the mortgage interest deduction, tax exclusions for employer-sponsored health insurance, and charitable donations. This won’t happen-- which is why the Republicans won’t name any of their ‘loophole-closings.’

“So this would make the budget deficit $10 trillion larger-- which is why they do not anticipate balancing the budget until 2040.  But they make devastating spending cuts-- not to balance the budget, but to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy. What priorities!

“The Republican budget seeks even deeper spending cuts than last year’s proposal. It proposes $5.3 trillion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts-- $1.2 trillion (22%) beyond the cuts agreed to in last year’s Debt Ceiling deal. More than 60% of these cuts would come on the backs of middle- and low-income families.

“For example, the Republican budget would slash $860 billion (34%) from the Medicaid program while turning it into an unguaranteed block grant. These severe cuts would shift the cost burden to the states, who would have to decide between investing even more of their own money, cutting benefits, shifting the cost onto beneficiaries, doctors, and hospitals, throwing people out of the program, or all of these. The Urban Institute estimated that the Republican plan would result in between 14 and 27 million people being dropped from Medicaid by 2021.

“Additionally, the Ryan budget would reduce food stamps by $134 billion, knocking 8 to 10 million people from the program and leaving them to go hungry. WIC, which provides nutritional assistance to women and children, would also be cut, taking food out of the mouths of 700,000 pregnant women, new moms and their kids. Over the next decade, nearly two million women and children would be left without access to critical food. What kind of cruel and heartless country do the Republicans want us to live in?

“Seniors on Medicare don’t fare much better. First, Republicans would raise the eligibility age to 67, leaving seniors aged 65 and 66 out in the cold. They would force seniors to go it alone in negotiating with private insurance companies for coverage. Seniors would receive vouchers to offset the cost of private insurance-- vouchers whose value would increase much more slowly than the cost of buying medical insurance. CBO estimates that within ten years seniors would have to pay $6,000 more out of pocket for medical care annually. All this, mind you, while promising to do away with all of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, like medical ratio requirements, which actually help to stem the cost of private insurance.

“Don’t look to the Republican plan for investments in infrastructure, medical research, or education-- primary or collegiate, for students or for teachers-- because they are not there.
 
“And the Republican budget would greatly increase unemployment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Republican spending cuts would result in the loss of 1.3 million jobs next year and an additional 2.8 million jobs the year after that. That’s 4.1 million jobs lost in just two years, thereby eviscerating all the jobs added to the economy in the last 23 months and then some.
     
“Mr. Speaker, the sheer gravity of the cuts proposed by the Republican budget is staggering and disastrous.  While no budget it perfect, any of the Democratic proposals under consideration today is head and shoulders better for America, and for Americans, than the Ryan Budget Against America: Part Two.

“While we may disagree on how to continue to support and grow our economy, let’s stop using the working poor, the middle-class, women, kids, and seniors as pawns. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Ryan budget.”

228 of his crazy colleagues ignored his urgings. And the White House statement after the vote wasn't any more gentle about this kind of hateful, selfish behavior by the Republicans.

House Republicans today banded together to shower millionaires and billionaires with a massive tax cut paid for by ending Medicare as we know it and making extremely deep cuts to critical programs needed to create jobs and strengthen the middle class. The Ryan Republican budget would give every millionaire an average tax cut of at least $150,000, while preserving taxpayer giveaways to oil companies and breaks for Wall Street hedge fund managers.
 
Today’s vote stands as another example of the Republican establishment grasping onto the same failed economic policies that stacked the deck against the middle class and created the worst financial crisis in decades. If the Ryan Republican budget is made a reality and the radical discretionary cuts fall across the board, by 2014, more than nine million students would see their Pell Grants fall by as much as $1100, and about 900,000 would lose their grants altogether. Clean energy programs would be cut nearly 20 percent, Head Start would offer 200,000 fewer slots per year, and critical medical research and science programs would see drastic cuts. 
 
The President has put forward a balanced plan that would reduce our deficit by over $4 trillion by asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share, enacting responsible spending cuts and achieving significant health savings while still investing in the programs we need to grow our economy and bring economic security back to the middle class and seniors. Any serious attempt at tackling our deficits must be balanced, fair and demand shared responsibility. The Ryan Republican budget clearly fails that test.

   
Ryan's rival for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, progressive Democrat Rob Zerban, is exploiting the growing anger in Wisconsin with the class war Republicans-- and Ryan in particular-- are waging against ordinary working families. "Ryan’s budget," he said just before the vote, "does nothing except destroy programs that Americans of all ages depend upon. It ends Medicare as we know it, turning the program into a voucher system designed to benefit only the insurance companies who cherry pick which seniors to cover. It reduces Pell Grants for struggling students to a distant memory and purposely makes a college education more difficult to attain. And it reduces benefits for our brave veterans to an unacceptable level, in the ultimate slap in the face to everyone who has served our nation in uniform... cutting funding by $11 billion. It is appalling to me... Our veterans deserve better!"

And Rob isn't the only congressional candidate concerned that Ryan's budget is devastating to veterans. Here's in California, in a southern California district chock full of veterans-- whose concerns are largely ignored by incumbent Buck McKeon anyway, Dr. Lee Rogers studied the Ryan budget carefully. "We already know," he told me this morning, "how much Medicare beneficiaries will suffer under the Ryan budget plan, but there's another group that's going to take it square on the chin... our veterans! The GOP budget cuts $11 billion from veterans spending which is about 13% less than what President Obama requested. When our troops take off our nations uniform for the last time, our obligations to them don't end, they become renewed. We have 45,000 veterans who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan that will need care here at home in our VA system. My opponent, Rep. Howard 'Buck' McKeon, has come out fully supporting the Ryan budget plan because it increases defense spending. Now that's a lack of commitment to the sacrifices our brave men and women have made. McKeon and Ryan's plan: Increase defense spending to support more wars, but as soon as the troops come home, forget about them."

Next door to Rob Zerban's Wisconsin 1st district, in the 2nd CD, state Rep. Mark Pocan seemed to be wishing he was running against Ryan too. "Ryan's so called Path to Prosperity manages to ask less of the wealthiest Americans while leading this Country's seniors and middle class families down a deeper hole of financial insecurity. It's astounding that Republican leadership wants to give the average millionaire a $150,000 tax break and ask our seniors to pay for it with measures like re-opening the prescription drug coverage donut hole. This budget means literally billions more in costs for seniors and trillions less in taxes for the extremely wealthy. How can they expect Americans to unite to get through tough times with a plan that treats them so differently?" 

Ann Kuster, who's running against one of Ryan's cronies over in New Hampshire, corporate shill Charlie Bass, put the GOP actions in the Senate and the House together and rallied her supporters with a clear explanation of what the Republicans are up to:

“Rather than stand with the thousands of New Hampshire voters who have called on Congressman Bass to stand up for Medicare and vote against this budget, Rep. Bass sent an unmistakable message that he will protect millionaires over Medicare at every instance. Bass’ priorities are no longer the priorities of this district: asking seniors to pay more for their health care, while giving additional tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and to Big Oil companies who are taking in record profits. I pledge to fight for Medicare and to cut spending the right way, not balance the budget on the backs of seniors and the middle class.”

And, despite Ryan's budget and the hateful GOP talking points repeated ad nauseum on corporate media and Hate Talk Radio, women are not an interest group. Here's President Obama's message to Planned Parenthood: