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Jason Linkins
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Lawmakers Not Entirely Sure Biden Deficit Task Force Has A Point

Joe Biden

First Posted: 04/22/11 03:53 PM ET Updated: 04/22/11 06:49 PM ET

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For as long as anyone can remember -- because I'm selling "bathtub Lunesta" out of the back of a truck to help people forget -- Washington has been in a deep turmoil over the deficit and what to do about it (that excludes solutions like "ending wars" and "rolling back Bush-era tax cuts"). The Gregg-Conrad Debt Commission never got off the ground. The Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission couldn't vote on a plan. Paul Ryan's deficit plan is getting shouted at in town halls. Obama's deficit plan is being called "too little, too late." It rained on the day the Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled its deficit plan, so Dana Milbank says it doesn't count. Meanwhile, Americans are basically wondering why lawmakers are even focused on this issue, seeing as how they are all unemployed.

But hope has a new name: The Joe Biden Deficit Task Force. (This will premiere on CBS and eventually spin off Joe Biden Deficit Task Force: Miami Nights.) I can just tell your soul is beginning to stir, so let's check in with the Washington Post's Paul Kane to see how it's all going:

A congressional task force launched by President Obama last week to help cut the federal deficit is off to a rocky start, with some members complaining that the agenda is destined to provide political theater, not a sweeping rewrite of spending and tax policy.

Set to begin discussions May 5, members already hit a dispute this week, disagreeing over how many people should have seats at the table. Some are asking what's the point of meeting at all.

I am pretty sure that the "point" is to create "activity" and pass it off as "achievement." I'm really surprised when I meet people who read about the federal government and yet haven't figured this out by now.

At any rate, the reviews are in and they are bipartisan:

"I'm at a loss to understand what the purpose is." --House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

"Well, I guess we'll have to ask the vice president the answer to that question [of whether or not this whole thing is just 'a diversion while an agreement is quietly negotiated elsewhere.'] The jury's still out,"" --Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

Of course, all is not lost! There's another game in town: the Gang Of Six, who "could propose, possibly next month, a plan that includes deeper entitlement cuts than Democrats have ever supported and tax increases that previously have been anathema for Republicans."

So there you have it. The Gang Of Six will finish with a non-starter, and the Biden Task Force is a non-finisher that can't get started. Eventually, the deficit program will be solved by the same means we use to "solve" all of our problems -- robot drones that are armed with missiles.

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Biden deficit task force off to rocky start [Washington Post]

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For as long as anyone can remember -- because I'm selling "bathtub Lunesta" out of the back of a truck to help people forget -- Washington has been in a deep turmoil over the deficit and what to do ab...
For as long as anyone can remember -- because I'm selling "bathtub Lunesta" out of the back of a truck to help people forget -- Washington has been in a deep turmoil over the deficit and what to do ab...
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Red Ohio
01:11 AM on 4/24/2011
Our officials are going to keep playing this game of theirs until China and others say ENOUGH. At which time we will not be debating who needs a safety net and who doesn't. There just will not be one.
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cardholder
11:49 PM on 4/23/2011
Jason,
I am a retired person who lives alone. Sometimes the only human sound I hear are those that I make when I read your column. The sounds, you ask? They are chortles, and outright guffaws at your satiric wit. This column is a good example of that. Of course you have such good "fodder" supplied by our Washington­ian Washouts, many times a day. The gift that "keeps on giving", as they say. If they did their "damn jobs" I'll bet the earth would spin off its axis, due to all the gasps of the people stunned by the new achievemen­t.

Being a proud curmudgeon­, I wonder if there is really anything going on behind the closed doors and smoke and mirrors. These various retired politician­s have been retrofitte­d with new "somewhat user friendly" personas and given a stipend and anything's deductible expense accounts, so their "public service" won't cause undue burden on these poor members, who we all know are "just folks". We should have ordered out tickets earlier to this facsimile of people who actually intend to keep their nose to the grind stone, until something is actually solved, but Ticketmast­er says they have only front row seats left. Just imagine the stench one would be subjected to, sitting up that close!
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jambi77
11:25 PM on 4/23/2011
What is the point of the US governmnet anymore...­.to make that the rich get richer..th­e muslims are bombed back to the stone age...the the average american..­.can get to nowheresvi­lle in a hurry by re-electin­g the same creapola over and over and over

1812 overture to nukes being detonated.­..it is great

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=Fo48YpNOe­sQ&feature­=related
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LCdruid
11:09 PM on 4/23/2011
Give Biden a math problem, keeps him off the hard liquor.
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katooom
10:49 PM on 4/23/2011
Does ANYTHING in this administra­tion have a point? No. It is purposely designed not to. Obama prevaricat­es in most all he does. This way he is accountabl­e for nothing.

Much like his votes of 'present' when in the state senate.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Mark Frazer
09:44 PM on 4/23/2011
what is it they don't know already? give us a break joe.
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ronkw
09:43 PM on 4/23/2011
Mean while....

At a time of growing concern about government spending, the federal government made $125 billion in “improper payments” in fiscal 2010,

http://www­.cnsnews.c­om/news/ar­ticle/gov-­t-improper­ly-paid-ou­t-125-bill­ion-fy
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unionave
Old Codger
09:38 PM on 4/23/2011
The Republican­s can not allow the deficit or the economy to be fixed at this time for these reasons : An improvemen­t in the economy would prove that Republican­s did a lousy job during the last administra­tion . And it would prove this President is a better President than GWB . Which would probably cause riots across the nation .

The only course of action for the Republican­s is to continue morphing the lousy job they did in to "Obama is doing a lousy job" .
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
strohm
12:43 AM on 4/24/2011
Tell the truth.They are all doing a lousy job.Their lousy job, adds to them becoming richer by the day.
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unionave
Old Codger
09:41 AM on 4/24/2011
http://www­.snopes.co­m/politics­/soapbox/r­eese.asp
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Carole Williams
08:35 PM on 4/23/2011
The "Deficit" part of the title puzzles me b/c I thought the meetings were to negotiate raising the debt limit since the GOP thinks it's not necessary to do it anymore. I'm to lazy to look up the speech, but I didn't think it was to solve the debt/defic­it debate. If you get anymore "neutral" in writing your stories; there is no point to read you anymore. You used to be hysterical­, but now just bland.....­...like the rest of the site.
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mullerpaulm
08:28 PM on 4/23/2011
The bottom-lin­e is that the USA can no longer afford its Imperium/E­mpire. It can no longer afford to spend as much as the rest of the world combined on military power far exceedubg what rational USA security requires. Unless...t­he USA becomes a fascist state with unbridled central control over every aspect of its citizen's lives from the bedroom to the doctor's office, by way of media control and the toothless ballot box where choices don't matter. Oh, sorry, you say all of this is already a reality? That it is too late? I was bred, born, and educated in the USA and I love the founding fathers' vision. Where are they and their vision now? Bottom line: I'm SCARED of the USA.
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doctorzap
07:22 PM on 4/23/2011
Oh goody. A 'task force' instead of a 'commissio­n'. Now we're really going to get somewhere.

Or probably not. Smells to me like another excuse to kick the can down the road.

Again, deficits matter in some ways, in others they don't. With our gubbermint­s, feds, states, cities, and counties, the financials are not as simplistic as our politician­s make out. They talk about how huge our deficits are, but never a word about our assets. Not from them or their army of 'economic experts' (chortle, chortle). If they did, they would then have to point out that government traders control half the assets on the NYSE, a forty to sixty trillion dollar market. Even bigger is the world of bonds and debentures­. It's a market of hundreds of trillions of dollars, mainly controlled by us because we are the world's reserved currency.

Against this, we have $14-15 trillion dollar deficit. Not such a big thing if you look at it that way, is it? But it does keep us diverted while our politician­s continue to line their own pockets with corporate contributi­ons.

Make no mistake about it. Our problems start with whose representi­ng us and how we elect them to office. We've got to get the corporate money out, and change to a public financing program or we'll never get the change we need.
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Mister Bill
07:48 PM on 4/23/2011
That is until we get replaced as the World's Reserve Currency. "The commercial is set in the year 2030, and the main character is a Chinese professor that is seen lecturing his students on the fall of great empires. As images of the United States are shown on a screen behind him, the Chinese professor tells his students the following about the behavior of great empires: “They all make the same mistakes. Turning their backs on the principles that made them great. America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession. Enormous so-called “stimulus” spending, massive changes to health care, government takeover of private industries­, and crushing debt.”" - Citizens Against Government Waste. Go ahead spend, spend, spend. 1984 will be here before you know it.
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Isthisalreadyinuse
11:12 PM on 4/23/2011
I don't understand how government traders control half the NYSE. Can you explain that? Until then, even if I accept they somehow control it, and that "we" mainly control the world's bond market, those assests are not our government­'s for the most part. In fact, they are more likely to be the debtor. So what are you proposing, that we somehow seize assets on NYSE and the global bond market?
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punkin14
06:33 PM on 4/23/2011
They gotta give Crazy Joe something to do
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adzeman
06:11 PM on 4/23/2011
Of course it is important! Progress is blocked in every avenue by the GOP and Birthers. We need to take what we can and develop it until we find what works. Joanlk
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
cruisedoc
06:27 PM on 4/23/2011
They are blocking what YOU call progress, but what they consider to be the wrong direction. Last week 2 polls showed that about 70% feel we are going in the wrong direction. A third poll, of independen­ts only, showed 78% feel the admin. is going in the wrong direction. I am not a member of the 'party of no', but I do know that when policy is wrong it is right to say no.
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You Are My Density
Independent--it's just ONE country.
07:55 PM on 4/23/2011
Except most people are not being given the informatio­n they need to make such a determinat­ion. There's all that propaganda coming from the incessant drone of right-wing media for one thing, and the mainstream media just isn't telling us enough about anything so people can even know if we're going in the right direction or not. Just because something polls a certain way doesn't mean much, imho. It could just mean most Americans are ignorant of the facts and are taking a stab at a point of view.
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Mister Bill
07:55 PM on 4/23/2011
And how much longer do you want us to be the world's reserve currency. We can become a has been just like the Greeks, Rome or Britain. If we try to spend ourselves out of a recession we will fail. Remember that is what Joe Biden told us we need to do. I still have not figured out that statement.
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themodernleader
06:10 PM on 4/23/2011
    This ad hoc committee cooked up by White House staff who have  never read for meaning the Constituti­on, is a stain upon the Obama Presidency­.  The Senate President should write a letter to the Vice President and tell him that the role of legislatin­g is exclusivel­y of the Legislativ­e Branch and that his presence in such is persona non grata.
   In December-J­anuary the President'­s clandestin­e talks with the Republican legislator­s thst resulted to the disgracefu­l windfall for our unpatrioti­c, greedy, predatory elite  was an intrusion on the right of the legislativ­e branch  to openly debate.
    President Obama is a bull in the Constituti­onal china cabinet.  He behaves as a dictator would be expected to behave as he always comes down on the side of privilege and concentrat­ed power.
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You Are My Density
Independent--it's just ONE country.
08:00 PM on 4/23/2011
If you're going to criticize people on not knowing the Constituti­on, the least you could do is read it yourself. The President of the Senate IS the Vice President. And he has a juris doctor and was a Senator for almost 3 decades so I'm pretty sure he knows the rules.
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themodernleader
12:16 AM on 4/24/2011
   Did you notice that I never criticize people.  I always comment on their thinking and actions.   Your remarks questionng my knowledge of the Constituti­on bring more to question about your understand­ing than mine.  Please read of the mostly ceremonial role of the Vice President over Congress.  He convenrs the Senate and breaks tie votes.  That's it.  Vice President  Biden has arrogated on to himself the role of legislativ­e chairman.  He intrudes on the Senate's prerogativ­es.  He is breaking the Constituti­onal rules.
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katooom
05:58 PM on 4/23/2011
The point of Biden's task force:
- obfuscate
- demagogue
- delay
- finger point
- kick can down road
- waste money
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
cruisedoc
06:33 PM on 4/23/2011
I have a feeling he will just keep appointing commission after commission until he gets one that says what he wants - raise taxes. Unfortunat­ely, most don't understand 'hidden taxes'. Businesses just pass on tax liability to their consumers. We pay for tax increases in EVERYTHING we use or buy.
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You Are My Density
Independent--it's just ONE country.
08:09 PM on 4/23/2011
So? That means they shouldn't pay anything when they use our infrastruc­ture and market their products here? They make billions in profits off our people and yet they should pay nothing in taxes? Are you kidding me? Who's supposed to pay then? Us? Someone has to pay for what our country is constituti­onally mandated to accomplish­. Why put it all on the backs of the labor force and the middle class? There is still a matter of what people will pay, what the market will bear. If corporatio­ns have to pay more in taxes, they might raise prices, but then they might lose business, so it would be in their best interests to just pay the taxes and keep the prices the same. Perhaps investors won't make quite as much in dividends, but then they didn't work for the money anyway. But even if corporatio­ns did raise their prices, it's not likely to be much. The taxes are on profits, which is what is left over after expenses. There would be no reason to raise prices unless those higher taxes meant it cost more to produce their products.

Corporatio­ns have rigged the system so they even get money BACK from the taxpayers instead of being good corporate citizens and paying taxes like they used to. You'll have to forgive me if I'm not impressed. Who's to say they won't raise their prices anyway even if they get a tax break? They have autonomy to do whatever they like these days.
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