October 25th, 2013: Bipartisan Support for Budget Deal- Post October Federal Gov Shutdown
Article: Tom Cole Open To Raising Revenue As Part Of Budget Deal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/tom-cole-revenue_n_4164510.html
Reporter: Henry C.
BACKGROUND : Now that the government has reopened, attention turns to the next phase of the spending fight, a battle that is far from over. The bill that President Obama signed the midnight of October 16th provides only a temporary respite to the partisan tussles that have plagued the budget process. The government stays open through Jan. 15 and the federal borrowing authority is safe until Feb. 7. After that, all bets are off. But before that can all happen, by December 13th of a compromise budget has to be reached.
SUMMARY: Now that the federal government is open, federal workers are back to work, and that bills are being paid, Congress still has to complete budget talks by December 13th. What solved the 16 day long government shutdown was the bipartisan coalition in the U.S. Senate, and the question now is whether or not they will be able to work something similar again in Congress. Oklahoma’s Rep. Tom Cole, one of the key Republican negotiators on a possible budget deal, said he would support raising revenue even if it was something that most Republicans would initially strongly be against. However, this Republican negotiator believes that both parties are going to have to reach give up a little if they want to see some progress. Nonetheless, Republicans are strongly against the Democratic like idea of raising taxes to increase revenue after the tax hikes that were made effective in the January’s fiscal-cliff deal. Republicans like House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan, are asking Democrats to be more open on giving in to entitlement reforms like changes in Medicare and Social Security as a way to turn off the sequestration. But of course, like good old combating political groups, Democratic leaders have responded by saying their party won’t consider entitlement reform or cuts to domestic programs if Republicans refuse to raise revenues by closing tax loopholes. In light of all this, both parties still are strongly in favor of ending the harmful across-the-board cuts that occurred earlier this year.
WHY IT MATTERS:
1. We already learned that when both parties don’t work together in Congress, nothing gets done. With the government shutdown scenario the last two weeks we saw that if it wasn’t for bipartisan support in Congress, the country could have ran into major financial trouble October 17th. In this case, if both chambers don’t agree on some stable budget proposal, the country will continue to operate on short term budget deadlines and extensions that will never make any significant improvement in the economy.
2. Perhaps the most important lesson learned this month was that it’s impossible to defund mandatory programs by shutting down the federal government. As a result, it will be interesting to learn how this lesson can be applied to nation’s long term spending policies.
MY ANALYSIS:
I feel that many people got a bit too caught up in blaming Republicans for the federal shutdown (which nonetheless I still believe are responsible for the incident) and forgot about the specifics of the legislation that Obama signed early October 17th. Even though this may have sounded a bit humorous a few weeks ago, a bipartisan budget deal in Washington suddenly looks kind of plausible. Both parties are negotiating a smaller deal to replace sequestration, which neither side likes, with some mix of longer term cuts that take the fiscal shackles off the recovery. Democrats have always proposed replacing sequestration with a mix of higher revenue, by reducing tax deductions for the rich, along with cuts to mandatory spending. Republicans have offered to replace sequestration with cuts to mandatory spending, but have previously insisted on no revenue at all. Even though Republicans a few days ago received no sympathy, I think that now is the time for Democrats to take advantage of what the GOP is up for.
Question: The legislation passed late October 16th set a deadline of Dec. 13 for conferees to reach an agreement on a long-term framework for tax and spending policies. For the last several years this domestic framework for the appropriations budget gets written year by year. How do you think Congress can come to an agreement, if at all, by December 13th on this issue? What should Republicans do? Democrats?
hamiltonbla 
Honestly, it is very hard to predict whether or not the two sides of Congress can come to an agreement by December 13th because things don’t look as great as it is since the government shutdown a couple weeks ago. Many people have begun to lose faith in Congress and the government as a whole to make decisions and solve problems because it is the sole reason the US is in the situation in the first place. Extremism from both sides, not only the Tea Party members, has inflicted perpetual tensions between the parties. If they want to reconcile and come to an agreement, it would be like having a cat and a dog in the same room. Nevertheless, I really hope that an agreement can be made because if this crisis between them continues, the US will soon be devastated. Republicans should step back on its despise of the ACA and Medicare while Democrats should be more open to reformations in the policies. This will decrease the positional standards during the argument between both sides and actually allow them to come to an ideological agreement. I really hope Congress can talk things out because as the crisis deepens, it would not only affect them but the well-being of the entire US.
With everything that’s happened, I don’t think there’s a definite way that anything will be settled. With the shutdown as an example, we see that these two parties are not the best at working together, and that’s a humongous problem. If anyone had to guess and probably be right, nothing will go right and everything will go downhill. I hope that both parties will swallow their pride and think about the good of the governed to solve the stubbornness of their decisions. Both parties need to be more open and considerate, find the golden median to their issues instead of just shooting everything down. I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s better than nothing.
I agree with Cici in saying that Politics is really unpredictable. It is something that surprises us time and time again. Bipartisanship seems like a word that is not in either party’s vocabulary. It is really sad because the only way that we can get things done in this 113th Congress is by working together. It is really bad that there is so many partisanship and that is probably why this Congress has not been able to get much done together. The Republicans and Democrats both need to reach across the aisle. If they continue to act really immature then nothing will ever get down. They both need to be open to compromise as well. This is the only way that they can relatively reach some sort of agreement by December 13th.
I believe at this point in time, tea party members believe that if they stay stubborn then it will go their way or not way. Fortunately, this gives us the ability to weed out from tea party vs level headed republicans. Bipartisanship can be achieved! We can do this. The only issue is republicans hate the ACA so much they want to destroy it completely and democrats aren’t open to any reforms in the bill. This leads to two stubborn parties gong head to head. If we all can just get along then maybe we will reach a compromise. (i feel like the tea party is a virus/infiltration into the system, no one knows where it came from but its making our system weaker). So i think that we should just calm down and just see how the month of November goes and hope for the best!
I believe there’s no easy answer for how a solution would come to end this situation. As we know the Republicans won’t bulge from the decisions they’ve made, not because they see it as the right thing to do because they want to be in full control even when they’re not. As we can see from the shut down, they kept threatening with a shutdown if their demands weren’t met. Its gotten so bad that the Republicans polls got to an all time low and it got to the point where even Republican Sen. and Rep. began to side with the Democrats. This is an example showing how the Republican party’s hostility caused it to lose popularity and cause the shutdown. This is an example of whats to come, because it seems as time progresses the Republicans are going to grow more hostile and less cooperative. I don’t believe there will be another shutdown in the near future but I believe that the only things that will occur will be major debates that will eventually lead to nothing.
I believe that the only way that we might see any change in congress is if the republican party and the tea party do split so that the ideals of the republican party aren’t made more extreme by the ideals of the tea party. If this split were to happen it would allow for democrats to more easily compromise with a party that is actually willing to compromise, and not a party that is held back by ideals that a good amount of the republican party don’t fully agree with. Although this probably wont happen because it would mean that the republicans would be giving up a good amount of its already weak power, but if it were to happen it would mean that congress could actually start passing more bills then it has in a while since the less extreme republicans (such as the older republicans) who know that in order to get what they want, they have to make the deals with the democrats, instead of black mailing the democrats to get what they want, which only leads to the people who vote for them to hate them. Also democrats can do nothing and wait and take a harder stance on republicans to make sure that they know that in order to get what they want compromising is necessary and that black mailing doesn’t scare them, and especially now that they know republicans will be blamed when something like a government shutdown happens. In the end all we can do as the average Americans is to wait and see where congress takes us, and for me personally i hope it is in the right direction, which is the direction in which the reputation of this country isn’t threatened and at the same time that our economy isn’t threatened, so that my life will not be worse then that of my parents life.