WH Blames “Tea Party Revolt” For Likely Rejection Of Payroll Tax Cut
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said it is a “Tea Party revolt” that would be responsible for the House rejecting a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.
“Speaker Boehner’s position on Sunday was not the position that he had on Saturday when the 89 Senators came together to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. Let’s think on that. 89 Senators, the Republican leadership. You can’t get 89 votes in this day and age for apple pie, yet they all supported this. The did it with the understanding that the House would approve this two-month extension and Speaker Boehner got on the phone with his caucus, tried to sell it. He had a Tea Party revolt. He reversed his position and he’s now putting danger, a tax increase of a $1000 on 160 million Americans in like 12 days now,” Pfeiffer said on MSNBC. |
Tea Party takes its sideshow on the road
With the Republican campaign for the White House taking shape, hundreds of Tea Party activists kicked off a national bus tour on Saturday, aiming to rally their base and new recruits to the conservative political cause. |
As supporters waved American flags and carried signs that read, “I’ll keep my money, guns and freedom, you keep the change,” organizers said the “Reclaiming America” bus tour was about restoring good governance. |
Tea party is effect, not cause
“The tea-party downgrade”? Are they nuts? Leading lights in the White House and prominent national Democrats blame the tea-party movement for bringing about the downgrade in America’s credit rating by the Standard and Poor’s rating agency from AAA to AA+. The narrative goes like this: The tea party contributed to the gridlock in recent weeks that supposedly brought the nation to the brink of default. Indeed, statements S&P executives made Aug. 5 include references to congressional dysfunction: “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.” |
“Tea-party downgrade”? The tea party isn’t the cause of the crisis; it’s the effect, as more and more Americans come to grips with how thoroughly the government is choking the life out of the U.S. economy. Read more at www.rep-am.com |
Tea party proves to be no flash in the pan
When the tea party hit the political scene in summer 2009, characterized by loud outbursts at town hall meetings and the anger expressed by members, it was easy for many to dismiss the movement as a flash in the pan, something that would burn out as quickly as it sparked. |
But now, some two years later, tea party organizations are still alive and kicking, even helping to drive one of the biggest ongoing national debates about how much spending must be cut before the country can raise its debt ceiling.
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Republicans, feeling pressure from tea party activists, are refusing to approve the debt-limit increase without ordering spending cuts topping a trillion dollars at the same time. The White House is insisting that in addition to spending restraint, the deficit trimming must include tax increases that Republicans say are off the table. Read more at www.thesunchronicle.com |
Why make a deal on the debt ceiling when you could just listen to Ron Paul?
As House Republicans prepare to make a deal on the debt ceiling with the White House, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is offering a solution that is receiving some praise from The New Republic, a publication ordinarily hostile to libertarianism: |
Representative Ron Paul has hit upon a remarkably creative way to deal with the impasse over the debt ceiling: have the Federal Reserve Board destroy the $1.6 trillion in government bonds it now holds. While at first blush this idea may seem crazy, on more careful thought it is actually a very reasonable way to deal with the crisis. Furthermore, it provides a way to have lasting savings to the budget. |
The basic story is that the Fed has bought roughly $1.6 trillion in government bonds through its various quantitative easing programs over the last two and a half years. This money is part of the $14.3 trillion debt that is subject to the debt ceiling. However, the Fed is an agency of the government. Its assets are in fact assets of the government. Each year, the Fed refunds the interest earned on its assets in excess of the money needed to cover its operating expenses. Last year the Fed refunded almost $80 billion to the Treasury. In this sense, the bonds held by the Fed are literally money that the government owes to itself. |
GOP Can’t Take Anything for Granted In 2012 Presidential Race
hese developments, far more than the special election in upstate New York last month contain a sobering message for Republican leaders: You’d better pick a winner if you want to evict Barack Obama from the White House next year. |
Romney, Pawlenty and Huntsman know that former governors usually make the best and most successful presidents. Four out of Obama’s five predecessors got to the White House that way and three of them — Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, were successfully re-elected to second terms. |
But like the other hopefuls, Romney, Pawlenty and Huntsman will need to show the party rank-and-file, especially the new Tea Party activists, that they have fire in their bellies, wisdom in their hearts and wit on their tongues. |
The Grassroots in the Tea Party Ready to Abandon the GOP?
In the latest polls by Gallop, The majority of registered Republicans are looking at a third party as a solution to the political ineffectiveness of the GOP. They are frustrated and want results. Speaker of the House John Boehner is unwilling to show any leadership and have any moral courage. We have the debt ceiling coming up for a vote in the House. The people are speaking very loud saying no more borrowing and cut spending. Speaker Boehner wants to compromise with the man in the White House. This same man’s policies has made the nation poor and facing more than just a crisis. Why make deals with him instead of being bold.People have had enough.
Now the grassroots looking at a third party for leadership to turn back the nation from the brink of destruction. This war on terror and all these big government policies that stand in the way blocking the people of their God given liberties,The undeclared wars and the bailouts to Wall Street.The Pandering to illegal immigrants not securing the border to amnesty. It now clear people are now finding out the obvious. The GOP is no different than democrats. The two party system gives the false choice to choose from of either voting Democrat the Hardcore Jackass or Republicans representing Jackass light dressed in an elephant costume. |
Fight for the Tea Party nod
Republican Party voters are desperately seeking a principled conservative who can win back the White House. The Nov. 6, 2012, election can’t come soon enough for those who want to put an end to Obamacare, trillion-dollar spending sprees and regulatory excess. On Thursday, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson announced he will run for the GOP nod in the currently wide-open contest for the nomination. Mr. Johnson’s greatest handicap appears to be that nobody knows who he is. |
In an ideal world, Mr. Johnson would replace IRS rules with a Fair Tax or flat tax; he’d dump the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development and he’d stop paying farmers not to farm. It sounds a lot like the Tea Party’s other favorite constitutional conservative, Rep. Ron Paul, who on Tuesday announced the formation of his exploratory committee. Dr. Paul has a proven ability to raise money and inspire legions of enthusiastic volunteers, but that failed to translate into primary victories last cycle. |
Tea Party Pushes For Deeper Cuts
The Tea Party has emerged as a bogeyman of budget negotiations on Capitol Hill with Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accusing its members of introducing “extreme demands” on spending and some Republican leaders unsure of how to treat the influential movement. |
Despite what looks like the outlines of a tentative agreement on $33 billion in spending cuts, the grassroots group, the Tea Party Patriots, plans to hold a rally in Washington today to ask Congress to slash even more from this year’s budget. |
Many Tea Party-affiliated GOP lawmakers are pushing for $100 billion in cuts, and as Patriots leader Mark Meckler told the National Journal, the group’s purpose is to “‘show that our support is behind’ those lawmakers who are ‘actually trying to make significant cuts,’ and send a message to other lawmakers that they ‘better get serious about it.’” http://bit.ly/dWxsP4 |
