Al Simpson speaks out against debt committee critics, political climate

[megimoo]

"Someone should throttle this ugly RINO turd."

CHEYENNE--During Al Simpson's nearly 50 years in government, he hasn't been afraid to take on critics and naysayers of his work in the U.S. Senate or on a variety of high-profile commissions and committees.

But as the co-chair of President Obama's debt commission, the Wyoming Republican said he's been taking an unprecedented amount of flak for the commission's draft proposals to help erase the nation's $13.8 trillion debt.

"I've never had any nastier mail or [been in a] more difficult position in my life," said the 79-year-old Simpson. "Just vicious. People I've known, relatives [saying], "'You son of a bitch. How could you do this?'"

Not surprisingly, many of the debt commission's draft proposals to cut the debt by nearly $4 trillion by 2020 -- from raising the retirement age to 69 by 2075 to bringing in $1 trillion more in tax revenue -- have won strong opposition from liberals and conservatives alike.



http://trib.com/news/opinion/blogs/capitol/article_7b471b72-f803-11df-8010-001cc4c002e0.html

[Tecate]

This is a catch-22 for both political parties... Everyone says "make cuts" just don't cut anything that affects me. Cut someone else.

Doomed to fail.

This is like a husband and wife with a combined income of $50K having a come to Jesus meeting about their $1,000,000 credit card balance. Everything they earn won't even cover the interest on their debt.

[m00]

How is he a RINO? The sad reality is we're not going to balance the budget by lowering taxes. We've borrowed for too long from future generations. I oppose higher taxes currently because it would just get squandered like everything else. But if I honestly believed that if the government had cut every frivolous program they possibly could without causing open riots in the streets, and they needed a tax hike to get the budget under control, and if I believed the tax hike would actually go directly to debt repayment... I'd support it.

But I don't see those two "ifs" ever happening.