Goo-Goo: Luke Russert Decries Simpson-Bowles Defeat
Simpson-Bowles would have: raised taxes by $1.2 trillion--bumping to 21% the tax share of GDP from the typical 18%; relied largely on defense cuts to reduce spending; retained all $2.5 trillion in ObamaCare spending and done nothing to reform Medicare and Medicaid. No wonder Luke Russert loved it.
Appearing on Chuck Todd's Daily Rundown on MSNBC today, NBC congressional correspondent Russert bemoaned Simpson-Bowles's overwhelming defeat in the House yesterday. According to Russert, the measly 38 votes the plan garnered is emblematic of what's wrong with Washington. Todd joined in the hand-wringing. View the video after the jump.
Watch Russert and Todd at work.
CHUCK TODD: Before I get to the Ryan [budget-proposal] vote, Luke, I just want to go back to Bowles-Simpson. I mean, that was the height of why --
LUKE RUSSERT: Huge, huge story. Huge underreported story. Kudos to you for putting it in the first block, because it's so underreported. We hear on Capitol Hill --
TODD: The height of like unbelievable grandstanding --
RUSSERT: It is so hypocritical. Because every single day you walk through these halls. And you hear Republicans, and you hear Democrats say: well, we need to tackle this skyrocketing debt. We need to get the deficit under control. Here's a plan by a well-known Republican, a well-known Democrat. Both sides have to jump into the deep end together, feel some pain. Everybody talks about wanting to do it. And then it goes to the floor: it gets 38 votes. If you want one number that's emblematic of Washington, D.C. right now, that is representative of what's going on in this country, it's 38. That's all you've got to say. Thirty-eight. Unbelievable.
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Comments
Apple falls, rolls far away from tree.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 12:06pm.
.
Yeah SoL
Submitted by Seashell on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 6:50pm.
And I bet that Tim (God rest his soul) resents that MSNBC is taking advantage of Luke and his youth and inexperience to further their agenda.
Not apple ---- nut
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 1:14pm.
Little Russert is much more like Todd and Gregory than he is his old man.
Who's Your Daddy?
Submitted by greydawg on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 2:39pm.
If his name were Luke Jones, this guy would still be looking for a job. His only qualification appears to be his birth certificate.
Naive fool. The commission was created to fail.
Submitted by drsamherman on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 3:18pm.
It was entirely planned that the commission would fail, because Congress and the Earbama administration had zero interest in doing anything with their recommendations. It was, as Michelle Malkin aptly named it, Kabuki theater. Same with all of the other presidential and congressional commissions in the past 20 years that were intended to cover over the scab while it did not heal.
On the hypocricy of Russert and Todd - over Simpson/Bowles
Submitted by Gary Hall on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 5:30pm.
I have a bit of a different take on the hypocrisy and grandstanding, here.
Leaving aside one's views of Simpson/Bowles, let's start with the history of the past 15 months.
It, the Simpson/Bowles Debt Commission, was Obama's Commission.
When, in Dec. 2010, they released their recommendations, the national mainstream media didn't like them at all. They carefully ripped it, trying not to offend President Obama, for a few days, and then it went away.
Obama? Nothing but silence. The Commission was created out of the calls that the country is heading for a debt crisis if we don't get it under control, but when it comes out - silence from the WH.
Here's how WaPost resident progressive Erza Klein summarized it in April 2011:
But if the president was actually interested in passing Simpson-Bowles, this was a bit of an odd way to go about it. Leaving it out of his budget and State of the Union speeches meant it didn’t become the central issue on the table.
As we'll see - it was only for show - or, could we call that "grandstanding?"
Then, S & P warned about a possible downgrade of US debt. Did Obama mention S/B then? More importantly, anywhere in that time period, do we see the national MSM pounding on the Democratic leadership, or the White House, on why they are not pressing the case before the nation that Simpson/Bowles is a starting point for negotiations? No - the media is silent. Instead, President Obama submits his budget - an outlandish irresponsible package of massive spending w/ no budget control - and the Senate promptly votes it down, 97-0.
Did the MSM follow that up, by challenging the Democratic leadership or the WH, to put Simpson/Bowles on the table? No - silence.
Result? S & P downgrades US debt.
Through the entire political gamesmanship (and the daily MSM blame game against the R's - never the D's) which followed over the battle between the WH and the Republican leadership (note: the D's aren't seriously engaged in the process) up and through the Super Debt Committee train wreck, we hear nothing of Simpson/Bowles. Only when the summer debt saga ends, does the media finally start mentioning Simpson/Bowles - and then, like Russert and Todd here, it's only thru the lens of "what is it that the Republicans don't get?"
And finally, after the summer of 2010 is over, Obama's former budget director, Peter Orszag writes a book, with HuffPost writer, Sam Stein, summarizing this, for us"
By the fall of 2010, the president had fully embraced the idea that his administration needed credibility on dealing with the deficit even if he pushed an economic stimulus up front. A year later, the White House changed its tune, introducing the American Jobs Act and emphasizing immediate job creation legislation over long-term deficit reduction.
While Orszag appears to be attempting to make the case that for a period of time, late 2010 through the summer of 2011, President Obama . . whoa there, Orszag isn't presenting that Obama wanted to embrace the need to address the debt, rather that, the "administration [Obama] needed credibility [the idea of] on dealing with the deficit." In other words, Obama didn't want to deal with the debt, he just wanted it to look like he wanted to deal with the debt.
Suddenly, all that I laid out above makes glaring sense, does it not?
The odd thing about all of this hypocritical grandstanding here, is that by the fall of 2011, Obama's not even faking it any more. And, once again, the national MSM could care less - after all, there's always the Republicans to blame - for something.
The one item we can all agree on here, is that there never was any leadership on the issue of addressing the debt crisis facing America, from the Obama White House.
Well, we can agree on one more item; Luke Russert and Chuck Todd - as well as the rest of the MSM - are nothing more than grandstanding hypocrites.
(;~/ gary
pitty
Submitted by jimtrees on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 9:17pm.
that's what got him the job. compliance to keep it.
That's what got him the job.......
Submitted by Herbster on Fri, 03/30/2012 - 4:49am.
I have a better idea for this enabling lightweight....a brand new show with a co-host of equal intellectual ability........we'll call it "Media Morons on Parade," starring LUKE and MIKA. It would be a sure winner..................or, loser.