House Republicans offer the White House an enticing new target
By: Steve Benen
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It's not unusual for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to offer public criticism of Republican ideas, but yesterday, President Joe Biden's chief spokesperson targeted a specific proposal that hasn't generated a lot of attention.
"The Republican Study Committee, which includes most House Republicans, endorses cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits," Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.
For much of the public, which is probably unfamiliar with the Republican Study Committee, the missive may not have had much of an impact, but the press secretary's point warrants some additional attention.
About a half-century ago, when there were still plenty of moderate and even liberal Republicans, a group of conservative lawmakers created the Republican Study Committee as a home exclusively for House members on the right. In the years that followed, as centrist Republicans became an endangered species, the Republican Study Committee became one of Congress' largest caucuses — to the point that roughly three out of four House GOP members has joined the contingent.
With this in mind, when the Republican Study Committee releases a budget plan, it represents the views and priorities of most of the House GOP. And as Mother Jones reported, the ideneWhite House is right to be concerned about what these Republicans have proposed.
A little-noticed budget document, the Blueprint to Save America, released in June by the Republican Study Committee, details the group's priorities.... The 122-page manifesto, containing a laundry list of longstanding conservative desires, calls for significantly reducing the size of America's social safety net, drastically limiting abortion access nationwide, effectively throwing in the towel on combatting climate change, raising the age requirement to receive full Social Security benefits, cracking down on transgender rights, and making it easier for Americans to carry concealed weapons.
Jean-Pierre included a link to the budget blueprint in her tweet, which was a good idea: This is a publicly available document that voters probably ought to be aware of.
It's difficult to summarize a 122-page plan, but these House Republicans made little effort to curtail their ambitions. If the Republican Study Committee's plan were implemented, Social Security and Medicare would be partially privatized, food stamps would be slashed, Head Start would be phased out, Medicaid funding would be decimated, the Affordable Care Act would be weakened, labor unions would be undermined, the EPA would be gutted, abortion would be banned, birthright citizenship would be eliminated, Donald Trump's border wall would be funded, and even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would see its doors permanently closed.
The point, of course, isn't that such a plan will be implemented anytime soon. There's a Democratic majority in Congress, which won't consider any of these regressive ideas.
Rather, the point is that the Republican Study Committee, representing 75 percent of the overall House Republican conference, not only endorses these ideas, they put these ideas in writing and released them as the members' official budget plan.
What's more, they might not be in the minority for much longer.
The House Budget Committee's Democratic chairman, Kentucky's John Yarmuth told Mother Jones that the document reflects how a GOP-led House would govern. "The new members [Republicans] get if they unseat our members and take our open seats are going to be even more conservative than the people who put this together," Yarmuth argued. "I think this would be exactly the blueprint that they would try to adopt."
There's also, of course, an electoral dimension to this: By some measures, the Republican Study Committee has 157 members. Are they prepared to run for re-election while defending this radical policy blueprint?
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For those that don't read...
cool. political suicide for the insurrectionist party...
Everything listed would be a detriment to the 'working class' that they claim to be for.
“…that they claim to be for.”
Claim, blame…shame.
We all know their regressive agenda, and most frightening, they are running on it.
Republicans in Congress lay groundwork for anti-transgender push
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans in Congress are lining up behind legislation that critics say would roll back protections for transgender people, setting a playbook for action on a divisive social issue should they take control of Congress this fall.
The bills have no chance of becoming law this year, as Democrats narrowly control both chambers of Congress. But they are a sign that Republicans aim to elevate a battle over transgender rights that has so far largely played out at the state level.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would block federal funding to colleges where transgender women are allowed to participate in sports with cisgender women. A separate bill would allow transgender people to sue medical personnel who helped them transition as minors.
Another bill would block funding to schools that disobey state laws regarding "materials harmful to minors," mimicking state laws that have been used to remove books discussing history around race and LGBT themes.
But somehow they did. They don't quote from the document only how they summarize it. Many of these ideas have merit, for instance Birthright Citizenship should be addressed, why should a labor union have any advantage over any other business in the United States?
Why should birthright be addressed? Should someone that gives birth have to jump through hoops to get citizenship?
There is nothing wrong with labour unions. They gave us a lot of the workers rights we have today.
There is a direct connection between the republican led evisceration of the labor unions and the decimation of the American middle class.
Isn't birthright citizenship referring to how any child born on American soil is considered an American citizen?
I'm generally in favor of birthright citizenship, however, it can be abused.
One way that it is abused is via birth tourism. I know there are people that pull their hair out over the thought anchor babies from Mexico. I shrug on that one. We have migrant workers from Mexico what's a few more Americans more or less? If our neighbors want to be Americans that badly all I really feel is, "welcome to the family."
What worries me more is people traveling a long distance to do this and with a plan that might be more dangerous.
Russian ‘birth tourism’ brings boom to South Florida
Do I need to say any more?
I know if they get control, any and all social safety nets would be gone after.
Only those they can't privatize to make the uber rich even richer.
Caveat suffragator.
I don't know if this is something that could be done via a reconciliation bill or not, but if not then they have to overcome the 60 vote threshhold. So the only way this really could go thru would be for the Republicans to be in charge of the House, have a 60+ majority in the Senate and have the White House with a President willing to sign such a bill as it's a fair certainty that the President would not win re-election if they signed such a bill.
I do agree however that SS & Medicare need to be fixed, just don't believe that privatization would be correct.
What it does is shows their agenda. If there was/is a red wave, do you not think they would try some of these things? Of course it would be vetoed by Biden yet if they get a true wave and then the presidency in 2024, I can see them implementing some of these.
Hell I didn't think they would succeed in overturning Roe yet they did.
It almost sounds like even though they laid out a plan, you are going to say, nah, they couldn't do it....
Almost denying what they themselves put in writing.
The SCOTUS Roe v Wade decision was a starting point for them.
If I remember correctly didn't Bush II try to privatize part of SS during his tenure?
Some will deny everything the lying hypocrite evil (IMHO) republicans do, no matter WHAT.
No, I was what I thought quite clear in what I wanted to say. You by saying "you are going to say, nah, they couldn't do it" are putting something in that I did not say. You want me to be clearer, I do not fucking want them to do this should they gain the majority in both House and Senate. Clear enough for you now?
Yep.
Sorry, I tend to speak in generalities.
"Republican Study Committee releases a budget plan"
This is a Republican budget plan that they would certainly use the budget reconciliation to push through with a simple majority. It wouldn't really be passing laws against transgender rights, the ACA, Medicare, Social security etc., they would simply be defunding those programs in the budget to effectively slit the throats of those social safety nets as we know them today by cutting their funding.
Trying to privatize them as GW Bush attempted would be disastrous, what the programs need is to be fixed by properly funding them. Just increasing the ss payroll tax rate by 2% would extend Social security for another 75 years. Republican legislators of course don't want to do that because they want it to fail so they can privatize it. They are ideologically opposed to a social safety net for seniors. Apparently they believe all seniors should have saved up enough for their own retirements or should be forced out on the street and into soup kitchens if they don't have family willing to financially support them for the last few decades of their lives. We'd see the depression days before social security was enacted with elderly hobos living in tent cities along the the railroad tracks almost immediately if Republicans successfully kill social security.
The reason I said that I'm unsure if this could be done via a reconciliation bill is that the pieces that make up the bill also need to be approved by the Senate Parliamentarian to insure that none of the pieces break the Byrd rule. Also I am fairly sure that Social Security cannot be modified by a reconciliation bill. Would not attempting to privatize Social Security be a change in taxes which the Byrd rule prohibits in the Senate? Same for Medicare. So while the Republicans can push out a budget plan like this, I believe the reality is it has very little chance of passage and is more for the base. I'm sure there are Republicans who would love to see something like this pass. I'm not a Republican and I would definitely not support any of this change.
The changes I would support are to remove the salary cap for SS earnings, and I believe it's time for another advance in the full retirement age. When SS was first set up, the average age of the American male was 64.5 years so 65 for full retirement benefits worked well. But life expectancy has increased and I would not have an issue with increasing the retirement age. Or they could increase the tax rate as you stated, either would work to help extend the life of the program. I would also change the age to be Medicare eligible to match the full retirement age.
More stupidity from the dumb asses