Jun 13, 2011 | By Alex Seitz-Wald
Tonight, Republican presidential hopefuls will gather in New Hampshire for the first real debate of the 2012 election. The CNN/WMUR/Union Leader-sponsored event will help introduce the seven candidates to the country and offer the first chance for the field’s top candidates to go head to head, as the front-runners skipped May’s presidential forum in South Carolina. While much remains to be learned about these candidates, here are the questions we’re hoping they each get asked tonight:
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: You’ve positioned yourself as a leader on job creation, releasing a web video today attacking President Obama on the bleak jobs picture. But while you were governor, Massachusetts was ranked 47th on job creation. While you were at Bain, the company slashed jobs. And in 2009, when hundreds of thousands of jobs were on the line when General Motors and Chrysler were struggling for survival, you penned an op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” The government’s rescue of these companies helped return them to profitability and save jobs. Given your record, how can Americans trust you on job creation?
FORMER MINNESOTA GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Last week, you presented an economic plan that would dramatically cut the top individual income tax rate and the corporate tax rate, depriving the government of up to $7.8 trillion in tax revenue. And that’s on top of the $2.5 trillion cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts. You’ve said you would pay for the cuts with a nearly unprecedented economic growth rate of 5 percent a year for 10 years that even you yourself say is an “aspiration.” But, in case we are unable to achieve that growth rate, how would you balance the budget with these massive new tax cuts, especially since you’ve taken military cuts off the table?
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): You voted for the GOP Medicare privatization plan, but later said there is an “asterisk” by your vote because, you said, “I’m concerned about shifting the cost burden to senior citizens.” Indeed, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says seniors would pay thousands of dollars more each year for their health care starting in 2022. By now, nearly all of your potential opponents have come out in support of the plan — do you fully support it? If not, why?
FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R-PA): Several recent polls show that a majority of Americans are in favor of gay marriage. Republicans here in New Hampshire have veto-proof majorities in both chambers, but chose to not pursue repealing gay marriage to focus on jobs and the economy. Was that the right decision?
FORMER GODFATHER’S PIZZA CEO HERMAN CAIN: In March, you said youwould not appoint Muslims to a Cain administration’s cabinet and then, just this past week on Fox News host Glenn Beck’s show, you called for special loyalty oaths for Muslim political appointees, which you would not give to members of other religions. You’ve also publicly calls on Americans to “re-read” the Constitution, but isn’t your singling out of Muslims unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?
FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: Before later backtracking, you famously said that the GOP Medicare privatization plan was “right-wing social engineering.” You later disavowed those comments and pledged support for the plan. But now, given the fact that numerous polls showing the plan to be unpopular, theblowback Republican lawmakers faced in their home districts over it, and the results of the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District, were you right the first time?
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): You have been very outspoken about your interpretation of the Constitution, passionately arguing that most of what the federal government does today — including Social Security and Medicare — is unconstitutional. As president, would you work to completely repeal these social safety net programs? You’ve also suggested the Civil Rights Act was an unconstitutional encroachment on property owners. Would you work to repeal it? What about similar laws like the Voters With Disability Act or the Voting Rights Act?
In Greenville, South Carolina tonight, five presidential contenders will meet for the first GOP presidential primary debate. According to the pre-debate event’s official program, it is sponsored by several extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers militia group and the radical anti-communist John Birch Society. You can see a picture of the program here. Here’s the John Birch Society’s booth at the site of the debate:
See whole article at Think Progress here.
The Tea Party Republicans in Congress are playing with people's lives by threatening a government shutdown. Real lives are at stake.
If the Tea Party Republicans have their way, they'll shut down the government in order to end life-saving services such as those provided by Planned Parenthood. We all know that Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health services, but they also provide vaccines, diabetes and cholesterol screening and numerous other general health services. These programs are under threat because of the Republican budget attacks on services for working families.
Republican Members of Congress, such as Pennsylvania Representatives Joe Pitts, Lou Barletta and Jim Gerlach, and Senator Pat Toomey know this is not about the budget. It's about a radical social agenda the Tea Party wants to impose. We have to fight back -- against ideologically-driven budget cuts and against a government shutdown.
Our state can't afford a government shutdown. A shutdown will furlough tens of thousands of Pennsylvania workers. It will close parks, disrupt travel plans, and cripple tourism. It will delay environmental cleanups. It will stop new claims-processing for Social Security and Medicare. But none of this matters to the Tea Party Republicans.
See, they want to close the government -- they want to eliminate vital services like Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. But the Tea Partiers don't care how it will affect real people. They care only about getting their ideological cuts.
Enough is enough. Shutting down the government for ideology is beyond the pale even for these folks. We can't sit back and watch America crumble.
In Solidarity,
Michael Morrill
Keystone Progress
There’s no doubt the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the golden boy of the radical right. Ryan’s the new chair of the House Budget Committee and has just unveiled his plan to fund the federal government until the end of the fiscal year. It may be the biggest piece of partisan hackery designed to protect corporate donors that we’ve ever seen.
First of all, what exactly is in Ryan’s budget? Everything but the kitchen sink. He wants to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, cut Pell grant increases, repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka health reform), privatizes Medicare, lock in the Bush tax cuts and lower corporate taxes. (Hat tip to Ezra Klein for the breakdown.)
There’s no shared sacrifice in this budget, no fairness. Two-thirds of the Ryan’s program cuts fall on lower income Americans:
Meanwhile, the top income and corporate tax brackets get MORE benefits on the backs of middle class taxpayers. When GE is recording $5.1 billion in profits just from the US government, Ryan’s budgets adds insult to injury.
Ryan touts his budget as cutting $4 trillion in spending. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) says Ryan’s budget gets serious about the deficit. But Ryan and the representatives who support him, like Lee Terry (R-NE2), aren’t the least bit serious about deficits. If they were, they wouldn’t fight so hard for handouts to millionaires and corporations who caused a big part of the financial mess in the first place.
Making corporations pay their fair share won’t tank the economy despite what the radical Republicans would like you to think. US corporations are enjoying record profits while most of us are struggling to pay our health insurance. If anything, this budget is a kickback to the big biz and insurance interests who have donated over $2.1 million to Ryan and his PAC.
This budget is flat out unjust. While we believe, like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), that the time for stopgap measures is over, Ryan’s budget is the wrong answer. What we need from Washington is a budget compromise not this confrontational piece of partisan hackery meant to score political points with the fringe interest groups (we’re looking at you, Tea Party).
Because, if Washington can not come to some middle ground, here are just a few examples of how Nebraskans will be impacted (hat tip to Senator Nelson):
So what can you do? Call your federal elected officials and tell them to oppose the irresponsible Ryan budget. We know as progressives and moderates, it can sometimes seem fruitless to call Fortenberry, Terry and Smith. But these are our elected representatives, and they MUST know that Nebraskans do not support this budget.
Call Your House Representative:
Use the Health Care for America Now system
ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record budget shortfalls onto middle-class Americans, while simultaneously doling out tax cuts to corporations. While progressive governors have proposed raising revenue from those who can afford it, alongside painful cuts to programs, Republican governors have unveiled budgets that cut taxes for corporations and raise them on the middle-class and working poor. In this report, ThinkProgress evaluates the priorities conservatives have set in twelve states:
NEW JERSEY: Last year, Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates — yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christie’s budget calls for $200 million in business tax cuts, while cutting mental health services, $540 million from Medicaid, and witholding property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christie’s draconian cuts.
MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) budget would make Michigan’s already regressive tax system even more unfair for the state’s poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for “schools, universities, local governments and other areas.” Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent — an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigan’s lowest income residents.
GEORGIA: Last week, the Georgia House passed an austerity budget that will increase health insurance costs by more than 20 percent for state workers, teachers and retirees and cut funding for state universities by $75 million. The House has already gutted the state’s HOPE scholarship program, and is now considering implementing a regressive new tax system that would lower income taxes for the rich while raising the sales tax on basic necessities. House Majority Leader Larry O’Neal (R), meanwhile, has introduced a bill that would implement a flat income tax rate and cut corporate taxes by 33 percent.
FLORIDA: At a Tea Party rally last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) unveiled his budget, telling supporters he would make the state the most “fiscally conservative” in the nation. The budget would slash corporate income and property taxes, lay off 6,700 state employees, cut education funding by $4.8 billion, and cut Medicaid by almost $4 billion.
OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools’ budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from children’s hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that “even if there weren’t an $8 billion deficit, we’d probably be proposing many of the same things.” The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the state’s fiscal crisis.
IOWA: Gov. Tom Branstad (R) began this year proposing a budget that included a $200 million tax cut on commercial property taxes and corporate income but would freeze spending on schools, cut $42 million to state universities and lay off “hundreds” of state workers. Since then, the Governor has already begun laying off state nursing home workers and frozen funding for mental health services. The budget is now moving through the politically divided legislature, where Republican-controlled House committees have gone even further, approving tax refunds for upper-income Iowans while cancelling infrastructure investments, eliminating preschool for 4-year-olds, closing Iowa workforce development offices, and making even deeper cuts to public universities.
PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) presented a budget last week that would cut taxes for corporations, while freezing teacher salaries, cutting dental care for Medicaid recipients, and eliminating more than half of the state’s universities. Yet the state has lots of revenue potential in northern Pennsylvania, where out-of-state energy companies’ “fracking” of natural gas has reaped them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Corbett has refused to tax these companies, many of which helped fund his gubernatorial campaign, and has instead opted to lay of more than 1,500 state workers.
MAINE: Despite calling for “shared sacrifice” Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) budget would cut income taxes for Maine’s wealthiest one percent, while actually raising property taxes for the state’s middle class. This so-called “jobs budget” freezes healthcare funding for working parents, cuts money for schools and infrastructure and raises the retirement age for public workers. Yet LePage was still able to find more than $200 million in tax cuts for large estates, business and the rich.
WISCONSIN: The tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed earlier this year worsened his state’s fiscal condition, so now Walker is planning to raise taxes on the poor, eliminate $26 million in tax credits for seniors and single mothers and cancel property tax rebates for low-income Wisconsinites making less than $24,000 a year.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has proposed ending the state’s corporate income tax, even while she calls for cutting physical education, K-12 schools, and Medicaid. Haley has received pushback from Republican colleagues: last week the legislature rejected her plan to force state employees to pay more for health insurance.
KANSAS: Facing a $493 million budget shortfall, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has called for eliminating the corporate income tax while proposing a $50 million cut to education. With majorities in both Houses, Republicans have proposed a cut to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would push 6,500 families below the poverty line.
ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an “uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for ‘life-saving’ procedures, including transplants.” However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, “not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts.” Then, while peoples’ lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.
Despite calling for “shared sacrifice” in their plans, Republican governors have yet to ask corporations to share the burden of record budget shortfalls. Ultimately, choosing big business over Main Street could undermine the already slow economic recovery. However, a Main Street Movement in many of these states has emerged to protest placing the burden of deficit reduction solely onto the backs of the middle-class and public employees.
The following text is from an email sent out by GOP Trust. In the email, they admit their fight against Public Sector Unions is all about politics, and not about the budget. (We've removed the links because they included code that could identify the person who sent us the email.)- MM
Thanks to You
We are Taking Back America
Thank you GOP Trust Supporter:
Their spinsters are already painting this as a David vs. Goliath battle, as ironically illustrated by multimillionaire Michael Moore's "this is war.... we're going to throw your___ in jail" rant on the Rachel Maddow Show.
| ||||
Scarnati Agrees to Return Super Bowl Money After 1,000 Write to Him Demanding Action
(HARRISBURG, PA)—Less than 24 hours after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Senator Joe Scarnati took a junket on the tab of Consol Energy, more than one thousand citizens forced his hand by demanding he return the money.
Scarnati’s office received more than one thousand emails telling him that his acceptance of the Super Bowl trip calls his judgment into question.
Consol Energy is one of the largest drillers using the controversial “hydraulic fracturing” method of extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region. Pennsylvania is the largest natural gas producing state that does not tax extraction. Scarnati opposes taxing Consol and other drillers.
Scarnati’s trip didn’t break any laws, but it raises questions about whether Scarnati is in the pocket of the natural gas industry. Raising even more questions about his ability to represent taxpayers, Scarnati has also taken $142,000 in campaign contributions from energy interests, including another $15,000 from Consol.
Keystone Progress organized the email campaign demanding Scarnati return the Super Bowl money. Keystone Progress is now asking Scarnati to return the $15,000 in Consol money to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest. The sign up sheet for the campaign can be viewed at:
http://keystoneprogress.
A new ThinkProgress investigation has found that the incoming GOP freshman class is rife with legislators who not only oppose climate change legislation, but deny that manmade global warming even exists. They are pushing not just to end birthright citizenship, but also demand that the United States reduce the number of legal immigrants.
Here is a snapshot of the GOP Class of 2010’s extremism:
ENVIRONMENT
- 50% deny the existence of manmade climate change
- 86% are opposed to any climate change legislation that increases government revenue
IMMIGRATION
- 39% have already declared their intention to end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship
- 32% want to reduce legal immigration
TAXES/SPENDING
- 91% have sworn to never allow an income tax increase on any individual or business – regardless of deficits or war
- 79% have pledged to permanently repeal the estate tax
- 48% are pushing for a balanced budget amendment
Key
| GW: Global warming denier | CC: No climate change legislation | |
| BC: End birthright citizenship | RI: Reduce legal immigration | |
| TP: No tax increase pledge | ET: Repeal estate tax | |
| BB: Balanced budget amendment | ||
Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08) CC TP ET
Tom Marino (PA-10) CC BC RI TPET B
Lou Barletta (PA-11) CC BC RI TPET
Ways and Means Social Security Chairman Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) today released the results of a study from the Chief Actuary of Social Security analyzing several proposals, including those advanced by Republican Congressional leaders, as ways to reduce the long-term cost of Social Security. The analysis reveals that, contrary to the assertions by their proponents, these proposals would have a profoundly negative impact on the retirement security of middle-class seniors in addition to high-income retirees.
raising the retirement age from 67, as scheduled under current law, to a higher level-this reduces benefits for all regardless of when they retire;
flattening benefit levels and reducing replacement rates by tying initial benefit levels to price levels rather than wage levels (sometimes referred to as "partial price indexing" or "progressive price indexing");
adopting an alternative measure of inflation as the basis for the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
The attached charts outline the impact of these proposals.
Chart 1 is a baseline, showing benefit levels under current law for individuals retiring in 2010.
Chart 2 shows the size of the benefit cuts under "price-indexing" as proposed in the Ryan plan – H.R. 4529, the Roadmap for America's Future. The chart displays the size of the cuts for workers with various earnings levels, and for different generations. It shows that the cuts affect the middle class and become increasingly deep for future generations.
Chart 3 shows how proposals to raise the retirement age cause a reduction in benefits regardless of what age the individual retires. The chart shows benefit levels for individuals retiring at ages 62, 65, 67 and 70. It compares current law, indexing the retirement age to longevity (similar to the Ryan plan), and raising the retirement age to 70 by 2040.
Chart 4 illustrates the effect of changing the COLA by switching to an alternative measure of economy-wide price inflation. The oldest beneficiaries are the ones most affected.
http://jec.senate.gov/public/
JEC Report: Republican Proposals Weaken Social Security Guarantees and
Cut Benefits for Many Americans
Washington, DC -- A new report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee finds that two central elements of the Social Security proposals put forth by Republican lawmakers—“privatization” and “progressive price indexing” —would result in benefit cuts for millions of middle-income workers, jeopardize the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund and undermine the program’s ability to keep millions of Americans from living in poverty.
The report, “Unnecessary Risk: The Perils of Privatizing Social Security,” focused its analysis on recently revived Republican proposals to privatize the program by allowing future retirees to divert a portion of their payroll taxes to individual investment accounts.
“Privatizing Social Security jeopardizes the security in Social Security,” said Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, Chair of the JEC. “This report highlights that it is unwise to look to the stock market for a guaranteed annuity. We all know all too well that the stock market is subject to wild swings. We cannot afford to roll the dice with our seniors’ retirement security.”
A key finding of the report is that with privatization, retirees will be subject to fluctuations in the performance of the stock market and overall returns will vary based on individual investment decisions, with significant swings in returns and account accumulations possible from year to year and even month to month.
The JEC report finds other significant problems with privatization:
· Allowing current contributors to divert funds out of the general Social Security Fund into private accounts will exacerbate the shortfall in revenues for current and future retirees as well as for current and future recipients of disability and survivors insurance.
· Private accounts are unlikely to provide a guaranteed retirement annuity, indexed for inflation, as the current Social Security system provides.
Private accounts may encourage lower-income workers to borrow against retirement savings in order to provide food and education for their children.
Lower-income households, women, African Americans and Hispanics would be hurt most by privatizing Social Security, since they depend more heavily on Social Security for their retirement income. For example, among adults 65 and over, Social Security accounts for 79 percent of income for the bottom income quintile while making up just 25 percent of income for the top quintile.
