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Obama Budget Proposal Won’t Tame Debt, Interest Would Soon Exceed Military Spending

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Photo Credit: AP

President Obama’s latest budget proposal paints a troubling picture of America’s fiscal future.

Here’s a startling snapshot:

— By 2024, the total national debt would rise from $17.4 trillion to nearly $25 trillion.

— By 2020, U.S. taxpayers would be paying more in interest on the debt than they would on the entire Defense budget.

— By 2017, those interest payments would be bigger than the budget for Medicaid.

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/APObama budget: 4 things to know

By By Mark Trumbull.

President Obama’s proposed budget for 2015 seeks to nudge Congress to spend more money to improve the nation’s roads and rails, more on early childhood education, and more on job skills for adult workers.

To pay for it while also holding down federal deficits, Mr. Obama proposes further tax hikes on high-income Americans – in the form of closing “loopholes” rather than raising tax rates.

From poverty reduction to helping manufacturers improve productivity, the president’s clear priority is to use the government as a lever boost the economic well-being of ordinary Americans. Although the budget also offers proposals aimed at fiscal sustainability, it does little to reduce a public debt load that stands at a historically high level.

The four themes below summarize the budget proposal and Washington’s fiscal state of play.

Taxes would rise (again) on the rich. In an era of chronic deficits, the Obama budget calls for raising new tax revenue by making it harder for high-earning Americans to shield income from taxes. Reducing various deductions and tax breaks, and imposing a “Buffett rule” that ensures millionaires couldn’t have below-average tax rates, would raise some $651 billion between 2015 and 2024.

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Boehner Told Democrats of Conservative Congressman: ‘What An A–hole!’

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Photo Credit: APHouse Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the most powerful Republican in Congress, called his GOP colleague Rep. Steve King of Iowa an “a–hole” while speaking with two Democratic members on the House floor, according to Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).

Castro described what happened in a story he wrote for the February issue of Texas Monthly magazine.

Back in July 2013, Rep. King, a conservative popular with the Tea Party, commented on illegal immigrants in an interview with Newsmax, saying that not all young illegals are valedictorians but that many smuggle drugs into America.

“[T]hey weren’t all brought in by their parents,” he said. “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

King was criticized for that remark by many Democrats, and Speaker Boehner said, “I want to be clear, there’s no place in this debate for hateful or ignorant comments from elected officials. Earlier this week, Representative Steve King made comments that were, I think, deeply offensive and wrong. What he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party. We all need to do our work in a constructive, open, and respectful way. As I’ve said many times, we can disagree without being disagreeable.”

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Boehner Sets Immigration Debate, but Polls Show Growing Public Opposition

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

GOP leaders are finalizing plans for an open debate on immigration to be held by legislators at their late January closed-door strategy session in Cambridge, Md.

The debate will include a panel of legislators, an outside expert, and an open mic, allowing members to comment on a one-page set of “principles” that likely will be released at the event, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

The format will put Speaker of the House John Boehner and immigration advocate Rep. Paul Ryan in the driver’s seat. But a new poll that shows increased voter hostility to an amnesty is highlighting the difficulty that they face in trying to satisfy both their November voters and their business donors.

The new Quinnipiac University poll shows that both independent and GOP voters have swung sharply against an immigration amnesty since last May.

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Harry Reid: Boehner Will Cave In On Immigration Reform Next Year (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) believes Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will negotiate on comprehensive immigration reform next year, despite his declarations to the contrary.

The Democratic leader argued that Boehner has a new willingness to confront Tea Party groups and this, in turn, gives Reid confidence that he will not have to break up the Senate immigration bill to negotiate a series of piecemeal reforms with the House.

“I think that John Boehner will conference with the Senate. Why wouldn’t he? He’ll have a lot of pressure from his members now that the election is getting closer,” Reid said in an interview with The Hill.

“Some of his members are in very marginal districts where they need to do something on immigration,” he added.

Boehner has vowed he will not let the Senate bill, which spans more than 1,200 pages, reach the negotiating table. The most controversial element of the package is a provision granting a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

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Boehner’s Crocodile Tears for Amnesty

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Boehner-crying-215x300It is an odd fight. Such a weird little battle over meaningless and known outcomes. Conservatives, aware from press reports and congressional leaks, knew what would be in the Paul Ryan drafted budget plan. The conservative groups released statements in opposition to the plan based on what they had been told. But there was never any doubt about the Ryan plan passing.

After the plan was publicly unveiled by the Republicans at six o’clock on a Tuesday night, conservative fears were realized. Those things they knew would be in the plan were, in fact, in the plan. The plan funded Obamacare. The plan raised taxes. The plan broke the sequestration spending limits that only a month before Republican leaders had said would never be broken.

Speaker Boehner then did something curious. He held two press conferences wherein he lashed out at conservative groups. He denounced them for making up their minds before the plan was publicly unveiled. Never mind that everyone knew what would be in the plan. Never mind that he only gave the public thirty-six hours to explore the text of the plan — a violation of a campaign promise to give at least seventy-two hours of examination. Speaker Boehner’s statement sounded like former Speaker Pelosi claiming we had to pass the Ryan plan to find out what was in the Ryan plan.

Superficially, it is a very odd fight. But Speaker Boehner’s crocodile tears in his attacks and cries against the conservative movement are really about the next fight. Speaker Boehner intends to pursue immigration reform, with an amnesty component. Before he gets there, he needs to shape battle lines.

There are a number of fence sitters on the right. Speaker Boehner needs them on his team. By castigating the conservative movement now and making them the unpopular crowd, the Speaker and Republican leaders intend to draw the fence sitters to them. Once they have done so, they can move on to a primary season where they can fight against the unpopular crowd intent on driving some incumbents from office.

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John Boehner Fed Up With ‘Ridiculous’ Tea Party Intransigence on Budget

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Photo Credit: ABC News

Photo Credit: ABC News

House Speaker John Boehner blasted outside groups for their criticism of the bipartisan budget deal, delivering an unusually sharp rebuke today to tea party and conservative activists while signaling he has had just about enough of their intransigence.

“They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals,” Boehner said, his voice rising with anger during a news conference at the Capitol today. “This is ridiculous. Listen, if you are for more deficit reduction, you are for this agreement.”

From Boehner, it was a rare and pointed public dressing-down of Club for Growth, Heritage Action, the Koch Brothers and other conservative groups that have urged Republicans to oppose the budget deal. Boehner openly questioned the motives of such groups, demonstrating a far more aggressive posture than he usually takes.

In response to Boehner’s comments, Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said his group will still stand with lawmakers who oppose the deal.

“We stand with Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Tom Coburn, Rand Paul, members of the Republican Study Committee and every other fiscal conservative who opposes the Ryan-Murray deal,” Chocola said in a statement.

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Obama: Boehner Can’t Control “Extreme Faction” of His Caucus (+video)

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama on Tuesday said talks over a budget deal had been complicated because Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “can’t control his caucus.”

In an interview with WABC, the president was asked about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) proposal that the president and congressional leaders lock themselves in a room to hammer out a deal to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government.

But Obama said the problem with that solution is that one-on-one negotiations with the Boehner “isn’t necessarily good for the extreme faction in his caucus.”

“It weakens him,” Obama said. “So there have been repeated situations where we have agreements, then he goes back, and then it turns out that he can’t control his caucus. So, the challenge here is, ‘Can you deliver on agreements that are made?’ ”

“One thing that I’ve shown is that if I say I’m prepared to compromise on something, then I can deliver votes,” the president added.

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House Pulls Back on Boehner Plan

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Photo Credit: APBy Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Seung Min Kim.

Everyone is asking the same question: What’s next?

For the second time this fall, Speaker John Boehner has had to pull legislation to lift the debt ceiling because of concerns from conservative lawmakers that their leadership was heading down the wrong path.

But this time, the economy could be on the brink of disaster. The United States runs out of borrowing authority on Thursday, and it does not appear at the moment that House Republicans are willing — or able — to lift the nation’s debt ceiling.

“We need to be prepared tomorrow to make some decisions,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas.

In practical terms, Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy’s inability to persuade 217 lawmakers to vote for their proposal means that the House could be sidelined in a fiscal fight they picked. Action could be rapidly kicked over to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Read more from this story HERE.

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Senate leaders race to draft debt-limit bill after House effort collapses

By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane.

A campaign to persuade House Republicans to lift the federal debt limit collapsed in humiliating failure Tuesday, leaving Washington careering toward a critical deadline just two days away, with no clear plan for avoiding a government default.

Senate leaders quickly moved to pick up the pieces, saying they were “optimistic” that they could reach agreement to advance an alternative proposal that would raise the debt limit through Feb. 7 and end a government shutdown, now in its third week.

But it was unclear whether a deal struck by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could pass the Senate before the Treasury Department exhausts its borrowing power Thursday.

Meeting that deadline would be impossible if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) or other conservative hard-liners chose to throw up roadblocks, Democrats said. Republican leaders were leaning on Cruz and his allies to avoid unnecessary delays.

“The clock is ticking,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Republican in the Senate. “Given the consequence of what we’re talking about here, . . . I would hope that we would have genuine interest among all parties in terms of trying to get this done as quickly as possible.”

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Boehner says Obama Rejected GOP Plan to End Shutdown as Negotiations Shift to Senate

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Photo Credit: Getty Images By ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILY MAIL REPORTER.

House Speaker John Boehner today told fellow Republicans that his talks with President Barack Obama have stalled.

‘The Senate needs to hold tough,’ Representative Greg Walden said Boehner told House GOP lawmakers. ‘The president now isn’t negotiating with us.’

Obama rejected the speaker’s effort to lift the debt ceiling for six weeks and reopen government in exchange for a budget negotiating process.

Attention now turns to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of Senators are working on a separate plan to reopen the government.

Word of the negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the top Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, emerged as the Senate, as expected, rejected a Democratic effort to raise the government’s borrowing limit through next year.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APFocus on Senate after Obama rejects House plan

By JAKE SHERMAN, JOHN BRESNAHAN and BURGESS EVERETT.

Speaker John Boehner told House Republicans Saturday morning that his efforts to strike a deal with President Barack Obama are at a standstill.

There is no agreement, Boehner said in a room in the Capitol Saturday, and there are no negotiations between House Republicans and the White House, since Obama rejected the speaker’s effort to lift the debt ceiling for six weeks and reopen government while setting up a budget negotiating process.

With that, a familiar dynamic has resurfaced 12 days into the government shutdown and five days before Treasury says the nation runs out of borrowing authority: The pendulum has swung back to Senate Republicans, who now look more likely to cut a deal with Obama to end the first government shutdown since 1996, and avoid the first default on U.S. debt in history.

After the news that talks between Boehner and Obama have broken down, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) emerged on the floor to emphasize that the nation’s eyes are firmly fixed on the chamber.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boehner Dismisses Obama’s Call for Republicans ‘Unconditional Surrender’

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Photo Credit: Fox News ScreenshotHouse Speaker John Boehner dismissed President Obama’s position on the fiscal crisis as “not sustainable” Tuesday, only hours after Obama held a non-press conference to say he was willing to compromise but not negotiate.

“What the president said today was, if there’s unconditional surrender by Republicans, he’ll sit down and talk with us. That’s not the way our government works,” Boehner said.

The speaker said he wants conversations about spending cuts to start “now,” not “next week” or “next month.”

It’s unclear how Republicans will navigate Obama’s stance going forward, with the country in week two of the partial government shutdown. Their demand is that they get some concessions — like spending cuts — in exchange for passing a spending bill and raising the debt ceiling.

Boehner’s appeal on Tuesday was for Democrats to simply come to the negotiating table.

Read more from this story HERE.