Mark Warner Thinks It’s Bold for a $200M Man to Cut Seniors’ Pensions
I suggested the other day that Mark Warner’s position on the Gang of Six might bode poorly for SuperCongress being anything but a pre-gamed attack on Social Security and Medicare.
Well, it turns out he has already been running around to the press campaigning for the job, with a conference call and an appearance on Fox.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) would “love” to serve on the new, bicameral committee established by the debt-limit deal passed Tuesday by the Senate.
“My fear is that this could be made of a group that could be the more ideologically rigid in both parties, and I’m not sure that gets us to where we need to be,” Warner said in a conference call Monday, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
[snip]
Warner said Tuesday on Fox News Channel that the new committee needs to address the two major components missing from the debt-limit deal: entitlements and tax reforms.
“The fact that I’m willing to do that probably means that I’m not actually going to get on the committee,” he said. “Chances are that there will be enormous pressure on leadership in both parties to put members that might not be willing to be as bold.”
Of the three Democrats who were on the Gang of Six–Warner, Durbin, and Conrad–Warner is most excited about cutting Social Security. Plus he’s gunning for things like the home mortgage deduction. And all that while he talks “tax reform,” not increased taxes on people, like him, who have far more than they’ll ever need.
Sure, it’s bold for someone who is worth $200 million to ask seniors and struggling families to make sacrifices to balance the budget.
But that doesn’t mean it’s smart.
I tweeted recently that I’m fine with the idea of the Super Congress. But only as long as each member of it agrees in advance to live out the rest of their days at minimum wage and with no health insurance (after giving up all current assets should be added, I guess).
You know, as I was thinking more about this, I latched on the source of Warner’s so-called credibility as a budget balancer: as Governor of VA from 2002-2006.
But of course, VA was at that point (and still is) the beneficiary of a flood of federal stimulus dollars, in the form of war on terror pork. That flood is one of the reasons we’re in debt right now.
So it’s easy for Warner to spew this line. His career has benefited nicely from federal deficit spending.
“Sure, it’s bold for someone who is worth $200 million to ask seniors and struggling families to make sacrifices to balance the budget.”
You are so kind when you use the word “bold.”
As I have written before, we are not asking seniors and struggling families to sacrifice, we are engaging in slow torture, a crime.
Sure, it’s bold for someone who is worth $200 million to use force on seniors and struggling families slowly torture them in order to balance the budget.
@klynn:
BTW, I realize he implied he is bold!
And, great post. Some great quotes you captured.
(in previous comment should read, “…to slowly torture…”)
Warner’s boldness ,actually brazenness, reminds me of another Virgininan…George Allen.
Hopefully this FU by Warner will be remembered as HIS “macaca moment”.
i’ll be very surprised if warner does not run for prez in 2016. he started to do so in ’07; so he must see this as a desireable credentiual. for the life of me, i cannot see why.
continuing –
warner was well-liked and well-respected in virginia by members of both parties. that is not an easy task for any democrat in virgina politics, where crazier has become betterer.
@Gitcheegumee:
george allen is both stupid and mean and a genuine racist.
warner is none of these – he’s very bright, very determined, and he does have a social conscience.
oATL: A conscience of convenience,perhaps?
Gitcheegumee: Interesting that he chose Fox as his media megaphone .
Warner needs to be asked if he’s bold enough to cut military contracts with Lockheed, Boeing, etc. while he’s starving little old ladies and disabled infants.
@Gitcheegumee:
he IS a politician :>)
orionatl: World’s oldest profession ,much?
The Super Congress as I understand it is to be made up of 6R and 6D. Is the language written to exclude any other party(Green, Socialist)should they take a percentage of seats in the future?
@Mary: Right, that’s one of the reasons I raised the GWOT stimulus issue. BC the only thing that separates the records of him and Jennifer Granholm is that he benefitted from a tidal wave of stimulus, while she presided over a depression–that’s it. Yet he gets to claim having balanced a budget at a time when the state was one of the chief beneficiaries of unfunded deficit spending was a big success.
@Gitcheegumee:
i thought the world’s oldest profession involved killing people, not lying to them :>)
@1970cs: Your question is essentially moot. Our new super-duper pseudo-Congress is to be appointed in 45 days with recommendations by the end of the year. There is no time for any other parties to win seats aside from Independent Sanders (not likely to be appointed) and Connecticut-For-Lieberman (the party of one, who might be).
@phred:
I am aware that this going to happen in the near future. It is however interesting that as Congress abdicates it’s main function/power of controlling the purse for the future, that the two parties playing the same side of the corporate contribution fence have giving themselves exclusive membership to the club.
phred:
I think of it as the Super Supreme Congress..
More than a Congress,but less than a Supreme Court.
@Jim White:
Sounds good to me. They’re so far out of touch with reality now that they can’t see it in their rear-view mirror. In broad daylight. With strobe lights on reality.
@Gitcheegumee:
I think of it as the State Central Committee. Or the Politburo. Nothing they decide will ever actually apply to them, unless they become non-persons.
PJ Evans@ 11:08 pm :
Nothing they decide will ever actually apply to them, unless they become non-persons…UNLESS… they incorporate themselves..individually or collectively.