Visual Source: Newseum
NY Times:
President Obama pressured Republicans on Wednesday to accept higher taxes as part of any plan to pare down the federal deficit, bluntly telling lawmakers that they “need to do their job” and strike a deal before the United States risks defaulting on its debt...
But the president’s combative remarks on the budget commanded most of the attention, signaling that he had fully entered the fray. On Monday, he took over stalled talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., meeting with Senate Republicans and Democrats, and on Wednesday he met with the Democrats...
“You’ll still be able to ride on your corporate jet,” Mr. Obama said. “You’ll just have to pay a little more.”
EJ Dionne:
At his news conference Wednesday, President Obama put a question to congressional Republicans that should be asked over and over and over until they blink: Are they really willing to risk the nation’s credit and economic turmoil in order to preserve tax breaks for corporate jets, outlandishly low tax rates for hedge fund managers and loopholes for the oil companies?
Katrina vanden Heuvel:
When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked out of the debt-ceiling negotiations last week in a hissy fit, he once more dramatized the simple truth that cannot speak its name. This Republican Party is addled by an extremist ideology and cankered by a vengeful partisanship. In a time of national crisis, it is locked into ideological litmus tests — no new taxes — and opposed to anything the “Kenyan, socialist” president might propose.
This makes the routine difficult and the necessary impossible. Republicans threaten to blow up the world economy by refusing to lift the debt limit without getting drastic cuts in the deficit. Puffed up with locker-room bravado, they set a high bar — more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, a dollar or more for every dollar hike of the debt limit.
Greg Sargent:
The primary goal of President Obama’s presser, which just wrapped up, was obvious: He was clearly out to pick a major public fight with Republicans over tax cuts for the rich. Obama mounted a surprisingly aggressive moral case for ending high end tax cuts, casting it as a test of our society’s priorities, and argued — crucially — that anyone who fails to support ending them is fundamentally unserious about the deficit.
Clearly, the media heard the message. Let's see if that helps Republicans hear it.
National Journal:
A GOP lobbyist with close ties to the financial industry said that fears are growing that some kind of drama—a stock-market drop, a downgraded bond rating, a failed vote—may have to happen for the freshmen to understand the stakes: “They may need something terrible to happen to prove a point.”
Philosophically, sentiment is growing among the freshman Republican class, and generally within the House Republican Conference, that the negotiations over the debt limit are what they came to Washington to do—fundamentally change the way Washington spends its money. They are apprehensive about the negotiations being handed off to Boehner, Obama, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the same trifecta that negotiated a deal on spending cuts to head off a government shutdown earlier this year that were later met with disappointment by the GOP freshmen.
This skepticism is working against Boehner’s ability to get the votes he needs to approve a debt-ceiling increase, unless he relies on House Democrats, who face their own divisions over the debt ceiling but without the governing pressure.
NY Times on CT's budget problems:
The stakes are enormous for Mr. Malloy, who has built a Connecticut-esque image as a rare governor charting a balanced path amid anti-union sentiment; for Democrats who control the Legislature and have close ties to the unions; and for the unions themselves, which infuriated many allies by turning down a deal seen as far better than those being offered in other states.
After approving large tax increases this spring, mostly on sales and services, Mr. Malloy has said he would reject any additional ones. And though he was elected with strong union support, he said Wednesday that he now wanted to impose benefit cuts on the unions and would ask the General Assembly to pass legislation changing the way employees’ pensions are calculated, reducing their sick days and freezing longevity payments...
Professor Carstensen said the deal the unions rejected last week could have addressed both economic and budgetary issues by avoiding the shock of mass layoffs and attacking structural problems in state government, particularly unfunded liabilities in retiree health care costs and pensions.
Instead, the state seems to have two options. Union leaders declined on Monday to ratify their members’ vote against the agreement, indicating that some would like to salvage it, probably through a revote or changes to ratification rules. For now, Mr. Malloy and the legislature seem intent on pursuing the alternative of mass layoffs and program cuts: precisely the path the governor said he wanted to avoid.
It really sounds like this was a bad vote by and for the unions. And the reaction is entirely predictable:
Residents not sympathetic to unions' woes
When state union workers last week rejected Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's $1.6 billion concessions package -- effectively ripping a gaping hole in the state budget -- taxpayers were watching.
Many Connecticut residents on the outside looking in on the state's labor battle say they are stunned by the defeated concessions deal and wholly apathetic to the unions' woes.
Add this to the reasons why the vote was a bad deal. Meanwhile, the new proposed budget
won't win any friends.
And in MN:
Minnesota would face a massive government shutdown under a court ruling released Wednesday, with all but critical services stopping by Friday.
Schools and many health care services would continue under Ramsey County District Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin's order, because closing them would violate basic constitutional rights or jeopardize lives. Prison guards also would remain on the job, as would state troopers.
But services to the deaf, child care assistance to low-income parents, help lines for seniors, state parks at the height of summer, the Minnesota Zoo and a multitude of projects on state roads and highways would all grind to a halt, along with a host of other services. And tens of thousands of state employees would join the ranks of the unemployed as of Friday.