Senate Dems to call GOP’s bluff on the deficit

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum/2011/03/03/AFGsweXG_blog.html

* Senate Dems to call GOP’s bluff on the deficit: Is there anything Dems can do to gain traction with the argument that the GOP’s hard-line opposition to any new revenues proves Republicans are fundamentally unserious about reducing the deficit? Senate Dems are going to try this week, by moving forward with a plan to end oil industry subsidies and to divert the savings to deficit reduction.

The game plan: To harnass public anger over gas prices to box in Republican Senators, forcing them to either support the Dem plan or reveal that they care less about the deficit than about preserving tax breaks for oil companies. But Republicans don’t seem terribly worried: They are out with multiple releases this morning deriding Dems for trying to solve high gas prices with a “new tax.”

Fact of life: Republicans don’t fear any debate which allows them to accuse Dems of raising taxes.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/us/politics/09congress.html?_r=1&ref=politics
Democrats See Strategy to End Big Oil Tax Breaks

[craigmatic]

1. Ending oil subsidies seems like the kind of thing the teabaggers would support. It's going to be

interesting to see how this plays out.

[sharp_stick]

2. A true teabagger would support it

but I find that group is pretty much just an astroturf organ of the Chamber of Commerce. It's like the ones riding around with little don't tread on me flags stuck to their Medicare paid for scooters. Damned if they don't get all testy when you ask them how they'd like to end medicare for old folks.

[asjr]

3. Well, maybe a decaffienated

tea-bagger would support it.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. It sounds like some members of the Tea Party have already made their demands

in regards to the debt ceiling: reinstating DADT! :eyes: :crazy: :wtf:

[LatteLibertine]

4. Good

and don't let the GOP stall the Dodd Frank reform!

[DrToast]

6. Here's why Republicans aren't afraid

It's because we have no plan to reduce gas prices. And if this ending of subsidies ever passed, Republicans can blame it on the "new taxes" the Democrats passed. That's bullshit, of course, but since when has that mattered?

[vi5]

7. I'll believe it when I see it.....

You'll have to forgive me for not having the rosiest and most optimistic expectations for any game of chicken between our elected Dem leaders and the Republicans.

As always....be happy to be proven wrong. Not expecting that to happen though.

[Wednesdays]

8. K&R

:kick:

[Avant Guardian]

9. Republicans cling to a fatally flawed ideology

The world suffers.

[Kablooie]

10. Repub political logic can label *anything* a new tax since it doesn't rely on truth or evidence.