[PassedOut]

Closing in on November 23, one hundred US representatives of differing persuasions are asking the super-committee to act boldly: House Republicans make cross-party pitch to embolden debt ‘supercommittee’

Quote

A group of 40 House Republicans for the first time Wednesday encouraged Congress’s deficit reduction committee to explore new revenue as part of a broad deal that would make a major dent in the nation’s debt, joining 60 Democrats in a rare bipartisan effort to urge the “supercommittee” to reach a big deal that could also include entitlement cuts.

The letter represents a rare cross-party effort for the rancorous House, and its organizers said they hoped it would help nudge the 12-member panel to reach a deal that would far exceed the committee’s $1.5 trillion mandate.

Among those who signed were several dozen Republicans who had previously signed a pledge promising they would not support a net tax increase. Among the Democratic signers were some of the House’s most liberal members who have opposed entitlement cuts.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the effort was to help Congress avoid being “cornered by the paralysis of small potatoes.” Rep. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.), a member of the conservative Republican Study Group, said the intent was to compel the supercommittee to craft a strategy “so big, so comprehensive, so inclusive that any great statesman or stateswoman could hardly resist voting for it.”

We could use more of that. The next three weeks promise to be interesting.

[blackshoe]

Big words. It'll turn out they're just going to find more ways to skin the citizenry.

[PassedOut]

Pushing Congress

Quote

The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."

Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"

The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"

The bus driver?

[kenberg]

You are trusting that folks will go to the source? The next line is
"The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan."

To push the time warp still further, as I was reading your excerpt I got agitated thinking "Good God, Obama has really lost it".