Govt Shutdown Upcoming as Repugs Budget to Gut Government

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Stuff like this

EPA Slams House Republicans For Trying To Gut Environmental Protections

The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) fired back Tuesday against a proposed budget (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/11/3668532/house-budget-epa-cuts/) from the the Republican-led House, telling reporters the appropriations bill is “short-sighted” with “terrible real-world consequences.”

The House of Representatives is currently debating an appropriations bill (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/11/3668532/house-budget-epa-cuts/) that would reduce the EPA’s budget by $718 million, or by 9 percent, and prohibit certain environmental regulations, including a sweeping proposal from the Obama administration to tackle carbon emissions.

The cuts are included in the Interior and Environmental budget (http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394247) proposed in June by a Republican-led House Appropriations Committee. The committee’s goal was to “fight job-crushing regulations, protect the nation’s natural resources, and promote safe and sustainable American energy.”

The bill includes extra-budgetary provisions to block EPA implementation of the proposed Clean Power Plan (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/09/3667715/clean-power-plan-will-power-economy/) and the newly released Waters of the United States (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/27/3662802/epas-new-clean-water-rule/) rule.

Attacking environmental protections has emerged a key priority (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/05/3630179/mcconnell-advice-epa-climate-rule/) for House Republicans, who have often accused (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/21/2499921/coal-industry-petition-fails-miserably/) the Obama Administration of a “war on coal.”

But the idea that regulation costs more than it is worth has been raised and often disproved throughout U.S. history. “Regulatory requirements to protect the environment, workers, and consumers often lead to innovation, increased productivity, and new businesses and jobs,” according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts (http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Assets/2015/05/industry/Government_Regulation_Costs_lower_benefits_greater _than_industry_estimates.pdf), which found that “historically, compliance costs have been less and benefits greater than industry predictions.”

A separate report by the Economic Policy Institute’s concurred (http://www.epi.org/publication/bp69/), saying that not only does industry routinely overestimate the cost of compliance, but the EPA also historically underestimates the benefits of its regulations.
Recently, though, several states and a coal company sued to stop the Clean Power Plan, which will restrict the amount of carbon emitted by the electricity sector, saying it is bad for business (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/22/3649809/clean-power-plan-will-create-jobs/).

The EPA estimates (http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/fact-sheet-clean-power-plan-benefits) the Clean Power Plan will have “climate and health benefits worth an estimated $55 billion to $93 billion per year in 2030,” which include the prevention of “2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths and 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks in children.” Another, independent report found that the rule will create 100,000 jobs (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/09/3667715/clean-power-plan-will-power-economy/).

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/08/3677788/epa-hates-house-budget-plan/

Repugs! What's NOT TO HATE?

[Wild Cobra]

Good for the republicans.

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5 Reasons The GOP Might Actually Blow Up Our Economy This Time

http://www.nationalmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/6836789235_92970fbf00_z-668x501.jpg

It’s called the raising the debt limit. It was raised 18 times under Ronald Reagan and 7 times under George W. Bush (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/26/barack-obama/obama-says-reagan-raised-debt-ceiling-18-times-geo/) who inherited a surplus that if left untouched could have completely eliminated our entire debt.

The debt limit has always been “political theater (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/23/the-risk-that-america-will-default-on-its-debts-is-now-higher-than-ever/)” because it’s nonsensical. Why should Congress have to vote again to pay for spending that has been signed into law under the process laid out in the Constitution, especially when the Constitution requires us to pay for debts to be paid? It’s an arcane technicality that has become an ever alluring suicide switch under this Republican Party.

1. GOP leaders have fed the lie that we don’t need to raise the debt limit.

The more likely you are to believe that carbon pollution isn’t fueling global warming, the more likely you are to believe not raising the debt limit is no big whoop and wouldn’t lead to default — or at least to say that in public.

It wasn’t just frazzled Tea Partiers spouting this nonsense (http://www.politico.com/story/2011/07/bachmann-debt-deal-failing-wont-cause-default-060172) in 2011, it was the current “establishment” choice to be the next Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. who argued we could go “a day or two or three or four” not paying our debts without defaulting. The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler points out (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123205/paul-ryan-used-think-blowing-past-debt-limit-was-no-big-deal)that Paul Ryan voted against raising it in February, 2014. This could be interpreted as politics as usual. The president himself voted against increasing the limit as he ran for his first term, knowing that there were enough votes to pass.

But just the fact that Obama wants to raise the debt limit (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/20/morning-plum-no-paul-ryan-probably-cant-unify-the-republican-party/) now is enough for most Republicans to oppose it. And the fiction that the debt ceiling can be breached without any serious consequences has led to intransigence that may be impossible to overcome.

2. The party can’t get 218 votes to take a bathroom break.

“Boehner, McCarthy, and other GOP leaders are refusing at this point to move ahead with a ‘clean’ debt ceiling bill insisted on by President Barack Obama,” Politico reported on Friday (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/house-republicans-debt-ceiling-scramble-215082#ixzz3pOnZXxkv). “Senior leadership aides said they couldn’t find the 30 Republican votes needed to join with all 188 Democrats to pass that proposal — a bleak indication of the current state of play.”

There aren’t 30 Republicans willing to take a vote that will save the U.S. economy.

Republicans won’t take a vote to raise the limit until after the vote to elect the next Speaker, which means the first major vote the next leader of the House GOP caucus takes will be one of the most purposely confused and potentially destructive.

“This calendar of chaos… is really coming down to hours, days, weeks,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said last week

3. Paul Ryan hasn’t been able to get his demands from the House Freedom Caucus met.

When he decided to run for Speaker, Rep. Ryan included a demand that House rescind the rule that kept a perpetual gun to the head of Speaker John Boehner — the motion to vacate. With it, any member of the GOP caucus can call what is essentially a no-confidence vote on the caucus’ leader. The Freedom Caucus said they wouldn’t be willing to give him that concession. Already, Ryan has backed off that demand (https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/paul-ryan-doesnt-want-eliminate-motion-vacate-chair_1050432.html), suggesting that he’ll be soon be cornered by the party’s far right the way Boehner has been.

The 30 to 40 members of the House Freedom Caucus are from districts so white and conservative that their lawn jockeys have lawn jockeys. The only fear they have is disappointing the most irrational members of their party. And that will soon be Paul Ryan’s biggest fear.

4. We’re in the middle of the most acrimonious nonsensical GOP primary ever.

How do you tell a party base that is backing Donald Trump and Ben Carson to be reasonable, and compromise for the good of the nation?

You don’t. You don’t even try. You just hope somehow someone else takes the vote for you and you don’t get a well-funded primary challenger.

5. If something can go wrong with this GOP, it usually does.

The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent has done a yeoman’s job of describing what he thinks is at the heart of the Freedom Caucus’ motivations (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/13/freedom-frauds/): It’s all about the money (http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2015/10/23/scam-they-am/?smid=tw-nytimeskrugman&smtyp=cur&referer=https://t.co/7a8ALqsinL).

They will accept failure because it gives them a chance to raise more cash by ranting against the “establishment.” Or, maybe, this time they won’t.

They’ve just taken down two Speakers and in the aftermath of the disastrous Benghazi debacle, Boehner created a new committee to investigate Planned Parenthood. The far right has the energy and people power the GOP needs to have any hope of winning the 2016 election, which will be the most important of our lifetime (http://www.eclectablog.com/2015/03/5-reasons-you-can-call-the-2016-election-the-most-important-election-of-our-lifetime.html). Their demands — while abhorrent to the general voting population — are widely popular with primary voters. And if they don’t get their way, they seek revenge relentlessly.

“All this suggests that every force involved is propelling Republicans not just toward forcing a crisis, but forcing an actual default,” Paul Waldman wrote in the (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/23/the-risk-that-america-will-default-on-its-debts-is-now-higher-than-ever/)Washington Pos (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/23/the-risk-that-america-will-default-on-its-debts-is-now-higher-than-ever/)t.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/5-reasons-the-gop-might-actually-blow-up-our-economy-this-time/