Filibuster promised for Obama-Boehner budget deal
'It's hard for me not to use profanity describing it'
Published: 8 hours ago
An all-Washington insider combination of what the Associated Press described as “Democrats, Republican defense hawks, and GOP pragmatists,” is lining up to vote for a budget deal between outgoing House Speaker John Boehner and Barack Obama – a deal that likely would take the massive debt accumulated through Obama’s spending off the political table for the next two years.
It authorizes the country to borrow billions more, and spend them, and the result could be a smooth finish for Obama to his tenure in the Oval Office, since the issue would not arise again until long after the 2016 election. And it would give Washington-centric lawmakers the ease to continue spending taxpayer money.
Only not everyone is going along.
Specifically, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in a report in the Washington Post that he’ll do what he can to drag down the program.
Boehner had announced the deal after secret negotiations with Obama and leading Democrats in Congress, and had hoped to have it handled quickly so he could leave a relatively clean slate when he leaves the House this week, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is expected to be elected speaker.
“I will filibuster the new debt ceiling bill,” Paul told the Post while in Boulder, Colorado, for Wednesday night’s Republican debate.
“It is horrible, it’s hard for me not to use profanity describing it.”
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He was the first of the GOP critics to pledge to try to torpedo the plan.
Paul, who called the bill a “steaming pile of legislation,” urged other GOP members to help him.
It was in 2011 when he attempted the same maneuver, trying to attach a balanced budget amendment to the Democrats’ spend-at-will plan.
It didn’t work then, although it did draw a lot of attention to the skyrocketing debt under Obama. It’s now roughly $18.5 trillion, about half of which was borrowed and spent by Obama.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, like Paul a candidate for the GOP nomination for president, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Boehner are simply extending Washington’s “failed spending policies.”
“This is not a ‘grand bargain’ or negotiation – it is complete and utter surrender. John Boehner’s golden parachute will certainly cement his legacy, but it is a slap in the face to conservatives who rose up across the country in 2014 on a promise that we would stop the disastrous runaway spending and debt in Washington. We now have a GOP Congress, but no one watching this budget surrender would know it,” he said.
“For anyone wondering about the source of the American people’s volcanic frustration with Washington, one need look no further than so-called ‘Republican’ majorities in both houses of Congress increasing the budget and our debt by more than $400 billion. It’s ridiculous, deceitful, and a disgrace,” he said.
He said the children and grandchildren of America “will be left to foot the bill” for the deficit spending.
“Make no mistake: the speaker’s golden parachute is a victory for the Washington cartel, for the politically connected elite, and for big business and lobbyists who get in bed with career politicians to grow government. Unfortunately, it is a loss for single moms, for Hispanics and African Americans, for small businesses, and for all of those hardworking Americans who can’t afford expensive lobbyists and are hurting the most under the Obama administration’s failed policies.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., too, was horrified by the plan to waive federal spending caps and raid workers’ payments into their Social Security Trust Fund – all part of the Obama-Boehner plan.
“Once again, a massive deal, crafted in secret, unveiled at the 11th hour, is being rushed through Congress under threat of panic. Once again, we have waited until an artificial deadline to force through that which our voters oppose,” he said. “At its core, this deal with President Obama does two things: First, it lifts federal spending caps for the next two years – including a $40 billion increase in spending on the federal bureaucracy. Second, it waives the federal debt limit through March of 2017, allowing for approximately $1.5 trillion to be added to the debt – ensuring no further conversation about our debt course or any corresponding action to alter it.”
He said the spending caps in the law today were part of the 2011 Budget Control Act and represent a bipartisan commitment to cap spending at a fixed amount.
Obama and Boehner would shatter that, he said.
“The deal also uses a common gimmick where alleged savings in an entitlement program are used to boost unrelated spending in the federal bureaucracy. Any savings found to entitlement programs faced with insolvency must be used to shore up those programs – not to surge spending somewhere else. Yet this deal claims illusory savings from Disability Insurance and increased pension insurance fees in order to boost bureaucratic budgets. Perhaps even worse, the deal attempts to stave off the shortfall in fraud-ridden Social Security Disability by plundering from the Social Security Trust Fund for retirees. One hundred and fifty billion dollars in funds will be siphoned from Americans’ payroll retirement contributions and redirected to the mismanaged disability program.”
He continued, “Lifting the budget caps and raising the debt ceiling through 2017 only ensures that our ineffective bureaucracy continues its wasteful ways while momentum in Washington for debt reduction stalls out. It eliminates a powerful opportunity to advance the case for financial discipline.”
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., whose challenge to Boehner largely is credited with triggering his departure from the House, said all of those who are seeking to be House speaker should oppose the budget plan.
“For weeks, behind closed doors the outgoing speaker of the House has partnered with Democrats and Senate leadership to craft a monstrosity of a budget deal that includes a clean $1.5 trillion debt ceiling increase, more nondefense spending, and a host of policy provisions that no one except President Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have had a chance to offer input into,” he said.
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“Leadership’s determination to ram through this legislation days before we reach the debt limit, with zero input from rank and file members of Congress, demonstrates precisely what is wrong with Washington, D.C. As I laid out when I introduced the Motion to Vacate the Chair (H.Res 385), the speaker must not use the legislative calendar to ‘create crises for the American people, in order to compel members to vote for legislation.’ Nor should the speaker of the House push through extremely consequential legislation that every American has a stake in without allowing lawmakers a minimum of 72 hours to review it before voting.
“Anyone who supports this legislation is complicit in supporting ‘the way things are’ in Washington,” he warned. “We are at an important crossroads in the House of Representatives. We have an opportunity to bring about real reform and fundamentally change the broken system in place on Capitol Hill. Therefore I call on all candidates running for speaker of the House to oppose this legislation and go on record showing they do not support this approach to governing.”
WND reported Rick Manning, of Americans for Limited Government, was steadfast in his opposition to the proposal.
“It is absurd that Republicans in the House have allowed a lame duck speaker to negotiate a debt ceiling that locks in increased spending for not one, but two years, weakening their power of the purse,” he said. “The irony is that [John] Boehner’s only major achievement as speaker was budget sequestration that slowed down the growth of the debt for three years. Sadly that achievement is wiped away by this parting shot. It is rare that an outgoing speaker would take an eraser to his own legacy.”
As the Congressional Research Service reported, Congress has been raising the debt limit for years now.
“Congress has modified the debt limit 14 times since 2001. Congress raised the limit in June 2002, May 2003, November 2004, March 2006, and September 2007. The 2007-2008 fiscal crisis and subsequent economic slowdown led to sharply higher deficits in recent years, which led to a series of debt limit increases,” the CRS reported in its “Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases” report published October 1.
The report went on: “The federal debt again reached its limit on May 16, 2011, prompting the Treasury Secretary to invoke authorities to use extraordinary measures to extend Treasury’s borrowing capacity. … Federal debt reached its limit on December 31, 2012. Extraordinary measures were again used until February 4, 2013, when H.R. 325, which suspended the debt limit until May 19, 2013, was signed into law (P.L. 113-3). When that suspension expired, the debt limit was set at $16,699 billion and extraordinary measures were reemployed. On September 25, Treasury Secretary Lew notified Congress that the government would exhaust its borrowing capacity around October 17. On October 16, 2013, Congress passed and the president signed a continuing resolution (H.R. 2775; P.L. 113-46) that included a suspension of the debt limit through February 7, 2014.”
And the most recent, as CRS said: “On February 11, 2014, the House voted to suspend the debt limit (S. 540; P.L. 113-83) through March 15, 2015. The Senate approved the measure the next day and the president signed it on February 15, 2014. The debt limit was reset on March 16, 2015, at $18.1 trillion. On October 1, 2015, Secretary Lew stated that extraordinary measures would be exhausted about November 5, 2015, although a relatively small cash reserve would remain on hand.”
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/filibuster-promised-for-obama-boehner-budget-deal/#60G4PrL6Ijsyqvet.99
