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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
"Sixty Democrats in the House signed a letter to the so-called "Super Committee" saying that they would be fine with cutting Medicare benefits -- essentially giving the Super Committee a green light to slash Medicare in pursuit of its goal of $4 trillion in budget cuts." -DFA

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Argh, I'm angry at my source, Democracy for America, I think they mischaracterized this letter. Still, Supercongress scares me, and no one should support it in any way.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:
Realistically Medicare is going to have to be cut to make up the budget shortfalls.

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H.R.5353 - War Is Making You Poor Act

To reduce the $159.3 billion from the discretionary overseas contingency operations funds in the President's fiscal year 2011 budget for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (without preventing use of mandatory funds from the Department of Defense budget to execute the War on Terror), and amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide individuals a "War is Making You Poor" tax credit against the savings attributable to the overseas contingency operations reduction.

This bill would eliminate $154 billion of supplemental war funding from the 2011 budget and use the savings to give all U.S. citizens an income tax credit. According to Rep. Grayson, the savings would be "enough to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income." Beyond the tax credit, $15 billion would be left over for paying down the federal deficit.

This bill would not defund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It would required the Defense Department to use their regularly allocated funds (approx. $549 billion) for their operations.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Nick, probably the same issues people have with the supreme court - a supercongress is not elected, and not answerable to the people.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:
So I don't get the fear.

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Originally posted by canttakesky:
For me, it isn't fear so much as cynical wariness of its lack of transparency and backroom negotiations. Backroom dealing is what corrupted our politics to begin with.

I prefer transparency from start to finish.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Back room deals happened in the health care reform talks as well. Not at all transparent. But they sure put on a nice show for the American people, arguing about things that had already been decided.

When you say nothing got done, you neglect to remember it got passed. So I'm calling on that.

The problem with backroom deals is that when Americans can't see what's going on, all kinds of riders get attached to everything that screw us over and are gimees to the industry.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:
If any riders do get attached we still get to see them. We get to see all the purposed bills before getting voted on.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
However, since the committee will be the ones to make a presentation to the rest of congress, it does indicate who needs to be bribed first in order to get a favored recommendation proposed.

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Originally posted by canttakesky:
Yes, theoretically...if you know where to look.

You know those mammoth things call bills can be thousands of pages that no one actually reads from cover to cover, right? There is such a thing as hiding in plain sight.

A bill drafted mostly in secret is like The Room of Requirement.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:
I read the health care bill, both versions.

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If people are not reading the bills, it is their own fault.

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