Showing posts with label Susan Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susan Collins. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2013

The sequester: The hammer Republicans hold

George F. WillLiberals constantly lecture, more in theatrical sorrow than in actual anger, about their eagerness to compromise with Republicans, just not with Republicans who are — liberal moderation expresses itself immoderately — hostage-taking terroristic anarchistic jihadist suicide bombers. But Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the very model of moderation, spoiled the Democrats’ piety charade by demonstrating its insincerity when she suggestedthis compromise:
Republicans would support a continuing resolution that funds the government for six months at the “sequester” levels of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which was produced by that year’s debt-ceiling negotiations. Republicans would also support raising the debt ceiling to enable the government to borrow enough to finance the substantial deficit spending involved in even sequester-level spending. (The sequester’s supposed severity does not come close to balancing the budget.) Republicans also would grant agencies greater flexibility in administering the sequester’s cuts.
In exchange, Collins asked for only two things. First, a mere delay, and for just two years, of Obamacare’s medical-device tax, which is so “stupid” — Sen. Harry Reid’s characterization — that bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress favor outright repeal. Second, enforcement of income-verification criteria for those seeking Obamacare’s insurance subsidies — criteria the administration wrote but waived.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Paul Ryan Flashes Anger at Senate Republicans

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan lashed out at Senate Republicans for interfering with the House GOP’s talks with the White House to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling, suggesting his colleagues on the other side of the Capitol were betraying Speaker John Boehner.

“They’re trying to cut the House out, and trying to jam us with the Senate. We’re not going to roll over and take that,” Ryan told reporters. When asked if he felt “double crossed,” Ryan said “you look at the facts and draw your own conclusions.”

Senate Republicans, led by Senator Susan Collins of Maine, are negotiating with Democrats on a package to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling into next year with relatively modest concessions for the GOP.

Ryan said House Republicans only learned the details about the plan this morning, and added that he strenuosly objects to it. When asked which parts of the plan he objected to, Ryan said there are “too many to go into.”

One of the most significant differences between a House framework sent to the White House late Thursday and Collins’ plan is the length of time it would extend the debt ceiling. Boehner has put forward a six-week extension, while Collins’ plan has been reported to extend almost until February 2014.

At a closed-door meeting with House Republicans minutes earlier, Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor offered a similar message to their colleagues.

D.C. moving toward fiscal deal despite bumps

From left, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. are pictured. | AP PhotoAt the end of the 11th day of a government shutdown, Republicans and Democrats are trying to figure out a way to filling federal coffers and lifting the debt ceiling.

They’re hitting a few bumps along the way.

President Barack Obama told Speaker John Boehner he wasn’t prepared to accept the House Republican fiscal plan but said they should continue talks about a framework to reopen government, increase the nation’s borrowing limit for six months and start budget talks.

At the same time, Obama signaled openness to a Senate Republican plan penned by Maine Sen. Susan Collins to reopen the government, delay Obamacare’s tax on medical devices and raise the debt ceiling. Obama told GOP senators at a White House meeting Friday that the tax was not core to the health care law. It’s not clear if changing the tax would be enough to satiate House Republicans’ appetite to cut away at the Affordable Care Act.


“We’re on our way now to dealing with this issue,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after the White House meeting. “The actual legislative piece, I don’t think anybody actually knows that at present.”


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