WHAT?: Boehner tries to blame sequester on Obama

I think most Americans understand that politicians often frame the truth in a way that is misleading. That’s the way politics works and I’d bet my small life savings that it won’t change anytime soon.

Every so often, however, a politician graces us with a huge whopper in hopes that our politically detached and cynical population won’t care to do the homework.

We frequently saw this type of lie from the Romney campaign in 2012: Obama removed the work requirement from welfare, apologized for America, and sold Chrysler to the Italians.

All of those things were totally ludicrous to those of us who were actually paying attention to the world around us. Romney, however, was counting on just enough misinformed folks to buy these lines and give him the presidency.

Naturally, when a Republican idea or strategy fails, it is necessary for them to continue using said idea (see Supply Side Economics) instead of admit their failure and punch out for the day.

In a revival of the Romney campaign strategy, John Boehner (Republican Speaker of the House) has decided to push the lie that President Obama is responsible for the so-called sequester cuts that will take effect in about a week if Congress fails to act.

Two days ago – on Feb. 20 – Boehner published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with the headline, “The President is Raging Against a Budget Crisis He Created.”

After him and his party demanded these cuts, John Boehner is now saying that the president is responsible for them.

Don’t be fooled.

In the summer of 2011, President Obama wanted a clean vote on raising the debt limit. This vote does not allow the government to spend more money, but instead allows the government to pay off the debt they have already incurred.

Instead of the speaker allowing for a simple vote, as has been done every with every single past president, he chose to hold this vote hostage in order to obtain these very spending cuts in return.

So to gain Republican support and avoid a downgrade in the U.S.A.’s credit rating, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 into law, raising the debt ceiling and requiring that Congress come up with $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to equal the increase. If Congress failed to come up with these spending cuts, the law says, then it would trigger automatic spending cuts.

Congress failed this task and we are about a week away from being hit by the first round of cuts totaling $85 billion.

Let’s be clear: Republicans in Congress – including John Boehner – held hostage our country’s ability to pay its bills unless they were given these cuts.

Now, a week out from the first round of cuts, they are trying to blame the president.

In a PowerPoint presentation that John Boehner’s office created and sent out to Congressional Republicans on July 31, 2011 (three days before the president signed the Budget Control Act), Boehner states – as part of the deal – that Congress must come up with these cuts or set up a sequestration process that automatically cuts spending across the board.

There it is in writing. In the first bullet of this slide, Boehner states these automatic cuts as a requirement to the deal that ultimately raised the debt ceiling.

So don’t be fooled.

Every time John Boehner tells you that this Republican-created crisis is the president’s fault, he is lying.

Duh: Stop the sequester cuts

Congress is at it again.

Nearly two months removed from the last crisis they manufactured, Washington lawmakers will once again force Americans to tune in for another round of gridlock and dysfunction.

This time, the countdown-to-doomsday deadline revolves around something called sequester cuts. These are automatic cuts that begin taking effect on March 1 if Congress does nothing to replace them with a more balanced strategy for debt reduction, like cuts that include tax reform.

Nearly all economists say that these across-the-board spending cuts ($85 billion worth) are a terrible idea, particularly when the economy is still in recovery mode.

Yesterday, the president proposed averting these dreaded cuts by combining smart deficit reduction and tax reform that closes loopholes that top income earners use the avoid paying their fair share of taxes. See video below.

It’s important to understand why we are, once again, in this jam.

In 2011, Republicans held the debt ceiling hostage (an unprecedented move for Congress) and President Obama compromised by signing the Budget Control Act, which says that Congress must come up with $1.2 – $1.5 trillion in spending cuts or these cuts will be made automatically.

To nobody’s surprise, Congress failed to come to an agreement and we are on the verge of letting these harsh, automatic spending cuts go forward.

The cuts would particularly devastate education programs and state funding, which would result in thousands of teachers and first responders losing their jobs.

While just about all Democrats and economists agree that this needs to be avoided, Republicans – unfazed by the 2012 election – remain hell-bent on throwing a wrench in our economic recovery for political reasons.

Government shutdown, fiscall cliffs, debt ceilings, and automatic spending cuts: these are crises caused by obstruction in Congress, and they have hampered our economic recovery.

Yes, we need to stop the sequester cuts – just like we needed to avoid shutting down government, going over the fiscal cliff and failing to raise the debt ceiling.

But we must also recognize that these manufactured crises are not the illness; they are the symptom. The illness is continued obstruction by an increasingly obsolete and irrelevant Republican Party.

The sooner we find a cure for this illness, the better off this country will be.

Source (and also a great site if you want to learn more about the impacts of sequester cuts): http://www.ideamoneywatch.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=72

Time to raise the minimum wage?

This year, Ohio’s minimum wage automatically went up a whopping 15 cents to $7.85. This adds roughly $340 per year to the paycheck of an average minimum wage worker. Breathtaking.

Basically, that 15 cents per hour is meaningless to a person struggling to get by – and a lot of people are indeed struggling.

So, sure, we welcome any increase in the minimum wage, but we also know that adding 15 cents per year isn’t cutting it anymore.

Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, recently pointed out that minimum wage is substantially lower (in real terms) than it was in the 1960s – see chart above.

If we put it in that context, it’s actually pretty pathetic.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed a modest increase in our minimum wage saying, “Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.”

Voters of all political stripes generally support increasing the minimum wage, particularly when it has fallen so far behind the cost of living. Once again, however, Republicans are already showing signs that they don’t support such an idea. Although they don’t support anything that doesn’t give a tax cut to a millionaire.

What we should do is increase the minimum wage to $9/hour  and ensure that going forward the minimum wage is connected to the cost of living. This would help workers and ensure that we don’t have to wage a political war every few years.

I don’t claim to be an economist, but I think it’s a shame that the pay of middle class workers has stagnated over the past few decades, while the profits of millionaires have soared. There is something wrong with that, and I think an increase in the minimum wage would be a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

(Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/opinion/krugman-raise-that-wage.html, http://www.northwestohio.com/news/story.aspx?id=842867#.USPDyqVtgdc)

Gun violence: My Counter-Counter-Point

In one of my first posts to this blog I wrote extensively about gun violence and why it is important to discuss what we can do to prevent it in this country.

In the following post, I published a response I had received. After reading that response, I thought it would be important to clarify a few things.

Yes, the second amendment does give all American citizens the right to bear arms, and I never said we should take away that right.

Part of that sacred second amendment, however, calls for regulations, and we can’t just ignore that because the NRA says so. Guns, like cars, need certain regulations in order to protect people. This is obvious to most Americans.

Another common talking point among gun advocates is that we should not require universal background checks on gun sales because no one intending to kill people will lawfully purchase a gun anyway.

Again, the facts speak a different language.

Of 142 guns used in mass shootings since 1982, three-quarters of those guns were purchased legally. Yes, legally.
Universal background checks are supported by over 90 percent of Americans, including over 70 percent of NRA members. This is something that makes sense to most people.

The last – and probably most common – myth I want to address is this idea that gun violence is so high in Chicago because they have the most strict gun control laws in place.

If you did even a small amount of research, you would find that nearly 60 percent of guns used for violence in the state of Illinois come from other states with fewer gun restrictions.

These discussions need to stop being hijacked by misinformation and fear. No one is coming for your guns or your second amendment rights.

Fact check on Obama’s executive orders

In recent weeks, particularly since President Obama’s executive orders regarding gun control, the paranoid right-wing of American politics is riled up at the amount of executive orders Obama has issued during his time in office. When they are describing Obama as a tyrannical dictator, they will almost always refer to the amount of executive actions taken by the president.

The facts, of course, speak another language.

President Obama has issued the fewest – yes, fewest – executive orders in over a century.

Sorry, folks, try barking up another tree.

(Source:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/obama-executive-orders-guns.html
)

 

So what if Chris Christie is fat?

There are some fundamental truths that cannot be refuted: The sky is blue, Fox News is neither fair nor balanced, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is fat – very fat.

One of those basic truths, Chris Christie’s overweightness, has been a pretty hot topic in recent weeks.

In fact, a Republican doctor who worked in the White House for eight years recently said that Chris Christie is a ticking time bomb for a stroke or heart attack, and he could be on the verge of death.

This doctor has never examined Chris Christie or seen his medical records.

As a moderately overweight American, I take some offense to the idea that you can’t do your job if you have some extra baggage – literally, extra baggage. After all, he is not asking to be your physical trainer.

As a Democrat who voted for President Obama, I will surely have some political disagreements with the New Jersey governor; but I believe that his ability to be governor – or president, if it comes to that – will not depend on the incredibly large number that shows up when he steps on the scale.

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Chris Christie, but his weight is not one of them.

Counterpoint on gun control

Below is a an unedited response I received to my previous posting titled, “Why is gun violence political?”:

“…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The right guaranteed by the Constitution is under attack. In last month’s article, we were told that the government was not out to take our guns, and we were called “paranoid fools”. Well, let’s look at a Bill proposed by Senator Feinstein (D-Cali.). According to her proposed Bill, which bans the ownership, sale and manufacture of any semiautomatic rifle that excepts a magazine and has a pistol grip, any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, and 157 specifically named firearms. Now her ban would include firearms such as AR-15’s, and even some hunting rifles. 

In the last issue, the author proposed five ways to prevent tragedies.
 
-Universal Background Checks…While this sounds like a good idea it will not be feasible. Let’s say a dad wants to give his son the family rife, they now have to find a dealer and pay to get this done. Secondly, the criminals who commit these crimes, don’t follow laws as it is. These checks could also lead to a National Registry where the government will know exactly what you do with your personal property.
 
-More Access to Mental Health Services…I agree and disagree with this. Yes we need to prevent those who are unstable from getting weapons, but why does the doctor need to know if I or anyone in my family owns a gun, because doctors are now required to ask this. Then they will go against HIPPA laws and report your medical information to the government.
 
-A Ban on Assault Weapons…Define a “assault weapon”. Most ‘assault weapons” are just semiautomatic rifles that function THE SAME WAY as a standard .22 rifle. Now fully automatic rifles would fall under assault weapon category and wouldn’t you know, they are heavily regulated.
 
-Ban High Capacity Magazines…According to Feinstein and others 11 rounds is high capacity and in New York 8 rounds is considered high. Now I’ve been asked, “why do you even need more than 5 rounds” and I need 10 round clips 1) for target shooting competitions and 2) For self-defense. The statistic about 100 rounds a minute is inaccurate, because in a semiautomatic firearm you must pull the trigger EACH shot which takes .89 seconds.
 
-Increase Security… Finally we agree on something. But I say take it one step further and allow CCW for the teachers. If CCW were allowed in places like Aurora Colorado because there is a chance an armed law-abiding citizen could have stopped it before the cops arrived.
 

I will close by saying only law-abiding citizens will suffer because criminals will still get guns, just look at Chicago, it has the some of the strictest gun laws, yet has one of the highest murder rates. Its not about the guns anymore its about the control and I for one believe in the Constitution and know if we limit one amendment, the rest will be soon to follow.

I will provide my counter, counter point soon.

On which side of this issue do you stand?