Republicans Call Obama's Tax, Program Cuts Program: Class Warfare

Obama Plan to Cut Deficit Will Trim Spending by $3 Trillion
By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, published: September 18, 2011

First half of the article reads as follows. (Click here for complete New York Times article including Republican claims of class warfare.)

(I would argue from the left that Pres. Barack Obama's Medicare, Medicaid cuts are class warfare; the Republican right call Obama's tax policies class warfare. The problem is that we have no left third party to challenge him.)

WASHINGTON — President Obama will unveil a deficit-reduction plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce government spending by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.

The plan, which Mr. Obama will lay out Monday morning at the White House, is the administration’s opening move in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not struck by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.

Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of closing loopholes and limiting the amount that high earners can deduct. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. Administration officials said that the Medicare cuts would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on some of the details of Mr. Obama’s proposal said that the plan also counts a savings of $1.1 trillion from the ending of the American combat mission in Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.

That veto threat will put the president on a direct collision course with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, who said last week that he would not support any legislation that included revenue increases in the form of higher taxes.

Mr. Obama’s proposal is certain to receive sharp criticism from Congressional Republicans, who on Sunday were already taking apart one element of the proposal that the administration let out early: the so-called Buffett Rule. The rule — named for the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, who has complained that he is taxed at a lower rate than his employees — calls for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers.

That proposal, which was disclosed on Saturday, was met with derision Sunday by Republican lawmakers, who said it amounted to “class warfare” and a political tactic intended to portray his opponents as indifferent to the hardships facing middle-class Americans.

Trumka's Statement on Congress and Obama's Jobs Program

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president's statement on Pres. Barack Obama's jobs proposal.

Did you watch President Obama’s speech last night? He showed working people he is willing to go to the mat to create new jobs on a substantial scale. His speech should energize the nation to come together and get serious about jobs.

We call on Congress to act and look forward to working with the president and Congress on all elements of this proposal. As the president explained, we no longer can delay putting Americans back to work rebuilding our nation’s schools, roads, bridges, transit, ports, rail, communications and energy systems. And we need to help state and local governments avoid layoffs that are dragging down the economy—rejecting the myth that the only way to end a crisis Wall Street started is to punish firefighters, teachers and others who perform critical public services.

Tell Congress: It’s time to get moving on jobs. Start with President Obama’s proposals and then keep going.

The plan announced by President Obama to create jobs is only the opening bid in a national conversation we’ve needed to have for a long time. In the coming weeks and months, we expect to see more proposals from the president and Congress to put America back to work.

President Obama understands this economic crisis was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. The middle class has been under attack for decades. He understands we need to rebuild our economy for the 21st century and rebuild our middle class.

But doing this will require a revolution in the way Washington takes on these questions. Republicans are going to have to stop blocking bills that sustain or create millions of jobs and start offering and accepting credible solutions. As the president explained last night, we can delay no longer.

Tell Congress America wants to work. Add your name, then spread the word to your friends and family.

America isn’t broke—we’re the richest country in the world. We will only go broke if our leaders fail year after year to create jobs and turn our economy around. We can’t let that happen.

Politicians need to recognize that America’s best days are still before us. We cannot accept the disappearance of the American middle class or several more years of crisis-level joblessness. We can and must solve the jobs crisis—and we must start now. Please take action to help us make this happen.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. Some politicians claim cuts to our social safety net, deregulation and lower taxes for the rich will fix our problems. But they’re flat wrong. If we continue down this road, it only will destroy more jobs and send us into a vicious downward spiral. Our country is too good and too rich to weaken our commitment to safety net protections such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.

We don’t have time to waste on the same old failed policies that drove our economy off a cliff in the first place. Tell Congress: Working families will judge our elected leaders by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now.
To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

Gang of Twelve Congressional Super Committee Named

The Daily Herald, of Utah, picking up from "The Washington Post", reported the final choices hours ago.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday filled out the final three slots on the joint deficit committee by selecting three members of her leadership team to the panel.
Pelosi, D-Calif., chose Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., giving the panel the highest-ranking African-American and Latino lawmakers in Congress with Clyburn and Becerra, respectively. Pelosi reiterated her call for Congress to consider "the grand bargain" of major entitlement cuts matched with increased taxes.
"We must achieve a 'grand bargain' that reduces the deficit by addressing our entire budget, while strengthening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Our entire Caucus will work closely with these three appointees toward this goal, which is the goal of the American people," Pelosi said. "Because the work of this committee will affect all Americans, I called last week for its deliberations to be transparent; the committee should conduct its proceedings in the open."

. . .
The three House Democrats complete the 12-member panel, which must turn in its recommendations for $1.2 trillion in additional spending cuts by Thanksgiving or risk pulling an automatic trigger for deep cuts to federal agencies and defense programs.
Of the 12, ten voted for the debt-ceiling deal that rescued the country from the brink of default, which suggests at least the possibility that the 12-member panel will be able to reach a bipartisan agreement on future spending cuts. The two panel members to oppose the debt compromise are Becerra and Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa.
The other eight members of the panel are Republican Sens. Jon Kyl, Ariz., and Rob Portman, Ohio, Republican Reps. Jeb Hensarling, Texas, Dave Camp, Mich., and Fred Upton, Mich., and Democratic Sens. Patty Murray, Wash., Max Baucus, Mont., and John Kerry, Mass. Murray and Hensarling are co-chairs.
On Wednesday, following the lead of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced their picks for the new panel.

Read more at the original Daily Herald article posting: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/article_3e2379c1-7f6b-538a-ae41-97114af086c1.html#ixzz1UoccJgX5

As Amanda Terkel noted at "Huffington Post," the Super Committee has only one woman

SIZING UP THE SUPER COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
GO TO PROJECT VOTE SMART.ORG TO GET INFORMATION ON RATINGS ON Gang of THE 12 COMMITTEE MEMBERS.

Fannie Lou Hamer must be smiling from heaven

Just flash back forty plus years. African-Americans were risking their lives to make sure that the Fifteenth Amendment applied to them --in reality, i.e., to get equal voting rights, regardless of color. Think of the struggles of Fannie Lou Hamer with her struggle for basic representation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, of Martin Luther King and the Selma Marches, of John Lewis.

And now, see: not only is a candidate of African (and European) descent on the verge of reaching the White House, but African-American voting power is forecasted to have an instrumental role in a tipping point effect in .....the South, toward strengthening Democratic Congressional power.

Salon.com has posted an article, pointing to how African-American voters could tip about a dozen Congressional seats in the Democratic direction. And most of these races are in the South.
Alex Koppelman, "Black voters may lead Democratic wave
An Obama-propelled increase in African-American turnout, already apparent in early voting, may put more Democrats in Congress."
From the lead of the article:

Forget soccer moms. Forget hockey moms. When it comes to this year's down-ballot races — Senate and House seats, state legislatures and beyond — the Democratic Party's most loyal voting bloc could determine the outcome. Assuming that early trends hold, a Democratic wave bigger than the one that swept Congress out of Republican hands in 2006 could be coming, and if it does, it will probably be powered by African-American voters.

The question is how much the African American vote will increase this year, and how that increase will be distributed. A fair number of vulnerable Republican candidates are in disproportionately black states and districts, and a substantial jump in black turnout — especially in the South — could mean that the Democrats could pick up a significant number of seats in those areas. Data from early voting suggests that this surge could already be happening, and that even some of the Republicans who were considered relatively safe despite being in competitive battles are seriously threatened.

By Salon's count, the black vote could swing as many as 17 House seats currently held by Republicans who are running in competitive elections. It could also play a role in three campaigns for Republican Senate seats and in one gubernatorial battle. With that in mind, the potential rise in African-American turnout could be devastating to Republican hopes.

"In the general election, I think you're looking at anywhere between a dozen to potentially 20 battleground House districts where the African-American vote is going to be key," Doug Thornell, the national press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says. "If our candidates can turn out a significant number of African-American voters in those districts, I think we're going to be in very good shape."

Thornell's count, which includes both Republican and Democratic districts, represents perhaps as much as a third of all the races the DCCC considers competitive.