Nancy, Nancy, Nancy
Mike Lillis and Erik Wasson at The Hill's Finance and Economy Blog, On the Money are reporting that at your weekly press briefing today, you claimed to oppose today's budget amendment (falsely referred to as Simpson-Bowles) because it's only a caricature of the original Simpson-Bowles plan while expressing your support for the original plan you once called "simply unacceptable." The reporters at the Hill quoted you:
"They advertised it as Simpson-Bowles, but they changed the spending and revenue provisions in it, and so it did not receive support on either side of the aisle because it was not a good idea,"
[...]
"I felt fully ready to vote for that [Simpson-Bowles] myself, thought it was not even a controversial thing. But it is not what that is... And swings of tens-of-billions of dollars mean something in terms of the lives of the American people."
Pressed if she would have supported Simpson-Bowles in its initial iteration, Pelosi said, "Yes, yes."
Have you forgotten what you didn't like about the original plan? Did you think we've forgotten what we didn't like about it? Is the mess in Washington just so untenable that you're giving up?
Let's think about this below the fold.
Do you recall, as we do, how disappointed we were with our dear leader when he loaded up the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka Simmpson-Bowles) with Senators, Representatives and others from both sides known to be sympathetic to balancing the budget by cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits lately referred to derisively as "entitlements?" (Yes, they are entitlements. We're entitled to those benefits because we paid in advance for them, so please drop the derision.) You can remind yourself of the full commission here.
Do you remember, as we do, how frustrated and angry we were when the commission worked in secret instead of giving us the transparency and the national conversation we thought we needed?
Do you know how we felt when the co-chairmen former Republican Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles released a report they called a blueprint that called for $2 in cuts in discretionary for every $1 in new taxes, raising the Social Security age (even though the Americans most reliant on Social Security are NOT living longer and are most vulnerable to age discrimination in jobs), cutting federal pensions, both civilian and military, cutting student loan programs, and CUTTING the corporate tax rate by from 35% to 25%?
Did you realize that we only breathed a sigh of relief when this junk failed to pass with the required super majority of the commission members, mostly because Grover Norquist didn't agree to the tax "increases" that would have resulted from various tax reforms?
Have you recognized our disgust when the Simpson Bowles blueprint is nevertheless referred to as "the commissions proposal" as if it passed?
If you remember all this and yet are now ready to support the original Bowles Simpson blueprint, what are you thinking?
What happened to "simply unacceptable"?