The Fox News Sunday Panel weighs in on the impact of the Russian military movement towards Ukraine and Jan Brewer’s veto of a bill deemed “anti-gay.”
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) sure isn’t deviating from his talking points much, re-upping his defense of the Affordable Care Act on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” and saying the GOP’s plan for healthcare is “if you get sick, die quickly.”
Grayson joined host Ed Schultz on Friday to talk about the Republican Party and what he believes is the GOP’s alternative plan for healthcare — one he first outlined four years ago on the House floor. The Florida Democrat told Schulz that the plan for Republicans remains “if you get sick, die quickly,” and called Republicans “crisis junkies” who move from one crisis to the next.
“Look, we know what the Republican healthcare plan is: don’t get sick,” Grayson told Schultz. “Well, don’t get sick, but if you do get sick, die quickly. Look, it’s been four years. I wish they’d prove me wrong. What is their healthcare plan?”
When asked if Republicans were operating smear campaign against Obama and Democrats, Grayson, of “Puss in Boots” fame, said GOP lawmakers have been “crisis junkies” and “smear junkies.”
“The Republicans have been crisis junkies now for months, if not years,” Grayson said. “They lurch from one crisis to the next to the next, whether it’s the government shutdown or whether its the debt ceiling or anything else. Now they’re smear junkies. That’s all they ever do. They try to make the President and the Democrats look bad without offering any solutions to any problems at all.”
Grayson has hardly had a kind word for his Tea Party colleagues of late. In a campaign email sent out by his 2014 re-election campaign Grayson compared the Tea Party to the KKK, and said the “T” in Tea Party stands for a burning cross. The Florida Democrat refused to apologize for the comparison.
Watch the clip below, courtesy of Mediaiate.
The sun shines on the U.S. Capitol dome on the first day the federal government has re-opened following a 16-day shutdown at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 17, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most Americans found little to cheer in the congressional deal to reopen the government and avoid a national default, and Republicans suffered the biggest political damage in the crisis, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
Nearly one-third of Americans – 32 percent – were dissatisfied with the agreement to end the fiscal impasse and 40 percent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Only 28 percent were satisfied with the outcome.
Among those who were not satisfied or were neutral, 45 percent said it was because the deal failed to resolve the budget battles at the heart of the stalemate and only extended government funding and borrowing authority into early next year.
A further 23 percent expressed general frustration with the whole process, which closed the federal government for 16 days and pushed the country to the edge of default, rattling financial markets and threatening economic chaos.
The poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday after Congress approved the deal and it was signed by President Barack Obama, found congressional Republicans suffered the most for stoking the crisis by demanding changes to Obama’s healthcare law before they would support government funding.
The biggest political losers were Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate, House Speaker John Boehner and conservative Tea Party Republicans. House Republicans were viewed less favorably by 47 percent, Republican senators and Boehner by 45 percent and Tea Party Republicans by 44 percent.
Obama was viewed less favorably by 41 percent, but also scored best among those viewed more favorably, with 17 percent taking a more positive view of the president. House Democrats were viewed more favorably by 13 percent and Senate Democrats by 10 percent, and less favorably by 33 percent and 36 percent, respectively.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the Tea Party firebrand who led the charge to delay or defund the healthcare law, was viewed more favorably by 10 percent, and less favorably by 38 percent.
Asked who came out the winner, 17 percent said Democrats and 4 percent said Republicans. The vast majority, 70 percent, said neither side won.
“People were extremely upset with the process and very unamused, but this has absolutely been more damaging for Republicans,” Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said. “There doesn’t seem to be a real winner.”
Republicans will have time to recover some of their lost political reputation before the November 2014 elections to decide the balance of power in Congress, but the likelihood of a renewed budget and debt ceiling fight early next year could inflict more permanent damage, Clark said.
If conservative Republicans again demand changes to the healthcare law in exchange for passing a budget deal – a stance that polls show more than half of Americans reject – it would not bode well for the party, she said.
“That’s where the risk is for Republicans. They have this birfurcated party that is unable to resolve issues internally,” Clark said. “If they go into the 2014 campaign without resolving those issues, they could be in trouble.”
The online poll of 516 Americans had a credibility interval, which is similar to a margin of error, of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
(Editing by Peter Cooney)
In an interview with Steve Chaggaris of CBS News, RealClearPolitics reporter Caitlin Huey Burns discusses which politicos were most changed by the government shutdown-Obamacare-debt ceiling crisis.
Daily Show: Secretary of State John Kerry stumbles onto a potential path to peace in Syria.
Daily Show: Secretary of State John Kerry stumbles onto a potential path to peace in Syria.
1 of 2. U.S. President Barack Obama (L) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia September 5, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
In response to the political crisis in South Sudan and the deeply troubling violence in Jonglei state, today the White House hosted NGOs and advocacy groups to discuss the situation and confer on how the United States – in concert with partners and allies around the world – can help end the violence and support South Sudan’s democratic development.
National Security Staff Senior Director for Development and Democracy Gayle Smith, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Steve Pomper, and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs Grant T. Harris discuss the situation in South Sudan at the White House, July 24, 2013. (White House Photo)
At the meeting, National Security Staff Senior Director for Development and Democracy Gayle Smith, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Steve Pomper, and I invited advocates and humanitarian workers to exchange information on the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Jonglei, and explore ways we can work together to raise awareness and address it.
A significant portion of the conversation focused on what the United States and its partners can do to address disturbing reports of human rights abuses, attacks on civilians, and ethnically motivated violence taking place in Jonglei, including reports that elements of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army have been complicit in the abuses.
We also discussed a looming humanitarian crisis. USAID experts estimate that over 100,000 civilians, predominantly from the Murle ethnic group, have been displaced since May with little access to needed emergency aid. In the coming weeks, we’ll be working with partner countries, humanitarian organizations, advocacy groups, and others to shine a light on the crisis, press for an immediate end to the violence, and meet the urgent humanitarian needs of those affected by the conflict.
The United States remains strongly committed to promoting peace and prosperity in Sudan and South Sudan, and will continue to encourage South Sudan to stay true to the vision it laid out for itself two years ago at its independence: of democracy and good governance, justice and accountability, and respect for rule of law and the human rights of all of South Sudan’s people.
Grant T. Harris is the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs
Wall Street is cooking up another crisis-making shoddy loans and selling worthless securities to investors hungry for higher yields than CDs and government bonds offer.
Dodd-Frank banking reforms imposed very costly regulations on mortgage and commercial lending. Regional banks, which have solid knowledge of smaller businesses, could not bear these costs and sold out to large Wall Street institutions. Now a handful of money center banks control more than half the deposits and lendable money.
Although big banks have branches everywhere and are flush with funds, they don’t know much about which businesses are likely to repay what they borrow.
Banks aren’t carrying many mortgages on their books–they are merely conduits for Fannie Mae-but business loans have recovered to pre-financial crisis levels. And the bank examiners at the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and Federal Reserve are alarmed about their lending standards.
Too often loans are made to businesses with inadequate cash flow–paper profits are important to stock investors but banks focus on cash flow to evaluate whether an enterprise can pay up each month. Also, many loans carry weak covenants and collateral.
Banks are lending at today’s low interest rates with alarmingly long maturities. That is troublesome because banks’ cost of funds go up and down as the Federal Reserve tightens and loosens monetary policy.
Many economists expect GDP growth to pick up the latter half of this year and next, and for the Federal Reserve to start pushing up interest rates. Then banks will lose money–lots of it–on 5 and 10 year loans made today. If the economy doesn’t pick up-economists have been known to be wrong-then loans made on questionable cash flow and weak collateral will fail.
Either way, banks are at the casino again!
But alas banks are shunting off a lot of their risky bets onto witless investors-thanks to the new boom in derivatives trading. Remember those nifty bonus generating contraptions that made 28 year old MBAs millionaires and wrecked AIG and Citigroup.
Manhattan financiers are once again bundling questionable corporate bonds and bank loans into investment securities–Collateralized Debt Obligations–for sale to wealthy individuals and retirees through hedge funds and unethical brokers.
When the losses on shaky bonds and loans come, big banks, bless their generosity, will spread the headaches around. Wrecked personal finances and broken dreams will follow, and consumer spending will slow, taking the economic recovery into the drink.
Not to be out done by their predecessors, today’s modern bankers are also writing lots of “synthetic securities.” Those generate returns to investors, not from the cash flow on loan repayments, but rather from bets made by third parties about whether loans will succeed or fail. Those have as much place in sound banking as nepotism does in government employment.
As in pre-crisis days, the total value of derivatives outstanding is many multiples of the actual value of the U.S. economy. When the loans and derivatives fail, many who have made promises to pay up won’t have the cash-just like 2008.
Look for bank balance sheets to be rocked, lots of wealthy folks to file for bankruptcy, and the economy to suffer another migraine.
Depressing? They don’t call this the dismal science for nothing.
Peter Morici is a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland School, and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
More than four years after the Great Recession the American people are still waiting for a real recovery. Household income has actually declined the past five years while economic growth has struggled to outpace inflation. As UCLA economist Edward Leamer said recently, “It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.”
The good news, though, is our country is poised for not just a long-overdue recovery but an economic boom. Our global competitive advantage and our vast reserves of both energy and capital have us primed for another American century. What’s missing is leadership in Washington that has the courage and vision to turn our potential into prosperity.
Three factors are working in our favor, if we would only act.
First, in the context of the global economy, we’re the least wilted rose in the vase. All of the challenges we face in terms of demographics and debt (i.e. too few workers to sustain our safety net) are worse among our key competitors, particularly Europe, China and Japan. For the foreseeable future America will be a safe harbor, in spite of ourselves.
Second, our nation is sitting on vast reservoirs of cash that are either on company balance sheets, committed to failing government programs or being misdirected through an inefficient and immoral tax code.
In terms of public funds, how Congress handles the impending bankruptcy of our safety net programs could trigger a debt bomb or an economic boom. And regardless of what the administration says we don’t have years to act. According the latest trustees’ report, the Social Security disability trust fund runs out of money in two years, while Medicare Part A (the part that funds hospital visits and procedures) could run out of money in six years. The sooner we act the sooner we put our nation on a path toward growth rather than stagnation or decline.
Beyond entitlements, the rest of the budget contains billions that could be redirected to activities that create wealth rather than debt. For instance, the Government Accountability Office has documented at least $ 200 billion that is wasted every year through duplication. Meanwhile, our broken and parochial grant process (the refuge of vanquished earmarxists) spends nearly $ 600 billion every year. We also spend $ 537 billion on contracts, $ 175 billion of which are no-bid contracts. Modest reforms in these areas could produce far more growth than the ill-conceived 2009 stimulus.
Real tax reform would also help propel a real recovery. Reducing rates and eliminating special interest provisions that give a corrupted IRS too much power over our lives could help bring back 1980’s and 1990’s growth rates of 4-5 percent instead of today’s meager sub 2 percent growth. Simplifying the code would also shift a significant portion of the more than $ 150 billion Americans spend each year on tax compliance toward activities that create real wealth.
One obstacle to tax reform is the administration’s effort to redefine tax reform as reform that only leads to more revenue instead of lower rates for working families. This bizarre revisionism is at odds with every serious tax reform effort in the past 30 years from Reagan-O’Neill in the 1980’s to Simpson-Bowles today, which was embraced by progressives like Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). The moral outrage in today’s code aren’t rates that favor the rich but special interest carve outs that keep rates artificially high for low and middle income Americans who can’t afford to hire a tax earmark lobbyist. Giveaways for pro sports leagues, Hollywood movie producers and green energy companies keep rates high for the very low and middle income families the administration says it wants to protect. Asking working families to subsidize the salaries of wealthy NFL team owners, movie producers, and politically-connected energy executives is hardly the moral high ground in the tax debate.
Third, and finally, our energy potential could turn North America into another Middle East in the next two decades. In April, we learned the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana holds twice as much shale oil and three times as much gas as was previously estimated. By 2020, we could be a net exporter of natural gas and within striking distance of the elusive goal of energy independence, but only if we have an energy policy that places economic growth ahead of green ideology.
In today’s atmosphere of scandal the best thing the president can do to help his administration and the country is to give the House Ways and Means Committee an offer they can’t ignore. It can’t be a rehash of talking points, but a bold and imaginative plan that says the president is serious about a grand bargain and serious about compromise. Or, they can spend the next three years defending an indefensible IRS and fending off other scandal-related questions.
The administration is right to warn against GOP overreach but the administration and congressional Democrats should be focused on their own problem of underreach. Over the past two decades, six separate commissions have come up with ways to save Medicare – the biggest driver of our debt –yet the president, Senate Majority Leader Reid and the Senate Finance Committee, who control two-thirds of our government, have done nothing to save Medicare or Social Security.
If the president chooses to lead, he’ll do much more than change the subject. He’ll bring us closer to the kind of recovery, and American century, we all so desperately want.
