Per Tiger Beat’s afternoon email thingie, it’s baaaaa-ack:
When congressional veterans hear the term “bipartisan commission,” they often dismiss it as a toothless group, one that makes recommendations lawmakers will inevitably ignore.
They’d be wrong to think that about the latest Republican-pushed fiscal commission, though. This one has bite — it would force the House and Senate to vote, without amendment or committee tweaks, on whatever bill the commission writes to shrink the national debt and keep Social Security and Medicare from insolvency. All the renewed chatter about cutting Social Security benefits is about this, the 25-page measure the House Budget Committee approved last week.
That’s why many Democrats are fiercely against it.
First I’ve heard of it, but oh, boy here comes the killjoy. Or would that be kill Joy?
Fiscal hawks are calling on Speaker Mike Johnson to add the plan to whatever government funding package materializes before the new March shutdown deadlines. Such a group would be charged with finding a way to thwart looming insolvency for Social Security and Medicare by either cutting spending, raising taxes, or both.
A Republican Commission. Gonna go out on a limb and guess they will cut spending and raise eligibility or privatize the whole damn thing. Republicans got donors to feed and bribes to accept.
“Let’s take some risk here. Let’s do things differently,” says Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who notably voted “nay” on the stopgap last week. Arrington is leading the call for Johnson to find a way to create the fiscal commission, arguing that it could be the only way to “avoid a catastrophic and irreparable debt-related crisis,” as the U.S. is now $34 trillion in the red, at 120 percent of GDP.
Or ya could just take back the Billions for Billionaires bill tax cuts, and while you are at it, get rid of Chimpy’s tax cuts, too. Problem solved.
OK, before anyone gets too worked up, there is no way that the Senate will take this poison pill, but it is amazing that amongst all the pies that Republicans are throwing at each other in an election year, they would go for the biggest, lemon meringue pie of ‘em all to fall into, face first.
Republished with permission from Mock Paper Scissors.
