That’s right. This Super Congress is not only blatantly anti-democratic and questionable on its Constitutionality, it renders whatever the hell people think we have won in this sham of a debt ceiling debate(that should have never happened) meaningless and it puts the health and lives of women in jeopardy as well as everyone else. The National Women's Law Center lays it out.
A bipartisan congressional “super-committee” charged with proposing another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years. The super-committee may consider further cuts to discretionary programs; cuts to any entitlement program (including safety net programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, and SNAP/Food Stamps); and revenue increases, in any combination. The committee’s recommendations will receive an up or down vote by the end of 2011.
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The discretionary portion of the federal budget requires annual appropriations to fund programs that help women protect their health, obtain quality child care and higher education, and help them meet their basic needs during difficult times and as they age – including Head Start, child care, K-12 education, family planning and other women’s health services, domestic violence prevention, job training, Pell grants, and services for the elderly. Security spending (for, e.g., the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs) is also part of the discretionary budget.
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While mandatory programs for low-income families and individuals generally would be exempt from automatic cuts (including Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP/Food Stamps), discretionary programs for low-income women and families – such as Head Start, maternal and child health, Title X family planning services, low-income housing and energy assistance – would not be spared.
This Super Congress puts Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), the Child Care and Development Block Grant program (CCDBG mandatory funding), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) within striking distance of this committee. All of this will severely hurt women and their families.
Affordable Care Act
When it takes full effect in 2014, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will help ensure that women and their families have improved access to more affordable, comprehensive health coverage and health care. If automatic cuts are triggered in 2013, implementation of this law by states and the federal government could be hampered. Under the ACA, federal agencies have specific responsibilities to set key details about the new programs, and states are eligible for funding to help plan for and run these new programs. Cutting funding for these responsibilities would make implementation more difficult and threaten the promise of the ACA. Additionally, protections in the ACA for low- and moderate-income families could be at risk from automatic budget cuts.
You see, we all told you that state exchanges are inadequate, because of economic history regarding monopolies and how strapped state budgets, even non strapped state budgets, cannot consistently police huge monopolies because they never have been able to. We told you, though it should be common sense, that regulation means little without enforcement and the means to enforce the said regulation. Of course that didn't stop half of kossacks here to still pretend the ACA or Dolecare was adequate reform leaving many women are at the mercy of monopolies and oligopolies.
Not only that, Obama himself made it a point to have all his corporate insurance reform proposals scored by the CBO making the start dates at 2014 in the first place(with unaffordable inefficient high risk pools until then), even though the GOP never did that with the Medicare Part D program or their two wars that Obama is continuing. And because he is continuing these tax cuts while blowing up the budget he is giving the GOP ammunition to starve the beast and shrink government to the size of a baby so they can drown it in a bathtub as Grover Norquist wants. We are seeing it happen now.
When one preaches deficit stupidity or when one defends deficit stupidity tacitly or not and then thinks they can brag on insurance reform that depends on there not being deficit stupidity, it hurts women and the poor. You see, when all aspects have to be fully funded to be strong, especially in a shitty economy, it is quite a pathetic contradiction to pretend that Dolecare can operate without a public option, a real one(not a BS fake non profit option of any kind that is doomed to be taken over by the for profit sector) or Medicare Buy In.
This isn't just my opinion. These are facts. If kossacks don't know this, they don't know history. It's that simple.
And because they don't know their history, they are dooming those of us who do to repeat it like they are doing now in real time. We all warned back in December 2010 that this was going to happen and that extending the Bush tax cuts would lead to this. That's how you know Obama and the Democratic party leadership are never going to let the Obama/Bush tax cuts expire(because Obama owns part of them now). So that promise of revenue from supposedly letting them expire is quite hollow and it is a sham.
There is no reason to believe they will ever let a debate where the tea party controls the narrative and the president adopts their deficit fetishist BS that they will ever end. There is absolutely no revenue in this bill and some are excusing that as not so bad. That's excusing the inexcusable.
Don't get me wrong, half of all kossacks here have a great grasp of history and they are wonderful activists who care deeply about women, feminism, and the struggles women face everyday, but it's painful to read some of the a-historical crap that makes the rec list. It shows that too many poters are not in this to see how we politically move forward, because their understanding of the past is politically backward. They are not enlightened as to how much damage their support of anything this administration does("I have principles BUT" caucus included) affects the least among us who need help the most.
This isn't just my assertion. This is cause and effect reality. This reality is known by the visual and visceral ascertainment of this physical reality we can see in the horizon, what women can see in the horizon, and what they can and will actually feel making it all too real. We can see it in the horizon, because we saw this sham debate on the horizon in 2010 and we were right, right now, and we will be again. Half of kossacks were wrong then and they are still wrong now.
There is a helpful political life lesson here; jumping for joy because “There might be defense cuts sometime in the future! Oh me! Oh my!” is not even close to something that should be celebrated. All one has to do to stop this delusional throw-down is look at the chart Chris Hayes lays out to see that this deal has absolutely no revenue increases in it compared to past budget negotiations, making this the worst budget deal ever. That and diaries that downplay cuts, by proxy downplays unemployment and pain, whether they realize it or not for women, African Americans, children, the 99ers, the unemployed who need not apply because they will be refused, and those that need mental help and everyone who needs health care and not junk insurance.
THIS IS FUCKING INSANE! And there has to come a point where you see what's going on around you with your eyes in this shame of a deal and every Democrat just agrees on what the fuck reality is!