Rep. Jan Schakowsky: House Republicans stole your Christmas

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) blasted House Republicans on Tuesday as they planned to kill the Senate compromise bill to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.

If the payroll tax cut and employment insurance is not extended, 160 million Americans will see their taxes go up by $1000 in 2012 and 2.5 million jobless workers will lose unemployment benefits.

“Don’t blame Congress for not working together,” she said on the House floor. “Blame the House Republicans — who can’t even work with each other.”

“The one and only reason this House of Representatives is not voting for the bi-partisan Senate bill to provide relief to middle class taxpayers, seniors and disabled on Medicare and jobless Americans is because it would pass That’s right. The Republican scam was to bring up the bill, supported by 90% of the Senate, and kill it.”

“On the way to this slaughter, a funny thing happened,” Schakowsky continued. “Sensible Republicans basically said, ‘You want me to vote to abandon millions of struggling middle class Americans without the help they need this holiday season? No way!’”

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that his members agreed the payroll tax cut should be extended for a full year. Democrats had originally pushed for a one-year extension and a surtax on millionaires, but agreed to compromise on a short-term extension.

The House voted 229 to 193 along partisan lines to reject the compromise bill on Tuesday. The Senate is currently in recess and is not scheduled to return until January 23.

“The sanctimonious rhetoric you hear today from the Republicans is nothing but talk, baby-talk,” Schakowsky said. “If they don’t get their way exactly, they won’t play.”

“And so, Happy Chanukah to middle class Americans lighting the first candle tonight who won’t get their $1000 tax break. Happy New Year to our seniors and persons with disabilities who may lose their doctors.”

“Merry Christmas to the jobless Americans, desperate for work, looking for work, who barely survive on unemployment checks. The House Republicans are the Grinches who stole your Christmas.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on December 20, below:

Photo credit: Rep. Schakowsky’s Office

Rep. Gonzalez Warns Of The ‘Human Consequences’ Of Health Repeal: Without Reform, People Will ‘Die’

By Think Progress

Today, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a repeal of the health care reforms that were signed into law last year. Prior to the vote, ThinkProgress attended a blogger meeting with Democratic House members and asked them how they plan to respond to the Republican Party’s push to dismantle the new health law.

Many of the members rightly noted that, contrary to the wild claims of conservatives, repealing the health law would both increase the deficit by $230 billion over ten years and slow down annual job growth by “250,000 to 400,000” jobs annually.

Reps. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) also told ThinkProgress that there are enormous human costs to repealing the bill, and noted a study that estimates 32,000 Americans would perish every year if the reforms are repealed. Gonzalez said that it was important to remember that there are “human consequences” to repeal, and relayed the story of Bonnie Terry, a cancer patient he knew who couldn’t afford treatment and passed away:

THINKPROGRESS: There was an economist at the Roosevelt Institute that estimated that 32,000 people would die every year if this bill was repealed. Do you think that the people who vote for repeal have a moral responsibility for the loss of life that may result?

GONZALEZ: We have to understand that there’s human consequences to everything that we do up here. [...] You’re talking about the daily lives of millions of Americans. The fact that there’s 32,000 who will not receive care and will die?! [...] And believe me there are many people who don’t receive timely care, diagnosis or treatment and die. I happen to know them. I’ve attended the funerals. People will say gosh, she was a really intelligent, vibrant, robust person, what do you mean she didn’t have insurance? What do you mean she couldn’t get that kind of cancer treatment? You know, and her name was Bonnie Terry. [...] I really felt if we passed this bill that we wouldn’t have situations like Bonnie faced with her cancer a few years ago, and she did die.

Meanwhile, Schakowsky said that it is “absolutely correct” to talk about health care in moral terms, saying that “people do have to consider the consequences of taking health care accessibility away from people, and that some people, 32,000 it’s estimated, will die because of that”:

THINKPROGRESS: Do you think the people who vote to repeal bear a moral responsibility for any lives lost as a result of that?

SCHAKOWSKY: The United States already, more than any so-called rich country in the world, has more preventable deaths because of the lack of insurance. And to use the word moral is absolutely correct. [...] That has to be the consideration. This is probably not the time to say that blood is on your hands kind of thing, but I think people do have to consider consequences of taking health care accessibility away from people, and that some people, 32,000, will die because of that.

Watch it:

It is also important to note that there are many other human consequences to repealing the bill, including once again legalizing the practice of denying people insurance because of pre-existing conditions. A recent HHS study found that nearly halfof the adult population under the age of 65 could possibly have one of these conditions.

Schakowsky: Debt Commission Success ‘Unlikely’ Because Conservatives Are ‘Closing The Door’ On Taxes

By Pat Garofalo

Back in February, President Obama created a debt commission by executive order, which is tasked with crafting a proposal to reduce long-term deficits through a combination of revenue increases and spending cuts. Theoretically, the package crafted by the commission will then be voted on by Congress, but in order for it to ever see a vote, 14 of the 18 commission members need to approve it.

One of the concerns about the commission is that it will inequitably favor spending cuts (particularly to entitlements like Social Security) and eschew common sense tax increases. This is particularly worrisome because the commission includes some members — like Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) — who fearmonger about any kind of tax increase.

Today, at the America’s Future Now conference, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) — who is also a commission member — said that success for the commission is “unlikely” because conservatives members are refusing to consider tax increases. In an interview with ThinkProgress, she said that she’s worried conservatives are giving “some lip service” to increasing revenue, but “are closing that door and taking it off the table” when it comes to specifics:

[Conservatives] give some lip service to ‘everything should be on the table,’ then, when it actually comes to what kind of revenue can we raise, are closing that door and taking it off the table, and saying that they’re not really willing to consider those things. The problem, in their view, is all about spending, and of course, that’s not the case. Actually, discretionary spending has been pretty darn flat over the years. We’ve seen a growth of wealth among the wealthy already and flat income for ordinary people…It may mean that the commission really deadlocks.

Watch it:

Currently, taxes are the lowest that they’ve been in 50 years, and the U.S. has the fifth lowest taxes as a share of GDP among economically developed nations. Even if we tried to balance the budget entirely on tax increases (which no one is suggesting), the United States would still be in the bottom ten. Balancing the budget entirely on the back of spending cuts, meanwhile, would require draconian reductions that will have the greatest negative impact on the most vulnerable populations.

For her part, Schakowsky said that its unconscionable that Congress is considering spending billions of dollars to cut the estate tax, at the same time that the debt commission is putting Social Security cuts on the table. She also pushed back against the notion that deficit reduction should take precedence over job creation in the short-term. “Leaving our children debt free — does that mean leaving them sick, uneducated, and unemployed?” she asked.