The World Seems To Be Collapsing Around Paul Ryan's Ears

The Ryan/Trump tax plan (short version): over the long run, it raises taxes on the entire middle class while repealing health coverage for around 13 million people, all to give corporations and the 1% gargantuan tax cuts. No one should have expected anything else from these two serial liars. Keep in mind that an NBC/WSJ poll in September found that 55% of Americans said they that taxes on corporations should be increased and only 16% favored decreasing them. It's a shame Democrats can't promote that as a motivation for getting people to go to the polls and voting. Oh, right... that could endanger Blue Dogs, New Dems and other corrupt conservative Democrats favored by the DCCC and the part's DC establishment.

Yesterday, several endangered Republicans-- Darrell Issa (CA), Chris Smith (NJ), Leonard Lance (NJ), Elise Stefanik (NY), Peter King (NY), Dan Donovan (NY), Lee Zeldin (NY)... a few others-- announced they're voting against the Trump/Ryan tax bill that cuts taxes on billionaires at the expense of the middle and working class. The American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Federation of American Hospitalsand several other nonpartisan groups sent Congress a letter panning it for seeking to repeal the individual mandate. The AARP is also telling it's members that the bill is not friendly to seniors (and future seniors). And the CBO response to the House Democrats made it clear that Ryan's bill raises deficits for $1.5 trillion through 2027, and leads to $25 billion in IMMEDIATE Medicare cuts. Bernie:

"If this legislation is passed, it would trigger automatic cuts to Medicare totaling more than $400 billion over the next decade and unconscionable cuts to affordable housing, nutrition programs, education and other vitally important programs. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it is absurd to provide tax breaks to billionaires while cutting programs for the elderly, children, the sick and the poor."

And yesterday, Bernie used the opportunity to remind his supporters who's responsible for this outrage and how to do something about it:

"At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, there is no single member of Congress who does more to hurt the working people than Speaker Paul Ryan. Right now he is fighting to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the one percent, while throwing tens of millions of people off their health care, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, education, nutrition, affordable housing, and other desperately needed programs.

“Randy Bryce, on the other hand, has literally helped build his community with his own hands. He knows what it means to struggle and he knows what it feels like to work harder and harder while having less and less to show for it. Randy Bryce is building a strong grassroots campaign, and I am committed to helping him beat Paul Ryan. He has my full support."

Closer to home-- in Maine-- Bernie will soon be hearing about how Rep. Bruce Poliquin ran in the other direction from the handful of Republicans trying to defend their constituents. Yesterday, Poliquin, a multimillionaire himself, who will benefit tremendously from the Ryan/Trump plan, announced he's voting for the tax cuts for the super rich, despite being aware it's not what his constituents want. The strongest of half a dozen Poliquin opponents, Jared Golden, said that "Economic inequality is on the rise in this country and this tax plan will only make it worse... "a fiscally irresponsibles giant tax giveaway to millionaires, billionaires and corporate shareholders." In the district (ME-02) where Poliquin and Golden will fight it out next November, Bernie and his message of change beat Hillary and her status quo message in a 2 to 1 rout. In fact, Bernie beat her in every single county in Maine's second district.

And Maine is hardly the only place this core conflict is going to destroy the Republican Party in 2018. Right across the country in Orange County, Sam Jammal is taking on Ryan rubber stamp Ed Royce (CA-39). "This week the House of Representatives will vote on an extreme tax bill that will increase taxes on the middle class in order to benefit millionaires, and Ed Royce is set to vote YES," wrote Sam to his supporters. "This is not a tax plan, but a tax scam. In our district alone, families stand to lose an average $15,575 in state and local tax deductions and 71% of households will be impacted by caps on mortgage deductions.

In addition, the same 71% of homeowners who experience devastating natural disasters, such as the recent canyon fires, will no longer be able to deduct their losses thanks to the new tax plan.

From teachers who wish to invest in their classrooms and students, to recent college graduates who are faced with student loan debt, the middle class relies on these deductions that are now under attack. If Republicans like Ed Royce cannot stand up for families in our community, then he should step down."

Yesterday the CBO report-- with the report of $136 billion in mandatory spending cuts in 2018 and $1.5 trillion in deficits-- moved across Capitol Hill like a wildfire. One top Republican Senate staffer, drunk on his ass before 6pm told me that this "mess" proves what "the Democrats keep saying about us, that we're an opposition party, not a governing party... They're right... By letting Trump into our party-- you know damn well he's a Democrat-- we ruined the whole thing. We're going to lose the House next year; Ryan's either going to retire or be beaten by that construction worker... Who ever though we could lose the Senate in 2018. It's impossible, right? I think we're going to lose it and that sleaze Schumer will take over from Mitch... I'm drunk and I'm sick. If Moore gets elected I'm quitting." Then he sent me this and claimed credit for it.

Poor guy! I didn't even realize he was an alcoholic until today and I've known him for the better part of a decade.

Will Republicans Lose The House Because Of What They're Passing Or Because They're Bogged Down In Internal Conflict?

A couple of months ago AARP ran TV ads warning of the dangerous to seniors inherent in TrumpCare. Now, they're about to spend over a million dollars to run more ads, this time targeting key Republican senators-- the 5 they ran ads against in May-- Jeff Flake (AZ), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Dan Sullivan (AK), Cory Gardner (CO) and Dean Heller (NV)-- plus 6 more: Chuck Grassley (IA), Joni Ernst (IA), Rob Portman (OH), Lamar Alexander (TN), Bob Corker (TN) and Shelley Moore Capito (WV). They're especially incensed over the age tax-- a provision put in the bill by Freedom Caucus chief Mark Meadows (R-NC) that allows insurers to charge seniors five times more than younger people.

AARP also has been making the case that TrumpCare undermines protections for people with pre-existing conditions and weakens both Medicare and Medicaid.

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dean Heller (R-NV) are two of the only endangered Senate Republicans for 2018. Tuesday, Flake's Arizona colleague (and ally), John McCain told executives at a Wall Street Journal event that the Republicans aren't getting much done and are at risk of losing the House. He's right about them being at risk of losing the House but it has more to do with what they have gotten done-- and threaten to get down-- than with their failures for moving much of Trump's or Ryan's toxic agendas. This ad is going to be playing in the Phoenix and Tucson media markets until the Senate votes on TrumpCare. It's probably not what Flake is looking to see in his senior-heavy state so close to his reelection campaign.



But back to McCain's point about the House Republicans being unable to get much done, Rachel Bade did some reporting this week for Politico on how internal GOP feuding is threatening the passage of a budget. The problems stems, at least in part, from the inability of Tennessee crackpot Diane Black, chair of the Budget Committee, to run a committee. Everything she does is in the service of the extremists in the Freedom Caucus and mainstream conservatives are left wondering what's in the third ring of the circus.

The Republicans seem deadlocked and "bickering over priorities and spending levels have all but ground the process to a halt." One of the nuts on the committee, Arkansas right-winger Steve Womack complained that "It’s a lot of divisive issues within the committee-- which is also a reflection of the conference-- that has dogged us for a long time… There is absolutely no clarity into what we’re doing." This feeds into the feeling that the Republicans are not a governing party but a natural opposition party. They can't get anything done because they are so factionalized and their constituencies are so widely divergent, with bizarre, brain dead extremists sending people like Louie Gohmert and Diane Black to Congress and then relatively normal people electing more mainstream conservatives in states like California, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington and Florida.

Bade wrote that "the feud pits defense hawks demanding more money for the Pentagon against appropriators unwilling to offset such increases with what they deem unrealistic cuts to non-defense programs like housing or transportation. And while many Republicans are already calling on leaders to negotiate with Democrats and raise spending caps put in place years ago, conservatives want to go the opposite direction and take an ax to welfare programs."

One of the most senior Republicans on the Budget Committee, Tom Cole (R-OK) explained that they "still have the same divisions as the conference has: we still have defense hawks, we still have budget hawks… and we still have humble appropriators. So those debates haven’t been fought out."

With all parties showing an unwillingness to cave, a darker mood has settled over the conference. Republicans railed for years about the importance of budgeting and fiscal responsibility. But now in control of Washington's key levers, their inability to pass a budget represents a huge embarrassment.

“Right now, a budget cannot pass in the House of Representatives,” said Freedom Caucus ringleader Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) at a Friday Heritage Foundation event. “It can’t.”

Republicans increasingly think the window for approving a budget resolution is closing. Asked his own thoughts on the budget, Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) laughed. “I have to smile because you made an assumption there that there is going to be a budget,” he said.

Others agree with him. “Unless we get it on the floor in the next couple weeks, I don't think it’s going to happen,” one GOP aide close to the budget process said.

House Republicans could decide on a path forward as soon as this week. Speaker Paul Ryan told lawmakers Tuesday that he plans to lay out the possible scenarios for this year’s budget cycle at another members-only meeting on Friday, according to a GOP appropriations aide.

Failing to pass a budget has far-reaching consequences for Republicans. The document sets top-line spending numbers that greenlight appropriators to begin writing funding bills. The delay has already forced GOP appropriators to work backwards by writing bills without any official word about how much to spend.

And, remember, this budget the Republicans are arguing over includes Ryan's Medicare "reforms" that many think could lose the Republicans dozens of seats if they are ever enacted. The extreme right of the party-- lunatic fringe Republicans like Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Black herself-- think the way to go is to make drastic cuts-- many billions of dollars-- to Medicare, food stamps, farm subsidies, housing assistance for the poor, even Social Security programs. Republican approval ratings are so low, that many of them feel even these kinds of draconian measures can't push them any lower.

It's Taken Forever, But Democrats Are Finally Starting To Boo Dianne Feinstein

You know who has a really big mailing list? AARP. For starters, they have over 37,000,0000 members. But they add people to their mailing list even before they become members. Yesterday I got a mailing from them. Inside the envelope were three petitions, one to each California senator and one to Adam Schiff, my congressman. Other than the names, they were identical:

As one of your constituents and as a member of AARP, I urge you to oppose any efforts to cut my Medicare benefits. Along with tens of millions of other Americans, I have paid into Medicare over my lifetime and I count on the benefits that have been promised to me.

I also urge you to take action to update and strengthen Social Security. If you fail to act, future retirees could lose more than 20% of their benefits. Social Security is the largest source of income for most older Americans, and many seniors already live near or below the poverty line. Substantial cuts will drive millions more into poverty.

I've never been a Feinstein fan; in fact, I've never voted for her for anything-- and that goes all the way back to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, when she was the representative from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Harvey Milk was a close friend of mine back then and after Board of Sup meetings he used to tell me what an asshole she was even then. After he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a whacked out Republican politician, Dan White (dealt with extra-judicially when the wheels of justice misfired), Feinstein ran for mayor. I helped Jello Biafra's campaign against her.

Over the years it's always saddened me that my state had such a corrupt and conservative senator representing us. But conservatives and even Republicans love her and she's been seen as a virtual fixture for life. I was happy to see her roundly boo-ed and heckled last week at the first town hall she's done in San Francisco in the 25 years she's been in the Senate. These town-halls mostly seem to target Republicans but it's really great when they target Democrats from the Republican wing of the party-- like her. The video up top will show you what happened. And it was covered by the L.A. Times as well.

Progressive activists who have sought to address Sen. Dianne Feinstein face-to-face for months got what they wanted Monday as Feinstein held a town hall meeting in her hometown of San Francisco.

The most tense moment of the hourlong forum came when she answered an audience member's question about healthcare by saying she doesn't support efforts to move to a single-payer system.

Faced with boos, Feinstein said when it comes to a "total takeover" of healthcare by the government, "I'm not there."

One audience member called Feinstein a "sellout" as others joined in chants of "Single-payer now!"

But the event was mostly calm. One heckler who yelled at Feinstein repeatedly was quickly shouted down by other town hall participants. Questioners pushed Feinstein to make public statements condemning "fascists in the White House" and calling Trump "corrupt" and "incompetent."

"All of this takes a plan," Feinstein responded. "I'd be surprised if you found too many senators, if any, that have gotten more done.... I don't get there by making statements I can't deliver. I get there through some caution, some discussion, some smart help, good lawyers and we generally get where we're going."

At least several audience members held up signs reading "Retire Feinstein" as protesters outside urged her not to seek reelection.

Feinstein, who will turn 84 in June, has hinted that she will seek reelection. Asked about whether she'll run as she left the town hall, Feinstein told reporters, "You'll find out soon enough," according to the Sacramento Bee.

It was Feinstein's first hometown public town hall meeting since being elected to the Senate 25 years ago.

ProgressivePunch rates her an "F" and finds her the 11th worst Democrat in the Senate with a lifetime crucial vote score of 78.24. This is California; we want someone to lead the way Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley lead, not drag the country and the party backward. Democratic voters are finally starting to catch on. People want her to retire when her term ends in 2018. She's given contradictory signals about whether or not she's running again, although, mostly recently, she's said she would. There's no one remotely plausible who would oppose her either. Sickening. And even if she retires, those most eager to replace her aren't an improvement at all: Loretta Sanchez, Brad Sherman, Adam Schiff-- all conservatives. I keep forgetting to ask Ted Lieu if he'd run.

Dodged Another Bullet-- Budget Deal Doesn't Really Suck!

Boehner's revenge on the GOP's far right fringe?

Yesterday afternoon brought word that Obama and Boehner had come close to reaching a deal to raise the debt limit until March 2017 and bust sequestration spending limits by $112 billion, split evenly between defense and domestic spending. It lets Ryan off the hook and will let the right-wing loons all vent on Boehner as he packs up his gold clubs and heads back to Ohio-- and it also guarantees that there will be no threat of another Republican government shut down between now and the 2016 election. [UPDATE: And here's the bill, all ready to go. Someone has certainly been busy sneaking around, deceiving their conference-- both their conferences.]

Asked if Ryan participated in the talks, Sessions said the deal was arranged and negotiated by Boehner and would be finalized by Boehner.

“In my opinion Paul will be responsible for things when Paul becomes speaker,” Sessions said. “Paul is not responsible for this.”

Sounds good? On first blush my thoughts were: "Not so fast."

Early reports were that all $112 billion would come from cuts to Medicare and Social Security disability benefits, a non-starter for progressives. The deal was supposedly agreed to by McConnell, Reid and Pelosi, all of whom will have pissed off conferences to deal with.

The timeline is tight for building support for the plan with the Treasury Department saying the debt ceiling will be hit by Nov. 3.

Leaders presented details of the deal, which is expected to include equal increases in both domestic and military spending and would prevent a premium increase for Medicare Part B recipients from going into effect, to members late on Monday.

“What has been presented seems like a path forward,” Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said after leaving a meeting of House Republicans. “I want to get all the details.”

He added: “People are just taking it all in.”

The deal would include about $80 billion more in spending over two years, which would be offset by savings from changes to the Social Security Disability Insurance fund and Medicare payments to doctors and other health care providers.

The proposal being negotiated would set the top-line spending numbers and give the House and Senate Appropriations Committees until Dec. 11 to decide how it should be parceled out among federal agencies and programs.

There is no guarantee that the spending cuts will be sufficient to convince wary Republicans to vote for the spending bill and an increase in the borrowing limit.

House Republicans met at 6 p.m. Monday to discuss the potential budget deal. And there was grumbling on the right-- since turned to sky-is-falling fury. Alabama's KKK Senator, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, says his knees are quivering. The far right is dismayed they don't get another government shut-down. The Establishment's attitude to their right fringe is "pound sound, assholes, and go whine about process." North Carolina extremist Mark Meadows immediately obliged, telling the media that "Anyone who supports this legislation is complicit in supporting the way things are in Washington." He demanded Ryan oppose it.

At first, wary progressives were concerned about cuts to benefits. Alan Grayson read about it in the NY Times and was immediately suspicious and said if the bill did include cuts to Social Security and Medicare and "if I were in the U.S. Senate, you can bet that I would filibuster" it. OK, good-- and he's right. In fact, the New Dem running against him for the open Florida Senate seat, Patrick Murphy, has said he's willing to make "structural changes to Medicare and Social Security," exactly what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan say, even though there's a strengthening consensus among Americans that Social Security and Medicare need to be expanded, not cut back. This afternoon, Grayson was still trying to come to grips with what's in the actual bill. He said there's much in the deal he wants to support but there also are items that "could mean a potential vote against it," signaling that progressive Democrats are not entirely on-board with the deal. Concerns include a new layer of means-testing to Social Security disability benefits; the extension of a 2 percent cut in doctors' reimbursements under Medicare; termination of a pilot program in Florida to determine disabilities; and no cost-of-living increases for seniors' Social Security benefits. He said the potential deal-breaker for him, though, is the budget package's elimination of mandates that small employers provide health care insurance, as required, but not yet administered, under the Affordable Care Act. "The single, most-destructive element of the deal-- I don't want to say it's entirely destructive-- is the last one," he said. "My hunch is we'll see hundreds of thousands of people losing their health care insurance... Some of those people will get seriously ill and some of them will die without mandated insurance."

As Jim Dean of DFA said yesterday "The White House needs to know that any budget deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits or eligibility for those benefits is unacceptable to the American people and roughly equivalent to declaring a holy war on struggling working families near the kick-off of the 2016 election... Democrats should be looking for ways to build on the momentum growing behind Social Security expansion, not working with Republicans to sneak in benefit cuts that will force widows, orphans, and the elderly to start eating cat food."

The first of the Blue America candidate to voice alarm was Lou Vince (CA-25) who had just been endorsed yesterday by Ted Lieu. "Yet again, Republicans have proven they are out to harm the working and middle classes in order to make the rich even richer. Social Security and Medicare should be off-limits to any cuts because these programs are what ensure that our seniors are not living in poverty and that they have a basic safety net. These programs are constantly under threat and it's ridiculous that these people's livelihoods are just a political bargaining chip to Republicans. These programs do not allow seniors to live comfortably but only give them the bare minimum they need to survive. I would do everything in my power to stop these cuts if I was in the House, instead of Steve Knight, who will surely vote to further impoverish our seniors."

As it turns out, though, Grayson and Vince can save their battle-preparedness for next time. In the light of day, this bill doesn't look nearly as dire as it did yesterday.

According to sources, Congress would cover some of the costs by selling additional broadcast spectrum bandwidth and oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, as well as by making changes to crop insurance programs. A host of lesser known items also would likely find the chopping block.

But the real pay-for would be felt on two major entitlement programs. The deal would extend the sequester's cuts to mandatory spending through 2025, which mostly involves a 2 percent cut in reimbursements to Medicare doctors. That reduction was scheduled to expire in 2021 under the 2011 Budget Control Act, which put sequestration into place. It was extended to 2023 under Murray-Ryan deal.

The new agreement also would prevent a 20 percent cut in benefits next year to the 11 million Americans enrolled in the Social Security Disability Insurance program. The cut would be avoided by diverting some of the incoming payroll tax money from Social Security's much bigger retirement insurance program for six years, something Republicans previously said they wouldn't do without cuts to benefits.

Hill sources said the disability changes would save roughly $4 billion to $5 billion over 10 years by requiring all states to have doctors review initial disability applications, which in some states are now checked by Social Security Administration officials and not medical professionals.

One source said the deal would also set up demonstration projects in which some people who receive disability benefits could earn money from working with less fear of triggering a review that can result in benefits being cut off. Instead, people participating in the projects could see their benefits gradually curtailed as their income rises-- an idea Ryan seemed to favor at a hearing earlier this year.

Democrats are unlikely to be overly offended by a demonstration project if the deal prevents the looming 20 percent benefit cut. Demonstration projects also served as a consolation prize for conservatives after they failed to get bigger cuts to food stamps in a farm bill last year.

One source questioned why Republicans would like the disability part of the bargain, since it's unlikely to be too upsetting to Democrats. "It's not bad enough to buy Freedom Caucus votes," said the source, referencing the band of House conservatives who have demanded continued austerity in such negotiations.

Though the topline numbers appear favorable to Democrats, the negotiations didn't come without concessions. Two major lingering issues-- the extension of the highway trust fund and the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank charter-- are not addressed in the prospective deal.

A source familiar with the talks said the bill also makes an alteration to the president's health care law by repealing a provision that requires employers with more than 200 workers to automatically enroll employees into employer-sponsored health care coverage. This change mirrors legislation sought for by the business community, sponsored by Sen, Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent talked with Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, "a group that strenuously opposes benefits cuts and argues for their expansion, tells me that the deal 'doesn’t actually cut benefits or really hurt beneficiaries who aren’t gaming the system.'"

Altman says the Medicare cuts are all on the provider side, which could harm beneficiaries at some point, but it’s not a major concern. “On the Medicare side, they limited their cuts to far in the future, and to providers,” Altman says. “There’s time to correct that.”

On the change to Social Security disability, Altman says: “They stiffened the penalties for fraud, they extended nationwide efforts to make sure that payments are accurate and they closed a loophole in which people were gaming the system. They didn’t change eligibility requirements or reduce the level of benefits.”

Altman notes that Republicans had been threatening to demand serious Social Security and Medicare cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit, but adds this threat has been defused. “The hostage has been released,” Altman says.

It still remains to be seen whether today’s deal will pass Congress. But for now, it needs to be judged against the alternative: lower spending levels that would constitute a drag on the recovery; more debt limit and government shutdown crises, with a worst-case scenario involving widespread economic damage (which also could have hurt Dem chances in 2016); a deal in which benefits really were cut.

If you are still nervous... AARP endorsed the deal: "On behalf of our 38 million members and as the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing the interests of Americans age 50 and older and their families, AARP strongly supports the bipartisan agreement you have reached to avert deep reductions in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits in 2016, and to address the imminent spike in Medicare Part B premiums which many older Americans would otherwise experience. Your efforts to reach across the aisle and together find sensible solutions to significant problems are appreciated and commended."