Tea Party Seizes House Financial Reins: and so Reigns
Quick take on how things are shaking out in House Leadership including Committees:
Paul Ryan: from Budget to Ways and Means
Tom Price: to Budget
Jeb Hensarling: to Financial Services
Hal Rogers: maintains House Appropriations
Let’s just say that none of those guys seems like champions of the New Deal or likely members of any of the Social Security Defenders Groups however defined. And near as I can see with no actual opposition.
Which leaves actual leadership positions:
Majority Leader: Pete Sessions vs Kevin McCarthy
Majority Whip: Steven Scalise vs Pete Roskam
It doesn’t seem too unlikely to me that Sessions could beat out McCarthy (Texas over California) AND
Scalise beats out Roskam (Louisiana over Illinois)
Now near as I can see none of these guys are crazy as such (Scalise maybe aside), but there would be exactly zero room for compromise from a lineup reading as follows: Leader Sessions, Whip Scalise, Ways and Means Ryan, Budget Price, Financial Services Hensarling, Appropriations Rogers. Okay maybe Rogers might strike a deal here and there.
But otherwise this seems like a recipe for even more obstruction than now. As if you can add to Infinite. And now Boehner will not be offsetting anything.
Right, nothing will happen of any substance until 2017 – at the earliest. Quite a steeper hill to climb by then.
An interesting development in the Hiltzik “SS does not add to the deficit” story. Blahous goes on the offense with this:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-social-security-deficit-hiltzik-blahous-20140612-story.html
Another interesting development is the RAISE legislation from Begich and Murray:
A 2% tax on incomes over $400k (adjusted up over time) is the source of the cash for the new benefits proposed. SSA has a report on incomes for 2012. If the 2% tax were applied to that year it would have hit about 500k people who earned a total of $603B. The 2% tax would have raised $12B in 2012. Call it $15B today – still peanuts.
I think this bill goes nowhere, but it is one more “Progressive” approach for SS.
The 2012 wage data:
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2012
The allegedly mainstream Republicans don’t trust the TP on non-financial issues. It’s the only place they can put them.
Goodwin it is not clear that mainstream Republicans (to the extent that isn’t an oxymoron) are caling the shots here. More like riding the tiger.
Plus the Committee Chair positions are mostly going by seniority. The fact is that the modern Republican Party is more and more a mirror of the old time Dixiecrats with old time bases in Southern California (Birchers) and the Northeast (Rockefeller/Chafee types) eroding rapidly. That is you might as well give the Republican Conference a new slogan: ‘The South is Rising Again’.