Who's Paying the Super-Committee?

George Zornick - August 12, 2011 - The Nation

 

The Congressional “super-committee” finally has a roster: we now know the twelve men and women tasked with cutting as much as $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, and quite possibly restructuring entitlements and rewriting the federal tax code.

Unlike any other Congressional committee in recent memory, this “super-committee” will wield enormous legislative power. Their recommendations will be fast-tracked in Congress, meaning they cannot be amended and are guaranteed a simple-majority vote in the Senate. If the super-committee does not produce recommendations, or if Congress does not approve them, massive triggers will be activated: $1.5 trillion will be cut from the budget, drawing equally from defense and domestic spending.

With this much power concentrated among twelve people, K Street is revving up the money machine to help influence the decisions. “Every lobbyist is going to go through their Rolodex to try and figure out all the connections to the twelve members of the ‘super committee,’ ” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told Bloomberg. One Democratic lobbyist quipped to Politico that he was preparing for the super-committee “by writing twelve really large checks.”

Legislators on both sides of the aisle are already concerned about the cannons of cash now aimed directly at the super-committee members. Republican Senators David Vitter and Dean Heller have both introduced legislation to impose transparency requirements and additional financial disclosure from members of the super-committee; in the House, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley and Republican Representative Jim Renacci are circulating a letter calling for, among other things, weekly disclosures from super-committee members campaign contributions and meetings with lobbyists.

Super-committee members, who were selected to represent their party, not strictly their own interests, will no doubt act for a wide variety of strategic and political reasons. And as The Nation's Ari Berman has written, there are much larger problems with the scope of the committee regardless of who is on it, because it will choose between a variety of bad options, and cannot act on job creation. But it’s still important to understand what industries are lobbying them—and which industries already have the inside track.

To that end, The Nation looked at campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics for each member—Democratic Senators John Kerry, Patty Murray, Max Baucus and Democratic Representatives Xavier Becerra, James Clyburn and Chris Van Hollen; and Republican Senators Jon Kyl, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey and Republican Representatives Fred Upton, Dave Camp and Jeb Hensarling.

Two areas were examined: donations from Political Action Committees, and industry donations—money from industry PACs and individuals associated with that industry. The totals are since 1998, when the data becomes available, or over the member’s career since then (in their current seat). When the dollars are tallied, it's clear that the committee's Republicans have filled their campaign coffers with Wall Street money--that's their largest contributor. Democrats have substantial backing from labor groups that could serve as a counterweight, but they take in quite a bit of Wall Street cash themselves.

Political Action Committees

Democrats on the super-committee have taken over $30.6 million from PACs since 1998, and unsurprisingly the largest amount comes from labor PACs, with over $5.3 million in donations (click charts to see full size):

Representatives Clyburn and Becerra, along with Senator Murray, have the largest labor donations, each topping $1 million. Senator Kerry has the lowest from that group, with $267,861. The high totals for labor are typical for Democratic politicians, but may be a good sign for progressives hopeful the Democrats will stand strong against entitlement cuts, which unions strongly oppose.

The health industry is next, followed by the finance, insurance, and real estate sector—these are non-health insurance companies, commercial banks, finance and credit companies, securities and investment firms, and other big corporations typically found on Wall Street. Senator Baucus is the heavy hitter in this category—as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, he’s raked in $1.6 million from this sector. The only other member over $1 million is Representative Clyburn.

Note that for Democrats, both defense and agribusiness are fairly low on the list. Democrats might be more tempted to look toward farm subsidies and defense cuts when the red pens come out. Also, “ideological/single-issue” groups are fifth on the list, but a vast majority of that money was given to Senator Murray, and primarily by women’s groups. This money probably won’t have much bearing on the super-committee.

The Republicans on the super-committee have taken well over $24 million from just the ten largest PAC categories since 1998. By far, the largest contributor is the financial, insurance and real estate sector—also known as Wall Street:

Representative Jeb Hensarling has the biggest career haul from that sector, with $1,732,922 since 1998. This is not surprising, considering he has openly said that bank profits should trump consumer protection, and that recessions are “a part of freedom.”
Health is the next category, representing largely the for-profit health industry—medical professionals, HMOs, and pharmaceutical companies. “Ideological/single issue” PACs place fifth, with just under $2 million in contributions. That money is spread very evenly across the six members, suggesting they each are beholden to active, wealthy conservative groups. Naturally, labor is last on this list, but note that defense is second-last. The defense industry doesn’t have much money invested in this group, and none are prominent hawks.

Industry Money

The other category we examined was donations from industries. This includes both industry PACs and contributions from individual donors affiliated with a particular industry.

From their fourteen largest industry contributors, Democrats have taken in $118.4 million since 1998. Lawyers and law firms, which traditionally support Democrats, place first with over $33.5 million in donations. People who are retired are next, and of the next six categories, four represent the financial sector:

Interestingly, people who mark “retired” on their donations are by far the largest group donating to super-committee Republicans, who collected $29.7 million from their top fourteen industries since 1998. (Like the PAC money, this is much lower than the Democratic total. But it’s important to note that Senators Toomey and Portman are new to the Senate, while the Democrats have all been in Congress since at least 2004, most since before 1998. The data represents the money each industry has invested in the super-commmittee).

The high amount of money from the retired is not totally surprising, given that Republicans are generally an older party, but the super-committee Republicans do indeed have a large number of donors who could be harmed by cuts to Medicare or Social Security.

Again, this data doesn’t provide a unifying theory of how each member will act. There are certainly larger political calculations at play. But when they start getting deep into the federal budget, removing or reducing potentially hundreds of lines, or when they attack the vastly complex tax code, there’s no doubt that special interests will come calling.

Super Committee Picks in Place

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 by Politico.com
Super Committee Picks
by Manu Raju & John Bresnahan

In the first of what will be a closely watched selection process for a powerful new deficit panel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will appoint Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Max Baucus (Mont.) and John Kerry (Mass.) as his three choices for a super committee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in spending cuts by the end of this year.

Murray will serve as co-chair of the 12-member panel. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will select her co-chair and two other panelists, as required by the next debt limit agreement signed into law by President Barack Obama last week. Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell will each select three additional members.

“The Joint Select Committee has been charged with forging the balanced, bipartisan approach to deficit reduction that the American people, the markets and rating agencies like Standard and Poor’s are demanding,” Reid said in a statement. “To achieve that goal, I have appointed three senators who each posses an expertise in budget matters, a commitment to a balanced approach and a track record of forging bipartisan consensus.”

Reid’s three picks are intended to show the Nevada Democrat is serious about forging a bipartisan deal to head off $1.2 trillion in spending cuts required under the debt deal. The super committee was Reid’s contribution to the bipartisan agreement to end the debt limit fight.

Murray is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and close to Reid and the rest of the Senate Democratic leadership. Baucus is the chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, while Kerry - the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee - has been lobbying for a spot.

Reid and Pelosi had been considering whether to install candidates who will draw a hard-line against deep entitlement cuts, particularly if Republicans don’t bend on new taxes. The Democratic leaders want loyalists who won’t give the panel majority support for a cuts-only approach, which could target popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

“The number one criteria should be someone who fights for revenues and if Republicans continue to rule out revenues, then the Democrats have to play proper defense in response,” said a senior Democratic aide.

In an email sent to her colleagues Monday evening, Pelosi said her caucus was committed to “protecting” Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - and said that the new panel should deliberate in public settings so that it achieves a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction.

“Many of you have expressed your interest in serving on the Joint Committee,” Pelosi told her colleagues. “I have and will be reaching out to each of you before making any decision.”

Leaders have until next week to announce their picks for the closely watched panel, although Reid’s opening move is expected to speed up that process.

The membership will be crucial, since any deal that receives a majority support will be fast-tracked through the House and Senate for consideration before year’s end.

All four party leaders face internal politics as they try to choose members who will both represent their caucus’ interests and try to show a level of seriousness amid a fiscal crisis that led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. And the appointees must be able to withstand withering criticism from their bases if they cut a compromise deal - or public outrage if they fail to reach an accord at a time of historic deficits.

Many Hill insiders believe vulnerable lawmakers won’t be appointed to the politically charged panel.

While most of McConnell’s GOP caucus is dead set against raising revenues, even by keeping income tax rates the same and eliminating preferences in the tax code, Reid has a much more diverse collection of colleagues, which made it more challenging for him to find members who will stay loyal to the party while also trying to cut an effective deal.

Reid also has to defend 23 Democratic-controlled Senate seats in 2012, versus only 10 for McConnell.

Democratic insiders said Reid came “under pressure” from several fronts - first, progressive and liberal members want at least one of their own named to the joint panel in order to ensure that their positions on spending and entitlement cuts are factored into any final recommendations.

“What I don’t like is revenues not being part of it, and I’m going to fight to make sure it’s included” in the super committee, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said last week.

By choosing Baucus, Reid may unnerve some liberals who have been skeptical of the Montana Democrat’s deal-making with Republicans over the years. But Baucus also has held the party line on raising revenues and attacking GOP budget plans to overhaul Medicare, a role he played in the budget talks with Vice President Joe Biden.

And by choosing Murray, the DSCC chief, Reid opens himself up to GOP criticism for choosing the Democratic senator whose foremost concern is 2012 Senate politics heading into a daunting election year.

“It is shocking that Harry Reid appointed his chief fundraiser to a committee that will be the central focus of every lobbyist in town,” said one Republican official.

Kerry, who has drawn fire from the right for calling S&P’s move a “tea party downgrade,” has been eager to add to his Senate resume a sweeping domestic achievement.

Noticeably absent from Reid’s choices are the three Democrats who served as part of the bipartisan Gang of Six who proposed a sweeping budget deal, which the majority leader never embraced.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Reid’s top deputy and Gang of Six member, signaled his interest in serving on the super committee. Reid’s No. 3, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, informed leadership he did not want a spot on the panel.

For McConnell, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is widely expected to get the nod, given his conservative credentials, ties to McConnell and his work in the Biden group.

But if Republicans stay united, they’d need one additional Democrat to break ranks and back a cuts-only approach - so McConnell may want to choose a senator with bipartisan appeal who is loyal to leadership, like either Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) or Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

At a townhall in Winchester, Ky. on Monday, McConnell told a crowd that he wanted “significant entitlement reform” to be part of the mix that the super committee proposes. Last week on Fox News, McConnell declared that tax increases were essentially off the table.

“What I can pretty certainly say to the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees of John Boehner and I, are going to put in there are pretty low,” McConnell said.

Upping the rhetoric, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) issued a memo to his colleagues on Monday evening to blast the S&P’s suggestion that revenue raisers be part of the mix and to insist that higher taxes should not be part of the super committee’s solution.

“I believe this is what we must demand from the Joint Committee as it begins its work,” Cantor said to House Republicans.

Cantor is a possible choice for the committee - and Boehner may choose similar hard-nosed conservatives to throw a bone to tea party-backed lawmakers skeptical of his handling of the debt ceiling debate.

Pelosi has not yet indicated who she will pick, but Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, is a possible pick, according to Democratic sources. Other potential selections include Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.), the Assistant Democratic Leader, and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the top Latino in the Democratic Caucus.

If the super committee reaches an accord, its recommendations would be quickly sent to the House and Senate floors, forcing lawmakers to cast an up-or-down vote on whether to send the proposals to President Barack Obama’s desk for his signature or veto; if it fails, it could trigger an across-the-board series of cuts, including to defense programs that Pentagon officials say are vital to national security.

Many Republicans are eager to avoid deep defense cuts, providing an incentive for their party to win Democratic backing on the panel.

Jon Kyl: Not Intended to Be Factual Statements

Jon Kyl Tweets Not Intended to Be Factual Statements

Stewart on Sen. Kyl’s ‘political strategy known as lying’

The Daily Show

By Blocking Unemployment Aid Set To Expire, GOP Says ‘Too Bad’ To US Workers

 (The pro-corporate GOP sends our jobs overseas then screws us by not extending or letting expire unemployment benefits while the real unemployment rate is at 17%--not the incomplete 9.4% U3 rate they keep using. Think about that for a while.--jef)


By Tanya Somanader on Feb 11th, 2011 | ThinkProgress.org

After months of working on anything but jobs legislation, GOP lawmakers got an opportunity this week to actually address the crisis. Tomorrow, the Trade Assistance Adjustment (TAA) Program and the Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) will expire. TAA helps retrain and re-employ workers who have lost their jobs due to foreign trade. HCTC provides compensation to help unemployed workers afford private health insurance. While 72 percent of Americans oppose cutting such critical unemployment assistance, the GOP is seemingly insistent that it expire.

On Tuesday, the House GOP’s plan to extend TAA was pulled from the House floor due to conservative backlash against the government “getting too involved in the economy.” That left the typically obstinate Senate as the last hope to extend the much-needed aid. Together on the Senate floor yesterday, Sens. Robert Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) offered three different proposals to extend both benefits for 18 months, 4.5 months, and just the HCTC for 18 months by unanimous consent. However, each time, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) was there to block it.

Increasingly incensed over each of Barrasso’s obstructions, Brown expressed anger uncommon on the Senate floor at Barrasso’s final objection to the HCTC extension. Offended by the apparent GOP hypocrisy in enjoying taxpayer-funded benefits while refusing to aid those “who don’t dress like this everyday” and “don’t make $170,000 a year,” he blasted Senators for “turning our backs” on the American worker:

BROWN:…For Senators who want to repeal health care, for Senators who want to strip any assistance…it’s basically turning our backs and saying to these workers: “Sorry about NAFTA, sorry about [Permanent normal trade relations], sorry about these trade agreements I know you lost your jobs because of those, sorry about losing your health insurance, sorry about not having any job training money, and oh by the way, if your house is foreclosed on, that’s just too damn bad too. Madam president, I just don’t get this. I don’t understand why people in this body can’t at least help those citizens who don’t dress like this everyday, who don’t make $170,000 a year, who don’t have really good health insurance provided by taxpayers. Why, madam president, are we turning our backs on them?

Watch it:

Brown’s anger is certainly justified. His state alone has “208 groups with 26,427 workers certified for TAA.” About 280,000 workers across the country stand to lose these benefits. Brown’s anger is only likely to grow as it appears that the GOP is holding these benefits hostage in “an effort to pressure the administration” on free trade agreements that helped generate this unemployment issue in the first place. Indeed, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said “he will block TAA until the White House vows to move the free trade agreement with Colombia.”

As Center For American Progress’s Sabina Dewan puts it, “the conservative schizophrenia on trade — pulling funding for the National Export Initiative designed to support American jobs, while threatening to let Trade Adjustment Assistance expire unless the administration ‘moves’ other trade agreements amounts to little more than a conservative anti-jobs and anti-worker agenda.”

Yesterday, Brown’s GOP counterpart Sen. Rob Portman (OH) also “voiced his disappointment” at the House GOP’s obstruction of the TAA “safety net,” promising affected Ohio workers he would “remain committed to [them] and [is] doing all that I can in order to ensure that they receive the benefits they need during tough economic times.” But when his Senate colleagues blocked the extension, Portman was demonstrably silent. His office did not respond to ThinkProgress’s request for comment.

Bottom of the Barrel

by John Turner| RSN
Thursday, 23 December 2010

There is widespread agreement that the Senate of the United States is a pathetic institution. If that’s true -- and I guess it is -- then the inhabitants of the Senate must also be less than sterling examples of humanity. If they were as bright as the members of a national legislature ought to be they wouldn’t have allowed their body to descend to its degenerate condition.

Thinking about the Senate raises the question of just how bad senators can get. Obviously, there are many candidates for the nadir, so many you wonder what was in the minds of voters who sent them to the capitol. You can even wonder if such voters have minds. But which state has voters so benighted they would choose the worst members of the U.S. Senate? That’s a question for the Christmas season.

Clearly -- really beyond doubt -- three states are in the running. They are -- in alphabetical order -- Arizona, Oklahoma and South Carolina. They have selected six men for the senate who are virtually unbelievable. But which pair is the worst? This is not a walkaway contest. There’s genuine competition here.

From Arizona, we have John McCain and Jon Kyl. As soon as you list their names you say, “My God!” and put your hand to your forehead. But you need to remember they both have been in the headlines recently for saying astoundingly dopey things about legislation that has just been passed. Yet this is a contest for behavior over a longer period than just the last month. Both Kyl and McCain have said insane things throughout their careers. So I’m not ruling them out. But we should insist that recent headlines alone not be allowed determine the winner of this contest.

Oklahoma has sent us Tom Coburn and James Inhofe. These are men who are not aware that the 20th Century occurred. In the case of Inhofe it seems almost insensitive to accuse him of being a bad senator. It’s as if the citizens of Oklahoma had sent a mule to the senate. Would you say that a mule was a bad senator, or would you just sit back and be regaled by the spectacle? Coburn is so obsessed by gay people he says they constitute the greatest threat to American freedom that exists. What can be made of a man who, in a world with fairly serious threats from disease, atomic weapons, and rampant climate changes, thinks that gay people out-threat them all? It’s hard to know what sort of mind that is.

The Palmetto state presents us with Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint. The latter falls almost into the same category as Jim Inhofe. You just can’t say what’s going on there. Should it be called mental illness? Like Coburn, DeMint is obsessed with sex and he seems almost to take his curious attitudes farther than the Oklahoma senator does. He doesn’t want single people who are schoolteachers to be able to have sexual relations. I don’t recall that he has announced a plan for sniffing them out but he must have a scheme of some sort or other. Thinking about it gives me the willies.

Then we come to Lindsey. You’ll recall that when he was in the House, and Republicans were in a state of mania about Bill Clinton, Lindsey led the charge for impeachment. Since then, there have been times when he hasn’t seemed quite as loony as his five companions. But when he does go nuts he does it in a bigger way. He wants, for example, to bomb Iran, evidently right now. He doesn’t think people born in the United States should automatically receive citizenship; he wants the Constitution changed to repeal that provision. And though he once seemed concerned about global warming, he has decided recently it’s not all that big a deal. He’s also incredibly smarmy.

I told you it wasn’t an easy choice. I couldn’t say, for sure, you were wrong if you chose any one of the three states. But after jumping back and forth, back and forth, Lindsey Graham’s face floats before my mind’s eye and I feel compelled to go with South Carolina. It’s the smarminess, I think, that does it for me. Lindsey may be not only the smarmiest person in the United States but the smarmiest person in the world. I say that but then of course, I think of Joe Lieberman.

I trust you understand all this is opinion. There’s no factual way to say who are the worst senators because there’s no factual way to say what’s bad. In your opinion, gay people may be the biggest threat, in which case, there you are.

GOP Sen Kyl: Extend Bush Tax Cuts Even If They Add To Deficit

Extend Bush Tax Cuts for wealthy even if they add to deficit, but don't extend unemployment benefits for those who really need it
Sam Stein | 07-12-10

Top Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns.

"[Y]ou should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes," said the Arizona Senator during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. "Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to -- if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans."

White House aides immediately seized on the comments. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on Twitter, "Kyl says wealthy need big Bush tax cuts while middle class families are on their own to fend for themselves as a result of Bush economy."

In private, administration officials say that the framing of the argument couldn't be more advantageous: "It's cutting taxes for the wealthy and letting the unemployed to fend for themselves," said one White House ally.

"If all of this has a familiar ring to it, it's because unpaid for tax cuts for the rich at the expense of working people is the same backward policy Republicans used to put the nation in this hole, and it's the same policy they promise to return to if put in a position of power again," added Hari Sevugan, press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.



vidlink

Asked to expand on his tweets, Gibbs declined comment, save to clarify that "the question [host Chris] Wallace specifically asked Kyl was [about] the upper end of the Bush tax cuts (above $250,000)."

But the politics already are fairly obvious. For the past few months, congressional Republicans have demanded that any additional spending be offset by budget cuts or revenue increases elsewhere. Also on Sunday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod blamed deficit concerns for the difficulty in finding a 60th vote in the Senate for unemployment benefits even though, as of Friday, 2.1 million people have not received checks that they were expecting in June.

And yet, Kyl is now suggesting that the same budget rules shouldn't apply with respect to tax cuts for the wealthy, which are set to expire unless Congress acts to renew them. As Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly notes:

It's quite a message to Americans: Republicans believe $30 billion for unemployment benefits don't even deserve a vote because the money would be added to the deficit, but Republicans also believe that adding the cost of $678 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy to the deficit is just fine.

Kyl is one of the most prominent members of Congress to advance the argument that jobless benefits  make people not want to look for work, a position disputed by economists across the political spectrum. Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said last March on the Senate floor.

The chart below shows the deficit impact of the Bush tax cuts over the next decade.