Republican Chairman of the Budget Committee Paul Ryan will have “stunning and unprecedented” powers....
In 2 days – Congress will reconvene for it’s 112th session – with Republicans firmly in control of the House of Repres entatives. On that day – a series of votes will be taken to approve new rules for the House – set by the Republican majority. Among these new rules: each new piece of legislation will now be required to include a statement regarding its constitutionality – also the Democrats’ previous rule known as PAYGO – which required all new spending legislation to be paid for by cuts to other programs – will be dismantled to exclude tax cuts for rich people from having to be paid for. Say hello to even higher deficits thanks to tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. But perhaps the most audacious new rule created by the Republican majority is one that gives the new Republicans Chairman of the Budget Committee Paul Ryan “stunning and unprecedented” powers, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Under this new rule – if there is disagreement between the House and Senate Budget Resolutions – which is likely this year in a divided Congress – then Chairman Ryan will have the power to set spending levels completely on his own - without debate. Ryan has already made his intentions clear – he published a memo entitled “Roadmap for America’s Future” in which he calls for the privatization of Medicare and Social Security, handing both of those programs over to the traders and hustlers on Wall Street who helped fund his campaign for election. And now – if these new House rules pass – Ryan will become one of the most powerful men in Congress – able to carry out his radical agenda with a single stroke of the pen – and no debate.
Comments
If Ryan gets that deal passed the people of the state he hails from should initiate a recall. maybe they should now anyway. I and most Americans are fed up with both parties. Which is why i started the
American Peoples Liberty Party see our videos www.youtube.com/billyandtherockets
Hey THOM even though you say you are a Progressive Democrat would yoou like to be in our administration if this party wins the white house?
Maybe the question should be:
""how could it not pass, with all the republicans and blue dog democrats (on the multi national corporate payroll) all working to make these changes, and FOX NEWS there to confuse people into voting to keep these people in office?""
I am with the other poster (wishing I could move to Mexico., or somewhere)..
Was it this bad under Al Capone? Maybe someone smarter than I could do a comparison. Sure there was physical violence with machine guns, but the overall effect of all this corporate caused poverty must be many times greater than the environment created by Al Capone..
I pray these don't pass. But, if they do, I'm seriously considering emigrating.
JLN-G
Suggested abbreviation for Paul Ryan is: Pryan.
Alarmingly similar to Prion, but with slight differences, this one is:
Boyvine Sponging Forum and Selfish-itis (vs. bowvine spongiform encephalitis)
If they succeed in privatizing Social Security there will be riots. That I can promise.
You think? When the people are allowing themsleves to be groped and irradiated without sayigna word when they want to simply fly across the country?
Sure it'll pass.Why not? We're headed down the road of totalitarianism and nobody seems to care, except a very few of the left of the left.
Voices crying in the corporate wildnerness.
Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back?
Perhaps this will be the straw that breaks that proverbial camel's back...Baby Boomers-and-older will not tolerate it! There are some who remember the time before Social Security...OR have parents who had no safety net during and before the Depression. And, surely baby boomers remember the pre-Medicare days...
Many BB are enjoying, for the first time, security and support - limited though it may be.- in these times that have not been easy.
I cannot imagine anything negative happening to medicare or social security. If there ever is a true threat i can only imagine the kind of March on Washington that would/will take place. I mean...get the RV hook-ups and the Mall ready pronto!! Now THAT will be a visual for the country to behold...[all those visuals of grey hair, canes, walkers, and wheel chairs. And, also the outright integrity of the indignation - for all to see!]. It might take something this drastic, and if it does, Obama is a shoe-in in the next presidential election! The Republicans just may be digging themselves into a very deep hole. If they are, it's a good thing to be doing at the start of the upcoming legislative session. Maybe something real can happen.
Well, don't move yet (like any of us can escape the octopus arms of multinational corporations and banks determined to steal our air, our water, our food, our livelihoods, and our futures). We give up, they win. We give up, EVERYONE loses. So I say, let's raise hell instead. And keep waking people up. I say we do our best to make this info "viral" in the next 24 hours. The site www.congress.org (not a government site) lets you write your reps and write letters to the editors of a bunch of newspapers at one site, and post a bulletin board. I'm sending copies to all the progressive groups I know to put out action alerts. I'd like to greet the new House leadership with about half a million or more letters, petition sigs, etc giving our opinion of these meglomaniacal rules. May not work, but I will have TRIED. They WANT us to give up. They are expecting us to give up. They also expected that with the civil rights movement, the farmworkers' movement, the miners and labor movement. I OWE those people who died in those movements to not give up. I've been doing this for 40+ years and will admit I get tired. But I'm not dead yet, and I'll be damned if I'll just let them run over me. As one of the best said,
"In the past, apathy was a moral failure. today, it is a form of moral and political suicide. --The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This man is living a pipe dream. It is unconstitutional for one person in Congress to have that level of power. No one who wants to ever be re-elected to office will vote yes on this. I will be very surprised if this passes. The one good thing that is coming out of all of this, is that we now know for sure who we are dealing with, and you can bet he is going to lose his next election.
Medicare and Social Security are government programs. They cannot be privatized, via the US Constitution. It won't past the Constitutional Vetting Process. This is just another attempt by the Wealthy Elite, and Corporatist Globalists to whip people up into a frenzy with another threat of what they claim they will take from us "peons" if they don't get their way. This is what happens when people vote with emotion instead of reason, and vote against their own self interests.
Hold on to you hat, it will be a bumpy ride, that will go nowhere and spell disaster for the Repugnican (Republican) Party....get your popcorn.
I want the Republicans to come to the House full force with their agenda ! and let the general public see who/ what they voted for...............hopefully the tables will be turned!
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
At Mondragon - both the mountain and the cooperative city - in Spain (written about in "Threshold" book)
If this is the case as you describe Thom/Louise, and such a rule is approved we may as well just pack up any idea of a democratic U.S. government! There is no way that any one in these United States can agree to such a usurpation of such monumental power to any one congressman. That the republicant's could even propose such a process proves fully how deluded & truly megalomaniacal they are. Keep shouting the truth Thom!