"Warren said she hopes congressional leaders will pick up on the president's offer to cut spending 50 percent by closing corporate loopholes, and 50 percent by making targeted cuts, including in agricultural subsidies and military spending."
Elizabeth Warren called the Sequester cuts just plain dumb. (photo: AP)
Elizabeth Warren: Sequester Cuts Are "Just Plain Dumb"
26 February 13
en. Elizabeth Warren called the automatic cuts in federal spending slated to take effect Friday "just plain dumb," but the Bay State's newly minted, but still senior, senator said it's largely up to congressional leaders to reach a compromise.
"The sequester negotiations are mostly with the leadership," she told reporters this morning before addressing the New England Council. "We all talk, but it's not happening with every Republican reaching out to every Democrat. Right now, the White House, the leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives are in negotiations."
Warren called the $85 billion in automatic cuts set to kick in Friday a "blunt instrument."
"We're out there trying to make clear this means children kicked out of Head Start programs. This means teachers that are potentially laid off. This means fewer air traffic controllers," she said. "It means here in Massachusetts fewer dollars going into research. That may sound way off and not really important, but that means jobs right here in Massachusetts. It means cuts in the defense industry, not smart cuts, cuts we ought to be making, getting rid of fat," she said. "It just means blunt, across-the-board cuts. It's just an irresponsible way."
Warren said she hopes congressional leaders will pick up on the president's offer to cut spending 50 percent by closing corporate loopholes, and 50 percent by making targeted cuts, including in agricultural subsidies and military spending.
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Comments
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So give us a solution instead of casting stones.
There are many elected lawmakers who indeed have earned the title idjiots (sic) but Eliz' Warren is about the least deserving to be so knighted by your "More-lefty-tha n-thou" self.
Be glad that she speaks and clearly comprehends Banskter-lingo better than the chief robbers do and they HATE it!
MartinTfre must be on vacation
Yes, and named himself after a denatured, probably manipulated frankenfood with little nutritional offering; Mag =a gun, a showoff wheel, a delluded magician? Mag00 (how cutesy) =a blind cartoon man; 007 =a spy. !! Cynicism contributes nothing, doesn't need brainpower, and is rarely clever enough to make a point or make us laugh.
Even worse, he may have named himself after the wonderful Grateful Dead song Sugar Magnolia.
Yeah, but since Elizabeth Warren is obviously not "in on it", don't you just LOVE to see her publicly poke a thumb in their eyes ? To be the ONLY member, other than Bernie Sanders, to have the courage to speak the TRUTH ?
The ONLY voice to assure the American People that they are INDEED being "hosed", just the way the People THINK they are ? This woman is a GEM ! Not the least because she KNOWS the world of "high finance", she KNOWS the "lingo", and these serpentine bastards CANNOT dismiss her as "the new kid on the block". They push B.S. at her, and she calls them on their B.S. and then SCHOOLS them on the way the system is SUPPOSED to work, for WHOM, and WHY ! They may indeed "freeze her out" of the "club", but I want to hear that courageous and intelligent voice speaking on behalf of the people for as long as possible.
And a shout out to to Sherrod Brown and Jeff Merkeley and to the progressive caucus in the house. We got plenty of people on our side and our powers are growing. Our message is right for the times and our hearts are strong. Let's make this a better world!
Take a look at Aug 12,'11 article by Prof E. Pries in the (Toronto) Star:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1038961--apocalyptic-crisis-budgeting .
a small extract:
deliberations of a Washington think-tank providing policy direction for the GOP...: “Are you not the party of balanced budgets and debt elimination?” The reply was unequivocal, “Our goal is to grow the deficit as much as possible to create political space to eliminate government-fund ed programming. Until then, we want high deficits while lobbying for a balanced budget — & promote social program cuts as the only solution.”
To create this useful deficit, tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporate sectors would be dramatically increased, especially to banking, energy & military segments. In short, implement a transfer of the state’s revenue supply obligations from the wealthiest to the poor & middle classes in order to permit an even greater transfer of wealth from the middle classes to the rich thereafter. The only trick was:convince poor and middle classes to “buy in” via a mix of patriotism & structural necessity so they vote to cut the very programs that benefited them.
They just want to privatize Social Security and Medicare, and reap more benefits for the rich at the expense of the working class.
Besides, unless every last person in the government is kickass dumb, they know that the road to prosperity for the working class is not cuts but investment in jobs. They just don't care. To them the American working class is largely expendable.
I'm sorry to see Warren talking about spending cuts instead of about jobs. Even if defense and subsidies are not cut by a nickel, the working class needs a stimulus that will create jobs.
You have the long term game down. You are correct about what SHOULD be. But Warren is forced to deal with the battlefield as it IS, not as you, she, and I might WISH it to be.
When the driverless car is careening down the hill at top speed heading for a tall stone wall, sometimes you have to get the car STOPPED FIRST, before you can afford the luxury of redirecting and driving the car to a place where it *should* go.
Give Warren some time. As a freshman Senator, she is already doing more than any Senator but Sanders by "calling it the way it is". She is publicly DEFINING a problem that no one else in office dares to admit even exists.
I am content to let her tackle this thing HER way.
So far, she is the TRUE maverick truth-teller.
She is a lioness for courage, and she is NOT bought-off !
What a concept !
It is very good to see a senator with the courage to be senatorial.
Isn't it time to vote for a third party?
It's also hilarious to hear military brass whine about Defense cuts when so many of them made their careers on the fake wars and plundered, wasted, and profited as they screamed through countless billions with zero accountability. Including the billions in cash stolen while in the military's custody during the first weeks of the Iraq nightmare.
It seems things do come around and bite us on the ass, don't they?
Until Democrats stop re-electing the same old 'me-too' democrats, like a solid majority of the sitting elected democrats, that same GOP will get away with all sorts of things with a lot of Democratic party 'me too' support.
Well, the Dems votes for the war were predicated on the fact that they thought no administration would lie about the things the Bushies did, and the few Dems who knew the truth were stopped from exposing them by the secrets acts which would have imprisoned them as having committed treason if they did. The wars were 100% a Republican thing.
And the bailouts were something that most of the Dems held their noses and voted for because not bailing them out would have caused a depression on a 1929 scale. If they have any fault in that action it was for not requiring measures to prevent the bailed out corporations to totally change how they operated and to prevent them from profiting from the bailouts.
The only thing that brought us out of the other last depression
was government supported jobs.
There are plenty of cuts that would be better than the forced 10% cuts across the board, if we have to go that way, they need to allow each cut to be taken not off each program but the ones that are the less efficient or needed. That's not how they set up this sequester cuts and Congress knows this. If they let it go, we must make an effort to get rid of all of them that did not offer a better way! That will be our job and if we don't do it we will deserve what we get, of course we will be taking a lot of other people with us, that will compound the karma on our own heads.
Going towards caring about others, rather than only ourselves is the first step to sanity for those who think otherwise, if you have a heart left, you can confirm that in your own heart. If you don't , ask a Merciful God for one immediately, for all things are possible with God, but only with your consent and Will, what makes you a little more advanced than the rest of the animal kingdom.
B.C.
So, in a Senate comprised of 100 people, you expect the new freshman senator to magically solve all problems, wave a wand and CONVERT both the House and the Senate, and all in her first couple of months ? And all by herself ?
WoW. Can you see how such unrealistic expectations could make one a *permanently* very unhappy person ?
Rome, as they say, was not built in a day.
"Speaking" pointlessly may be enough for some groupies, but ONLY results count. All else is for suckers & chumps & LOSERS.
Yeah, Clinton also neglected to veto Gramm-Leach-Bli ley, the proximate cause of the tanking of the economy.
That's why I'm not a big supporter of the Clintons who are both corporatists. But without question, they're both better than ANY Republican.
No, what is needed now is not the inane austerity that Europe tried (and which of course, failed to work!) Logically, putting people out of work means that they can no longer "consume", which of course , leads to many more people out of work ... which leads to ....
What IS needed is a rebuilding of our failing infrastructure through government-supp orted jobs. (Preferably before more bridges collapse and roads turn into sink holes.) Isn't it a pity (and utter shame) that a country supposedly this rich cannot find the $$ to feed fully 1/4+ of its children, to keep its bridges and roads in good repair, to build 21stC. rail systems (as in Japan, Europe etc.!) Is no one else ashamed that the US is turning into a third-world country because of the pervasive greed and narrow-mindedne ss of a few oligarchs and their bought congress?
Gee Whiz, "doc", how about you run for Senate and straighten all these hopelessly retarded policymakers out ?
There are supposedly two Senators from New York. Are they simply too incompetent to question incompetent governance of the big banks? Are they simply too incompetent to question the incompetent regulation of the big banks? Are they simply too incompetent to question the CONTINUING US GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES of TOO BIG TO FAIL bankers & finance capitalists?
Geez, it sounds as if we only have three senators who are intelligent enough to question these things about which some two thirds of the nation are and have been five years now wondering about.
We did get rid of Senator Dudd, or was it Dodd, who was blatantly incompetent to even know what he put into that pseudo-banking and finance reform act. He wanted, though he didn't seem to know he wanted it scuttled even more that it was scuttled by Baucus (D-MT- blatantly too incompetent to question anything too currupt to sustain) and his GOP pals.
Maybe Schumer and Gillibrand need to be replaced, too.
Go figure. The figuring is ancient: "the tyrant always first kills the messenger who bears the wrong news." Now we know who voted for Obama and the Ds.
I call it the Ds disease. It is socially transmitted, and may be contageous.
But she caved quietly, sneakily, without putting up a fight that would have put Reid out in the sunlight. Now she can Lead the effort to get Lassie's picture on a stamp. She can't do EVERYTHING.
Read Matt Taibbi's article today.
As far as social spending goes, there is easily $40 billion a year in waste like the $40 billion a year is given to oil companies.
No one in Washingnton has the courage or honesty to cut the waste because the waste is actually transfer payments to very powerful people or corporations.
But entitlements is that and says they people can't contribute more as they are welfare basket cases the sooner the health cover fails them they sooner they fall off the World and our budget?
She has the courage to raise a fuss about Wall St Lobbyists, but she dares not bring up the most powerful lobby in Washington. She took the money, so if a vote comes up about invading Iran, you know what her stance is.
She's for War, but she just wants the rich to pay for it...
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to my essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
~ Albert Einstein
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