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Sunday, October 06, 2013

More Republican Blackmail-- This Time They're Threatening A Worldwide Economic Collapse


Boehner has been widely quoted in the media saying that he will not allow a default. Apparently, he will be precisely as capable of delivering on that as he has been on not allowing a government shutdown. Several sources inside the House Republican caucus have confirmed that the memo obtained by the National Review of Boehner's strategy is accurate-- or at least was accurate as of Friday night. It's breathtaking and absolutely guaranteed to bring about a default and possible economic collapse… if they stick to it.
• One Year Debt Limit Increase

• Not a dollar amount increase, but suspending the debt limit until the end of December 2014.
• Similar to what we did earlier this year.
• Want the year long to align with the year delay of Obamacare.

• One Year Obamacare delay

• Tax Reform Instructions

• Similar to a bill we passed last fall, laying out broad from Ryan Budget principles for what tax reform should look like.
• Gives fast track authority for tax reform legislation

• Energy and regulatory reforms to promote economic growth

• Includes pretty much every jobs bill we have passed this year and last Congress
• All of these policies have important positive economic effects.
• Energy provisions

• Keystone Pipeline
• Coal Ash regulations
• Offshore drilling
• Energy production on federal lands
• EPA Carbon regulations
• Regulatory reform

• REINS Act
• Regulatory process reform
• Consent decree reform
• Blocking Net Neutrality

• Mandatory Spending Reforms

• Mostly from the sequester replacement bills we passed last year
• Federal Employee retirement reform
• Ending the Dodd Frank bailout fund
• Transitioning CFPB funding to Appropriations
• Child Tax Credit Reform to prevent fraud
• Repealing the Social Services Block grant
• Health Spending Reforms

• Means testing Medicare
• Repealing a Medicaid Provider tax gimmick
• Tort reform
• Altering Disproportion Share Hospitals
• Repealing the Public Health trust Fund
Wow... they don't demand Obama resign from the presidency! You think they're bluffing? This is who they're catering to.
The Republican insistence in the House on tying financing of the federal government to dismantling the Affordable Care Act is being driven by a deeply conservative caucus from places like Mr. Graves’s 14th Congressional District, newly created by Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

Even as Republican elders warn that the party is risking a voter backlash that could cost it in future elections, interviews here indicate that hard-liners like Mr. Graves have more to fear, if they waver, from a potential challenger to their right.

Mr. Graves, 43, won 73 percent of the vote in November in a district that is 85 percent white and has a 16.6 percent college graduation rate. A journey through the district, which stretches from the exurbs of Atlanta to the northwest mountains on the Tennessee border, found many voters who, even if they were unfamiliar with Mr. Graves’s biography, strongly supported him.

“He represents the people,” said Tim Ferguson, a forklift operator who was waiting for a haircut at Paul’s Barber Shop in Calhoun. “He’s not going to commit political suicide by backing down.”

Voters here viewed the Washington stalemate just as Mr. Graves and many of his party members in Congress portray it: a tale of Republicans who have repeatedly shown a willingness to compromise, while Democrats petulantly refuse to meet halfway.

“Obama should not be so dogmatic,” said Julia Welch, 82, who runs an antiques store in Dallas, the seat of Paulding County. “He wants his way and no other.”

...The number of hard-line House conservatives is estimated from two dozen to as many as the 80 who signed a letter to Speaker John A. Boehner demanding that he tie financing the government to defunding the Affordable Care Act, which he had initially ruled out. Their politics are shaped less by the national picture for Republicans, who have lost five of the last six popular votes for president, than by the demographics of districts like this one that were drawn by conservative legislatures after the 2010 census to ensure safe Republican seats.

That the president, who lost Mr. Graves’s district by 49 percentage points last November, is unpopular was no surprise. But the level of animosity from some was acute. He was compared to a tyrant preparing to end constitutional democracy, as in Germany in the 1930s. Peggy Newsome, 73, who was picking up bags of groceries at the Paulding County Helping Hands food bank, said, “Everything he’s put his hands on, he’s screwed up.”

...In 2011, Mr. Graves was sued by a Georgia bank for defaulting on a $2.2 million business loan.

That seems to have made little impact on his constituents, though it is remembered in Calhoun, where he used the loan to invest in a motel. The property was abandoned after the electricity was shut off for nonpayment. Mr. Graves’s partner said at the time that they were not responsible because the property had been transferred to a third party.

Beth Peters, the coordinator of domestic violence services in Gordon County, recalled scrambling for 24 hours to find new homes for the motel’s residents, many of them poor or disabled.

Ms. Peters, 48, who voted for Mr. Graves, said she now questioned his judgment. “You kind of wonder if he’s able to decide what’s right for us in Washington if he can’t run his own business,” she said.

Mr. Tripcony, the surveyor, said he underwent heart surgery not long ago without health insurance, “a bad blow.” He has been making payments against the cost. He had heard of the online marketplace for insurance that opened on Oct. 1 under the Affordable Care Act.

“I just don’t trust it,” said Mr. Tripcony, who has an equal distrust of President Obama. “I don’t like him, and I don’t feel comfortable with anything he’s got to do with.”

Mr. Tripcony said he had a better idea for a system to provide health care at a fair price. “I think it should be the same for everybody,” he said. “One big company, whether owned by the government or private.”

Informed that he had described the single-payer system that Mr. Obama abandoned when Republican critics called it socialized medicine, he said, “Yeah, I know, it’s crazy.”

He said he might eventually seek health insurance under the new system. “In a couple of months, when they get the Web sites working, I may do it.”

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