Super Committee Co-Chair Murray: Bush Tax Cuts Are The ‘Sticking Divide’

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Nov 20, 2011 at 11:23 am

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the Democratic co-chair of the congressional super committee, said this morning on CNN’s State of the Union that the super committee charged with crafting a deficit reduction plan remains stuck on the Bush tax cuts:

“There is one sticking divide, and that is the issue of what I call shared sacrifice, where everybody contributes in a very challenging time for our country,” Murray told CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union.”

“That’s the Bush tax cuts, and making sure that any kind of package includes everybody coming to the table and the wealthiest of Americans, those who earn over a million dollars every year, have to share, too. And that line in the sand, we haven’t seen any Republicans willing to cross yet,” Murray said.

The super committee has to approve a plan by Nov. 23. Despite the fact that most expect the super committee to fail, Murray said she is willing to talk to any Republican interested in making a deal. “I’ll be waiting all day…willing to talk to any Republican who says, ‘Look, my country is more important,’” said Murray. “I’m ready.” Watch Murray’s comments:

This is, of course, more of the same from Republican lawmakers, who have repeatedly taken the country to the brink to preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. One wonders about Republicans’ actual commitment to cutting the deficit when they’re preventing a committee tasked with doing just that from succeeding by demanding more tax cuts, which only grow the deficit.

Previously on Fox News, Murray’s Republican counterpart Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) attacked Democrats on the committee for failing to negotiate about the privatization of Medicare. But Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), who is also on the super committee, said today that’s not true. Democrats are open to cutting entitlement social safety net program, Becerra said.

As Murray told Crowley, referring to Grover Norquist’s pledge against tax increases, “As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do.”

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NEWS FLASH

Gingrich Calls Child Labor Laws ‘Stupid’, Wants To Replace Janitors With Poor Kids | In an anti-government diatribe that would be funny if he weren’t serious, GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich told a crowd at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government yesterday that child labor laws are “tragic” and “stupid” and have “done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy.” In a proposal that he freely admitted was “extraordinarily radical,” he called for firing all school janitors and replacing them with poor students. Politico reports:

“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.” [...]

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Watch it, via CNN:

Climate Progress

A Five-Step Program for Ending Our Oil Addiction

By Climate Guest Blogger on Nov 20, 2011 at 10:23 am

by Greg Rucks and Jesse Morris, Rocky Mountain Institute

In Reinventing Fire, Rocky Mountain Institute provides a blueprint for transforming transportation and freight services with uncompromised convenience, safety and performance using no oil by 2050.

But how do we get there? RMI lays out a five-step program for ending our oil addiction.

1. Shift to ultralight but ultrastrong autobodies

The virtues of a lightweight auto body with improved safety and performance are universally applicable to the many auto powertrain options now available or under development. To cost-effectively electrify autos, automakers have begun to adopt lightweight bodies that enable a smaller powertrain and fewer, cheaper batteries or fuel cells to provide competitive range.

While incremental lightweighting, reductions in aerodynamic drag and tires with lower rolling resistance substantially improve fuel economy, the true potential of “Revolutionary+” autos that achieve 125-240 mpg equivalent is fully unlocked through the use of advanced materials—such as carbon fiber composites — paired with resulting savings in manufacturing.

2. Pursue innovative state or regional policies that boost the economics of Revolutionary+ vehicles