Eric Cantor floats year-end trigger bargain

[Cali_Democrat]

Here we go again with another year-end "grand" bargain?

Eric Cantor floats year-end trigger bargain
By JAKE SHERMAN & MANU RAJU | 11/30/11 8:11 PM EST

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is quietly working both sides of the Capitol to build support for a plan to rework automatic spending cuts and combine the proposal with a wide range of critical year-end tax and spending measures.

What it amounts to is a major year-end pitch: Democrats and President Barack Obama would get their much sought-after payroll tax cut extension and jobless benefits, while Republicans would tweak the Pentagon cuts that defense hawks hate.

The White House has already sent out a warning against messing with these so-called trigger spending cuts born out of the deficit supercommittee’s failure, so it’s far from clear that Cantor’s maneuvering could win enough support on Capitol Hill.

Cantor has spoken to senators from both parties — including a Thanksgiving morning phone call to the Stamford, Conn., home of Sen. Joe Lieberman — as he gauges support for a potential package that would include up to $133 billion in spending cuts in exchange for delaying the first year of slashes to defense and nondefense programs slated to begin in 2013. That package could also include a reform and a yearlong extension of jobless benefits, a payroll tax break and the Medicare reimbursement rate for physicians.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69489.html

[Vincardog]

1. It they super duper Committee had decided to gut SSI and Medicare I bet the same parties would be

saying "We have to pass them it was the DEAL". Fkme and the horse they rode in on.

[ellisonz]

2. We're not going to be bought off, Mr. Cantor.

:thumbsdown:

[ProSense]

3. Why

"Eric Cantor floats year-end trigger bargain"

...exactly would Democrats bargain with a trigger that's already law?


House Won’t Roll Back Defense Cuts This Year

The House won’t be taking up changes to mandatory cuts to defense spending anytime soon despite increasing calls from GOP defense hawks and some leaders to tackle the issue this year.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had been holding discussions with House and Senate Republicans and Democrats — including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I.-Conn.) — about attaching changes to the sequester’s defense cuts to must-pass unemployment and tax legislation this year.

The sequester is $1.2 trillion of automatic cuts to defense and domestic spending that had originally been designed to force the super committee to come to a broad deficit deal. But now that the effort has failed, the cold reality of major reductions to defense spending has spooked Republicans who are eager to roll them back.

But Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who had given his blessing to Cantor’s efforts, now appears intent on pushing the issue until sometime next year.

<...>

Cantor isn't very smart, and Boehner is trying to balance contradiction between orders from his "random person" with public outrage.

Besides, Democrats already have a proposal to pay for these initiatives: Senate Democrats ready to move $400 billion in new legislation

[Enrique]

4. in other words why would they pay the hostage taker again?

so they let the hostage go (but not after inflicting a lot of pain on him), they got their ransom, but now they decided it wasn't enough and so they're asking for more. Your question is good, why would we give it to them?

[beac]

5. Eric Cantor floats...

like a turd in a punch bowl.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. LOL

[AndyTiedye]

7. I Guess LIEberman Qualifies as a Senator From Both Parties.

Cantor has spoken to senators from both parties — including a Thanksgiving morning phone call to the Stamford, Conn., home of Sen. Joe Lieberman

[DCBob]

8. DOA.

:thumbsdown:

[rucky]

9. The trigger was the bargain.

They agreed to it. End of discussion.

[MNBrewer]

10. From the article

"But Pentagon advocates on Capitol Hill are starting to pressure Republican leaders to take a tougher line when demanding changes to the automatic cuts..."

Who ARE these Pentagon advocates? Are they Pentagon officials, or outside defense wonks? If they're Pentagon officials, the President should bring them in line, ASAP.

[jwirr]

11. Why would any thinking Democrat agree with anything Eric Cantor

says - he has been the laughing stock of the gop ever since he floated his economic ideas? That is one rethug they should know is toxic.