I strongly object to the up or down vote of the Deficit Commission's recommendations.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Who determined that their recommendations get an up or down vote without debate and amendment? AFTER the elections? Right before the holidays?

It is also obviously a ploy for anyone and everyone to evade personal responsibility for the policies enacted. The President will have no comment? No leadership role? The Budget and Finance committees of the House and Senate have no input or role in drafting policy?

I do not consider this a way to openly and honestly create responsible fiscal policy. I also consider this to be a usurpation of the power of Congress to tax and budget.

I also object because at no time during the Presidential campaign did candidate Obama announce that he would create by executive order a bi-partisan deficit commission partially comprised of unelected right-wing privatization a#$holes and that their recommendations would be foisted off on the public with an up or down vote.

Make them take responsibility! Make them openly debate the recommendations! Make them do it on CSPAN all day every day before a vote is taken.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Does this vote accept the commisions report...

or does it enact those suggestions as law?

As I understand it, simply accepting their recomendations doesn't enact anything into law. After a quick search, I can not find anything that says, an up or down vote on their recomendations does any more than recgonize and approve of the report.

I would appreciate a link, as this is an important issue.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. Here is some info

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/100704-can-these-men-fix-the-deficit.html

SIMPSON: We’re not going to cut Social Security—we’re going to stabilize it. None of the ideas that have been presented will affect anyone over age 58. But we’re going to make the system work. As it is, it can’t sustain itself.

Does Congress have the political courage to act on your proposals?

BOWLES: If we get 14 out of 18 members of the commission to agree on any of the recommendations, Sen. Reid has promised to bring them to the floor for an up-or-down vote. And if it passes in the Senate…
SIMPSON: …the Speaker has said she’ll do the same.
BOWLES: We’re going to work our hearts out to succeed.

http://openleft.com/diary/19320/medicare-and-social-security-cuts-inch-closer
In a surprising, and ominous, move, tonight the House of Representatives, by a 215-210 vote, passed a rule guaranteeing a vote on the deficit commission recommendations in December, if--and this is a big if--those recommendations pass the Senate:

FDL has learned that in a last minute move, Nancy Pelosi sneaked language into the rule that the House is voting on tonight regarding war funding.

Embedded in the rule is the requirement that the House will vote on the deficit commission's recommendations in the lame duck session if they pass the Senate.

Now, its pretty bloody unlikely that you will round-up unanimous consent on any deficit commission vote in the Senate, so you would need a cloture vote to pass it (Senate rules will not be changed before January). In order for there even to be a cloture vote, you would need consent from the Senate leadership, and 60 Senators in favor. That is all unlikely for multiple reasons, including inevitable absentee Senators during any lame duck session, getting any Republicans to vote for a recommendation that raises any taxes at all, progressive objections to benefit cuts, and more.


It is, however, not impossible. Elites all have deficit fever, and it is attacking the intestinal linings of this country. Further, the weeks immediately following what will be a relatively successful election for Republicans (even if they don't take back either branch of Congress, they will pick up a significant number of seats) are bound to be a perfect moment for Democrats to act scared, and cave. Finally, President Obama has often used the language of crisis to discuss Social Security, and bends over backward to appear bipartisan and reasonable, so he may well support the recommendations. Given Obama's proven ability to persuade the base, his support would result in significant backing of the commission's recommendations from both activist and rank and file Democrats.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. So it is damned unlikely that the Senate will pass those recomendations...

That still does not answer my question about what that vote does. Accepting a recomendation isn't usually the same thing as passing a law to put the recomendation into a legal framework.

[jaxx]

2. But there's one important difference: Obama's commission doesn't have quite the same teeth.

The proposal by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) would have required the commission to vote not only on a report with suggestions, but an actual bill that would address the deficit--that is to say, actual legislation that would presumably either cut spending or raise taxes. The House speaker and Senate majority leader would be required to introduce that bill to their respective chambers for debate and possible voting. (Though Conrad's legislation says that if they don't do it as required, any other member can introduce the proposed language...) The commission's bill would also be taken up by the relevant House and Senate committees.

That was voted down by the Senate Jan. 26, collecting 53 "yea" votes but falling short of the 60 needed to advance to a final up-or-down vote. This was met with consternation, as some of the GOP senators who opposed it had cosponsored a previous effort to create a deficit commission.

Obama's executive order does not mandate any of this. The commission will produce a report, but Congress will not be bound, in any sense, to consider it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/obama-creates-deficit-commission-mandates-bipartisanship/36179/

[Ozymanithrax]

8. This answers the question I asked in #1.

Even should they accept the recomendation, it doesn't make it law. Congress and the Senate would then have to take up bills that would enact any single recomendation as a law.

Thanks...

[NoNothing]

4. Congress itself decided on the up or down vote

They could decide not to do it that way if they want. They have the Constitutional power to make their own rules. So your proposal to make them do things a certain way would itself be unconstitutional.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. I am saying that in this case an up or down vote is the WRONG choice

You usually get up or down votes AFTER debate and amendment when you have achieved cloture.

No one said they didn't have a choice - that was the whole point of my OP.

[KeyWester]

7. "without debate"

So, Congress won't debate the rec's ?

Stop the spin already , there will be a very public and intense debate in Congress and on TV.

[inna]

9. What do you mean, "no leadership role"?

Obama showed very strong leadership on this.

He appointed the commission by Executive Order, against the will of Congress.

He even paid for its budget, for chrissakes.

And he put in charge the same people who've been trying to privatize SS and cut benefits for many years (under Clinton and Bush).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/politics/19fiscal.html?_r=1
Bipartisan Commission Is Established to Cut Debt
Published: February 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday officially established a bipartisan commission to propose ways by December to rein in the growing national debt, despite reluctance in both parties to tackling the politically charged issue in a midterm election year.

Mr. Obama signed an executive order establishing the panel three weeks after the Senate rejected bipartisan legislation to create a similar panel.As he did so, he was flanked at the White House by his choices for co-chairmen, Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican Senate leader from Wyoming, and Erskine B. Bowles, a centrist Democrat from North Carolina who was President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-25/obama-s-deficit-cutting-commission-has-tight-fisted-budget-to-do-its-work.html
Executive Order
Obama created the debt commission in February by executive order after the Senate refused to do so through legislation. Its budget came from money the White House reserves for unanticipated expenses.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010031329/obama-packs-debt-commission-social-security-looters
Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters

After the defeat of the Conrad-Gregg commission, groups defending Social Security had little time to rejoice before Obama resuscitated the plan, creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by executive order.

Obama's deficit commission is actually much older than Conrad-Gregg. Its history as a vehicle for reforming Social Security goes back to 1981, when it was given life under President Ronald Reagan as the Greenspan Commission (guess who chaired it). The commission's first act was to raise Social Security payroll taxes across the board and lower benefits via changes to cost of living adjustments.

Bill Clinton revived the commission many times during the '90s, each time with a slightly new name and slightly new members, always stacked to recommend partial privatization, which critics on the left mocked as "a solution in search of a problem." But Clinton thought it politically risky to proceed with its recommendations on his own, and in a little-known chapter to that story, his chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, helped negotiate a secret pact with Newt Gingrich in late 1997 to unite behind the commission's proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age and begin privatization .

The pact collapsed when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke just days before Clinton was set to announce it. George W. Bush quickly reconstituted the commission in 2001 and adopted its core proposal – Social Security privatization – as the centerpiece to his second-term agenda in 2005. The developing quagmire in Iraq and Bush’s consequent unpopularity gave Democrats, with public outcry behind them, the confidence to unite against it, even though Democratic leaders had supported similar measures in the '90s, and the plan was soon declared dead.

Obama Packs Debt Commission With Social Security Privatization & Benefit Cut Supporters: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/10/obama-packs-debt-committee-with-supportes-of-social-security-benefit-cuts-and-privatization/

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. You're totally correct - lots and lots of leadership, but completely

front-ended.

If this goes according to plan, President Obama can just throw up his hands and say, well it was a bi-partisan commission and Congress went for the recommendations.

I think it's a way to distance himself from the ultimate vote in an effort to protect his run for re-election, where he'll probably run on CORRECTING the crap his own executive order commission recommended!

[inna]

19. I'm not convinced at all he's interested in re-election.

Didn't he say it himself? :shrug:



"I think it's a way to distance himself from the ultimate vote in an effort to protect his run for re-election"


He can't really "distance himself" because this is his baby. He created the Commission by Executive order, after the Senate refused to vote for it, and packed it with known pro-privatization people.

Also, the vote won't affect the midterm elections anyway, because of the timing.

[Recursion]

10. BRAC has shown this is the only way to get Congress to do something painful

My guess is it won't pass.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. A friend of mine said that this procedure exactly mirrors the BRAC commission.

I also think your use of the word "painful" is apt.

I'm just afraid I can predict who will be feeling the pain.

[Recursion]

14. Yeah, my understanding is it was modeled on BRAC

And, honestly, BRAC has more or less done a good job.

The problem is, this particular "job" is one we don't want done. Still, I'm holding off judgment until I see the actual recommendation.

[KeyWester]

12. I can answer that question...

"Who determined that their recommendations get an up or down vote without debate...."

Nobody, you just made that up. I would ask for a link, but why waste my time. :eyes:

There WILL be a intense debate in Congress, just like there always is.

[Recursion]

15. I think the "without any debate" refers to the Senate rules it will go to the floor under

Meaning it won't need a cloture vote to be considered and so can't be filibustered. I don't think it literally means "without any debate".

[KeyWester]

17. So the OP is upset the senate can't fillibuster ?

[Recursion]

18. Either I or he is misunderstanding what that means

I have no idea what the OP is thinking, but what I remember reading is that because this is a deficit reduction bill this can be introduced in the Senate as an unamendable bill that does not require a cloture vote to get to the floor, meaning you don't need 60 votes. I think that's what the OP is thinking of, and if I'm right I think he's wrong about what it means.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

21. I'm a she.

I remember reading the unamendable bill stuff from the Conrad/Gregg Commission that was rightly voted into non-existance by the Senate.

I wouldn't have as many qualms about the current Deficit Commission right now but for reading all this stuff that they are trying to get on the fast track up or down vote train. Why? Why not just take the recommendations and treat them like any other recommendation?

I honestly do not know the exact consequences of an up vote. Does that mean that the recommendation becomes law? Does it mean that the Senate affirms the recommendation and then will write law that will be "deemed" passed? (remember that from the healthcare debate)

I also would ask people to remember, a lot of stuff under scrutiny are not necessarily new LAWs - they are budget recommendations. If you don't fund something, it doesn't exist.

[Recursion]

22. Oops! Sorry

Why not just take the recommendations and treat them like any other recommendation?

Because people would only vote for the popular measures and not the unpopular ones, but it needs both to work. Sort of like HCR: you need the unpopular mandate to keep the insurance companies from going out of business after you pass the popular requirement to offer coverage (or so the theory goes).

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

16. I could of course be wrong, BUT

it is my understanding that up or down votes take place AFTER cloture which ends debate.

I provided 2 links above, one of which in which Simpson said Reid told him he would bring it before the Senate as an Up or Down vote.
That in itself is quite bold, since it implies he has the 60 vote bullet-proof majority to fend off debate and filibuster. Which would be really weird, since presumably it would be the Republicans filibustering DEFICIT CUTTING. So maybe they already have a bi-partisan majority all collected to bring the vote to an up or down.

Nacy Pelosi made the same recommendation to the House, that they do an up-or down if the measure passes the Senate.

I am just pointing out that there has already been a LOT of work behind the scenes to abridge the normal processes.

You may choose to believe or disbelieve that. I think that the poster who said this is just like the BRAC commision had a very valid point.

[Spazito]

20. Congress doesn't have to consider the recommendations at all...

"Nevertheless, Obama's panel is a weaker version of a commission that was voted down by the Senate on Tuesday because Congress won't be required by law to consider the presidential commission's recommendations or to vote on them."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/27/news/economy/obama_state_of_the_union_deficits/index.htm

[eridani]

23. What to do about it

FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE CATFOOD COMMISSION!
Join the following organizations

Social Security Works
http://socialsecurity-works.org /

Social Security Matters
http://www.socialsecuritymatters.org/Home.html

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
http://www.ncpssm.org /

Fight the "deficit hawks" noise machine with facts

The Century Foundation reports on Social Security
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=TP&topic=2

Behind the Myths of Social Security
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1381

Center for Economic and Policy Research reports on Social Security
http://www.cepr.net /

[mdmc]

24. ..