Nancy Pelosi Takes to House Floor to 'Set the Record Straight' on Fiscal Cliff

[TomCADem]

Source: ABC News

What I would do to respond to what the speaker has said though is to set the record straight. The fact is that the president has and Democrats agree with him. Agree to over one half one half one point six trillion dollars in -- In the budget control act and other acts of congress and it's -- in this particular. Congress one point six trillion dollars in where the cuts. There in bills that you Mr. speaker have voted for.

Secondly on the issue of the entitlements. With the Affordable Care Act and with legislation in the president and suggestions. Provisions in the president's budget it amounts over one trillion dollars in savings.

In Medicare over one trillion dollars in savings which had been redirected to prolonging life. -- Medicare making it stronger for nearly a decade. While increasing benefits. For seniors and those who depend amendment not reducing but increasing benefits. There's been a massive misrepresentation.

So I want to set the record -- so in terms of spending cuts. We're on the record having voted for over one about one point six trillion dollars.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/nancy-pelosi-takes-house-floor-set-record-straight-17934608

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The corporate media has generally ignored Nancy Pelosi's strong rebuttal to Boehner lies that Democrats have not agreed to any spending cuts and have failed to be specific in their proposals. Yet, if you try to search for Nancy Pelosi's response to Boehner, you will only find Boehner's lies, but not Democratic response, except for this one video excerpt and transcript.

So, if you ask why aren't Democrats responding to Republican charges, including Senator Lindsey Graham's complaint that the President should "man up" and cut entitlements, rather than insist on increased tax rates, perhaps the media is censoring Nancy Pelosi, because it would just further underscore how sexist and out of touch Republicans have become.

[ricardA]

1. The main issues are not political problems

People need a fair economic system, a working society, basic good values put back in place, and true development across the countries. And peace is a requirement for that. Why is it hard to undresthat that? The leaders cannot communicate well with the population? thiat is weird. Peace, peace, peace, and peace. that simple.

[defacto7]

3. ok

[patrice]

17. "simple" it ain't! nt

[freshwest]

2. Thanks, Tom, I had not seen this anywhere and it needs to go viral.

[defacto7]

4. K&R

[Overseas]

5. Glad she's strong. But we really don't need to be cutting at people's needs any more. Billions were

already cut in the Republicans' Round One of Defeat The Democrats Agenda.

No more cuts. No more cuts.

Gain more revenue by bargaining for drugs for Medicare.

Gain more revenue by finally taxing the rich more fairly.

Gain more revenue by a tiny transaction tax on Wall Street since they crashed our economy and got bailed out instead of going to jail.

[TomCADem]

6. I Think Her Point Was To Respond to Boehner's Lie

She was not advocating more cuts, but pointing out that over a trillion in cuts have been made, thus for Boehner to say that no cuts have been made is a complete lie.

[mostlyconfused]

10. You really can't get the job done without cuts somewhere

Taking your three points in reverse order...

"Gain more revenue by a tiny transaction tax on Wall Street"
Huffington post article says that would net $350 billion over 9 years, so annually that would be about $38.9 billion
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/wall-street-transaction-tax-revenue_n_1080493.html

"Gain more revenue by finally taxing the rich more fairly."
Obama is talking about the top marginal rate going up to 39%. Raising it to that level would raise an additional $58.2 billion in taxes each year, based on actual tax return data for 2009.
Source: http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats---Individual-Statistical-Tables-by-Size-of-Adjusted-Gross-Income

"Gain more revenue by bargaining for drugs for Medicare"
According to Ezra Klein's WonkBlog, this would save $156 billion over 10 years, or $15.6 billion each year.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/03/how-obama-would-cut-medicare-spending-in-a-deficit-deal/

So in total these three items would address 10% of a $1.1 trillion annual deficit. It's a good start, but only a small one. IMO Obama is aiming a lot lower than I expected on the tax increase for the wealthy. How do you want to close the other 90% gap in the budget?

[Overseas]

12. Voting out Republicans is best for that. They started expensive wars and gave expensive tax cuts.

They create the biggest deficits and then scream to cut social programs because their main priority is to crush The New Deal.

Deficit is not the main problem. Continuing to pretend that tax cuts for corporations and the top two percent create jobs is the problem. "Supply Side" economics has failed and we need to get beyond that.

Slashing social programs does not "get the job done" because it bankrupts more people. Social spending enables more people to purchase goods and services which stimulate the economy.

We need more spending, not less.


And if imposing a tiny 0.025% transaction tax doesn't help enough, let's try 0.04%.

[mostlyconfused]

13. ok, make it 0.04%

Now between those three items you've covered 12% of last year's deficit instead of 10%. Do you really not think something needs to be done to address the 88% that remains?

Deficits don't matter as much when interest rates are so low, but look at the budget line item for making interest payments on the debt. What happens to that when interest rates rise?

[Overseas]

14. Vote out Republicans. They wail about deficits only in Democratic administrations. They run up debts

when they are in charge, like starting a war on false pretenses, and then give tax cuts in a time of war, instead of increasing them then which would be more responsible.

Then they wail about deficits when the Democrats come in.

And insist that we must beat up the poor and middle class programs to bring those deficits down.

[mostlyconfused]

16. So let's imagine that there are no Republicans. :-)

Hey, it's not reality today, but who knows...maybe after the 2014 midterms there won't be enough of them left to get in the way.

We're talking about three line items that together would address 10-12% of the deficit. Do you think it important to do anything about the other 88%? If so, what?

I could be wrong, but I think the peak annual spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan got to around $190 billion in 2008. In FY 2012 it was $115.1 billion. In FY 2013 it is supposed to be $88.5 billion.
Source: http://costofwar.com/

If that could be completely wiped out today, it would address another 8% of the deficit. We're up to 20%. What else?

[Overseas]

22. By following the Deficit! Deficit! frame, you are not imagining there are no Republicans,

running up the deficits with wild abandon and then screaming about how important they are once Democrats are in power.

Without Republicans I imagine we would be working on reducing carbon emissions by retrofitting a lot of our infrastructure, creating jobs which would stimulate consumer spending and help our economy.

Without Republicans we would be changing regulations that allow corporations and the top one percent to hide their profits overseas.

Without Republicans we would be instituting campaign finance reform.

Without Republicans we would be working on Medicare for All, knowing that freedom from healthcare bankruptcies would spur more consumer spending and help our economy.

Without Republicans we would have a better chance of recognizing how expensive privatizing our military services has become and make some sensible reductions in military spending, not hurting military personnel and veterans, but greatly reducing war profiteering.

[mostlyconfused]

23. that's an impassioned, persuasive, non-answer to my question

Unfortunately we cannot jump into the wayback machine and simply undo the policies that got us into this mess. We are where we are, and have to work with our current reality, which is that the few items offered up in this discussion thread might address 20% of the deficit. Given we have Obama in the white house and democratic control of the senate, I'd suggest our strategy not be "running up the deficits with wild abandon" and ignoring realty, like the other side did.

There's a good list of long term goals you have there. Will any of them have near term impact on the deficit, or do deficits not matter?

[Overseas]

24. Yes we can. We can realize we allowed our country to be wrecked by Republican idiots without having

to punish the poor to repair it ASAP.

We can pick up the battered poor and middle class first, and get a bit more help from the top as we always used to do.

We can jump into the wayback machine and realize we trusted the idiot Republicans who started wars they didn't pay for and gave tax cuts out with nary a peep from their minions about Fiscal Responsibility.

We can jump way back to when our party was not their patsy-- to clean up Republican messes by slashing budgets for our own constituents, showing the irresponsible who are accusing us of Big Spending, how grown up and responsible we can be.

We now know that Republican game imposes more and more pain on those who can least afford it. And when they're in pain they're swayed by dreamy narratives about Morning in America and then vote for those dreams and get junk bonds and union crushing Republicans instead.

Yes We Can jump way back to when our country was not embarrassed to rebuild as needed, spending our tax dollars on glorious projects to strengthen our nation, rebuilding roads, bridges, schools, levees and power grids. Maybe even preparing seriously for the climate change we have instigated through our reckless lifestyles.

Republicans want us panic panic and to clear up the deficit in 4 years (no matter who it hurts) so they can run up the next one and help their pals hoard more cash.

[mostlyconfused]

25. and again...

Another non-answer, big on rhetoric, absent any substance. The kind of conversation we accuse the other side of having. You and I may agree in principle, but we are speaking completely different languages.

[Overseas]

26. Republican language-- Gotta Cut Spending Now! The Deficit is Primary! Doesn't matter who the cuts

hurt it has got to be done NOW !! Austerity Austerity! Kick the poor again!

Democratic language-- Raise revenue now! Let the tax cuts for the top 2% expire AND close the loopholes. Eliminate subsidies to big oil (they didn't use our taxpayer money to devise safer ways of cleaning up their spills or avoiding those accidents in the first place)-- their record profits don't need our support. Dare to contemplate eliminating the purchase of military weaponry from firms convicted of fraud (since everyone was so outraged about the fraud ACORN was merely accused of-- why not stop dealing with companies actually convicted of fraud?)
http://www.contractormisconduct.org/

Don't worry about deficits now, do more spending to put people back to work and help our desperate population. Those investments pay better returns because they create jobs by putting people back to work who then spend their pay on consumer goods which revives our economy.

Democratic idea-- A tiny transaction tax on Wall Street trades. Let the guys who got us into the economic mess help get us out of it.

[patrice]

20. What is the effect & therefore the options of the fact that we finance most of that ourselves? nt

[mostlyconfused]

21. What do you think?

I don't ask that to be antagonistic. I honestly don't know. I believe the largest holder of our federal debt is the social security trust fund. There is also a lot of it held in pension funds for government and non-government workers, as well as things like savings bonds.

Presumably the owners of that debt own it because they view the stock market as being too risky....the same reason we don't want to turn social security over to private investment...so it's not gambled in the market.

That said, if the government were to not pay the going interest rates as they go up, or default on that debt, wouldn't that do a lot of harm to the retirement savings for many, many people?

If more than $2 trillion of it is held by the social security trust fund, does that also mean we collapse the social security system if the debt and the interest on the debt is not honored?

[patrice]

19. +1

[Cha]

7. Thanks for getting this rebuttal from Nancy out

out there, Tom!

I hope Rachel, L O'D, Rev Al and others get this out on the air waves!

The Corporate Media is a Plutocratic Koch arm.

[Berlum]

8. K & R

.

[sheshe2]

9. Thanks Tom!

Yet, if you try to search for Nancy Pelosi's response to Boehner, you will only find Boehner's lies, but not Democratic response, except for this one video excerpt and transcript.

Let's set the record straight. The lying GOP and the media, their enablers must GO!

[mountain grammy]

11. please, can we see this on the lousy, stinking, "mainstream news?" nt

[nolabels]

15. When i want to find out the news i am not getting i come to DU

Corporate produced news sucks so much.

[Coyotl]

18. Just pretend there are no Republicans

Don't give them the time of day and don't allow them to control the discourse by replying to them. Just carry FORWARD as if they were not in the room.