The initiative asks, “Where are the Blue Dogs?” and gives the label of “lap dog” the remaining 20-some members of the caucus. Blue Dog Democrats, like Boswell, typically represent more rural and/or politically diverse districts and have a reputation for being fiscal moderates. According to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which gleefully recounts the 2010 defeat of 28 former caucus members, the remaining members of the group constitute “Washington’s endangered species.”

Videos have been developed to attack Blue Dogs in California, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon and Utah. Thus far Boswell, a Democrat who represents Iowa’s 3rd District, has only been a target in a news release by the group. Similar releases have also attacked lawmakers from California, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

With much of the content on the NRCC page focusing on how difficult it will be for more moderate Democrats to keep hold of their seats in 2012, it’s quite obvious that the Republicans would simply like more Blue Dogs to play dead now than force a GOP challenger to run against an incumbent.

It’s hardly the first time that House Republicans have targeted Boswell, who, as a result of redistricting, is expected to face Republican incumbent Tom Latham in 2012. Following a May 31 vote on whether or not to raise the national debt ceiling, Boswell was one of several House Democrats targeted by the NRCC through robocalls.

“After spending recklessly and maxing out the nation’s credit card, [Rep. Leonard] Boswell demanded that Congress vote to increase the nation’s debt limit without making any spending cuts,” the call advised without noting that Boswell and other Democrats being targeted with the same robocall had actually voted against the bill to raise the debt ceiling.

The NRCC said the call was actually referencing a letter authored by U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, and signed by Boswell and three other Blue Dogs that asked for Congress to pass a “clean extension of the debt ceiling.”

The call’s initial claim about “reckless spending” by Boswell and Democrats was given a “mostly false” rating by PolitiFact Ohio for completely ignoring the impact Republicans themselves have had on the national debt.

That sentiment was expressed in a post today on RedState. The Twitter account of the publication also tweeted this: “It Is Time To Burn Mitch McConnell In Effigy. He Goes Pontius Pilate On the Debt Ceiling.”

Here is McConnell’s plan, as presented to The National Review:

The initial legislation would authorize the President to submit a request to Congress asking to increase the debt limit by $700 billion, and would require submission of a plan to reduce spending by a greater amount.

Upon receipt of the President’s request, the debt limit would be provisionally increased by $100 billion to provide breathing room and avert an August 2nd default.

The House and Senate would have 15 days to disapprove of the request.

Within three days of the President’s request, it would be in order for the House and Senate to introduce a joint resolution disapproving of the President’s request.

Under expedited consideration of the Resolution of Disapproval, the resolution would be placed directly on the Senate calendar; the Motion to Proceed to the resolution would be privileged; there would be 10 hours of debate and passage would require a simple majority.

If either chamber defeats the resolution, the remaining $600 billion increase would be allowed.If both chambers pass the resolution, it would be sent to the President for a veto or signature.

If vetoed, debate on an override would be limited to one hour.

If the veto is overridden (which would require a 2/3 vote) in both chambers, then the request would be denied and the provisional $100 billion increase revoked.

If the veto is sustained in either chamber, the remaining $600 billion increase would be allowed.

For the second and third requests in fall 2011 and summer 2012, the President could request an increase of the debt limit by $900 billion once the Treasury Department determines that the country is within $100 billion of the debt limit. The President would also be required to submit a plan to reduce spending by a greater amount.  Each of these subsequent requests would be subject to the same disapproval process outlined above.

Congress has until August 2 to act before the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations. For a quick primer on the subject, click here.

West’s speech to WIN cited instances from the movies 300 and The Last Samurai (“That’s a true story! That’s historical fiction,” he said) as examples of how women in American society should be treating men in order to cultivate a strong polity. His remarks about the dangers of liberal women’s group came later in the speech:

We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side — these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow…deficits will continue to grow.

ThinkProgress has video of the passage from West’s address:

The complete video, courtesy of rightwing blog The Right Scoop, appears in two parts, both embedded at the bottom of this post.

As The American Independent has previously reported, taking away all federal Planned Parenthood funding would make a .02 percent dent in the estimated $1.48 trillion federal deficit, and a .0002 percent dent in the nearly $14.3 trillion national debt.

It’s unclear how Code Pink, a women’s anti-war organization in favor of making major cuts to military spending, which accounts for between $670 billion and $1.2 trillion in annual government expenses, is contributing to deficits or the debt, in West’s view.

Incidentally, the largest increases in both federal spending and national debt levels in history came during the administration of George W. Bush (PDF).

So why is one changed word causing some prognosticators to panic?

The S&P’s negative outlook means the index is considering cutting America’s credit rating from AAA to AA. AA is hardly a terrible rating. The scale goes down to D, and the U.S. would be joining countries like Japan and China if its rating were knocked down to AA — hardly in the company of nations in dire straits. But even that marginal decline could have major consequences for America’s economic future.

S&P’s “sovereign credit ratings” for entire countries are essentially credit scores on a much larger scale: “credit ratings express the agency’s opinion about the ability and willingness of an issuer, such as a corporation or state or city government, to meet its financial obligations in full and on time,” in the words of the official S&P definition.

And just as wealthy individuals can nevertheless have terrible credit scores thanks to bad credit histories, so too can an entire country with a history of carrying excessive debt end up with a sub-par credit rating.

The greatest impact of a diminished American credit rating, as reported by Forbes Magazine’s Leonard Burman, would be its effect on the U.S. Treasury. Without a top-tier credit rating for the U.S., skittish investors at home and abroad could induce the Treasury to raise interest rates on government bonds. This would massively compound the national debt.

While America’s surging debt is hardly breaking news, the S&P issued its altered outlook as a result of the internecine battle between Democrats and Republicans over the budget. It’s not clear if a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, which, at $14.3 trillion, currently looms just above the $14.2 trillion national debt, would satisfy the S&P credit rating bureau.

Republican lawmakers have hailed the S&P evaluation as, in the words of House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), a “wake-up call” to the government, a sign that only significant spending cuts will pull the country out of a tailspin. House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, retweeted a Wall Street Journal editorial claiming that the re-evaluation could only have been a response to Obama’s budget speech last week, in which the president condemned Republican cuts as ideological.

Democrats have responded to the evaluation by contending that the parties will surely come to an accord over federal debt and spending, and by calling the credibility of the S&P index into question. A bipartisan congressional report on the root causes of the recession that was released last week cited inaccurate S&P credit ratings as a major factor in the mortgage crisis that precipitated the country’s economic fall.

Two of the more outspoken members of each party took to Twitter to respond to the news. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said, “S&P confirms what we know: the government must slash spending. A debt ceiling hike will only worsen the problem”; Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) had a more colorful take, saying, “S&P paint a pessimistic picture. Oh yeah, those rating agencies are never wrong. #DidTheySendTheMemoFromJail?”

The CBO expects that the unemployment rate will fall to 9.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 7.4 percent at the end of 2013 — still high above the natural rate of unemployment of 5 percent. The CBO also says that the tax cut/unemployment extension deal will provide a “short-term” boost to the economy, similar to what Moody’s Economist Mark Zandi predicted will raise growth in the first half of 2011.

The CBO also took a look at the budget, which has a record deficit of $1.5 trillion — or about ten percent of output. The CBO predicts that the deficit will decline rapidly in the next five years — mostly because of increased revenues due to economic output. However, the calculations do not include an extension of the 2010 tax cuts deal, the Medicare “doc fix” or some of the tax credits in the stimulus package, all of which will sunset, but will be difficult not to extend because of their political popularity or impact on growth.

“What I’m believing is, I think, the truth of where we are in the country,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann, who is openly mulling a run for the Republican presidential nomination, continually discussed her doubts that the U.S. would continue as a great nation under the policies of the current government.

Bachmann spoke before a crowd of around 150 at the downtown Des Moines Marriott Hotel, and often quoted Abraham Lincoln and discussed her family’s history and US history.

She said the underlying struggle of America 150 years ago during the Civil War was the issue of slavery and the question of whether all men are created equal. Bachmann described how Americans killed other Americans during the Civil War.

“Fortunately today we don’t face the prospect of an armed violent civil war, but instead we face the question of whether our nation will live to the latest generation is equally great. It’s an underlying issue in the struggle of our time is a slavery of a different kind,” Bachmann said to the crowd, before predicting her slavery comments would be misconstrued by the media.

“Because it is a slavery. It is a slavery that is a bondage to debt and a bondage to decline,” Bachmann went on. “That’s what that slavery entails. It’s the subservience of a sovereign people — we are a sovereign people — to a failed self selected elite. That would be our fate.”

She repeatedly asked the crowd whether the next generation will see a standard of living as high as as the current generations enjoy.

“My faith is with you, the ordinary Iowa citizens,” Bachmann said. “Because for my money, I take ordinary any day of the week over the self-anointed elite.”

Bachmann said the spirit of 1776 woke up for the the 2010 elections.

“You saw what happened right here in Iowa — winning your governor’s seat, winning your Iowa House back, ousting three Supreme Court justices,” Bachmann proclaimed to massive applause from the room. “And don’t think for a moment a lot of justices around this country can’t feel the hot seat now in their own seat because of what Iowa did.”

She chastized the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, as well the large financial institutions, eventually criticizing the reform of the federally subsidized student loan program by falsely claiming the “government completely runs the student loan industry.”

The student loan reform involved the ending of insuring loans made by private banks and instead increasing the loans the government delivers through its direct loan programs. Banks and credit unions still run private student loan programs the same as before. The Congressional Budget Office says student loan reform will save $62 billion over the next decade.

“We saw the passage of socialized medicine,” Bachmann said, later adding it’s “stunning what has occurred in just two years time.”

After her speech, Bachmann was asked by The Iowa Independent to elaborate how health care reform legislation was “socialized medicine,” given the legislation included no government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“Ultimately the way the program is built, we’ll see a collapse of the private insurance industry,” Bachmann responded. “That’s very important to the Des Moines area because this is a Mecca of insurance industries.”

Indeed, Des Moines does play host to many insurance companies, and is ranked as one of the top insurance centers in the world along with Hartford, Conn. and London, England.

Contrary to her claim, however, more people will get private health coverage thanks to the Democratic reforms. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it. The law also gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, an approach that relies on a free market, not socialized medicine.

But she went on in her response to claim health insurance costs are already rising because of the Affordable Care Act.

Larry Levitt, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Minnesota Public Radio that claim is a stretch. Levitt said there have been reports recently of insurers raising premiums significantly, but that’s due to the increase in the cost of health care and the effects of the economic downturn.

Bachmann predicted health care reform, along with the nation’s debt, will remain signifficant issues in 2012, as they were in 2010.

“If we want to kill ‘Obamacare,’ if we want to end socialized medicine it must be done in the next election,” Bachmann said. “It will be our charge to repeal Obama [and to] repeal a very liberal Senate.”

Bachmann also noted the debt under Obama’s tenure is more than the accumulated debt of all 43 previous presidencies.

The truth on that statement is complicated. When U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Obama’s budget would add more to the debt than the outstanding debt of all previous presidents, the Pulitzer-Prize winning website PolitiFact rated it true. However, when Republican state Sen. Chip Rogers of Georgia said the U.S. had accumulated more debt since Obama took office than the total amount of debt accumulated during the first 200 years of the United States existence, it was given a “barely true” rating.

PolitiFact clarified the difference being whether one focused on publicly held debt instead of spending and not limiting the timeline to two years from Obama taking office.

Despite any accuracy of her statements, the crowd was largely impressed with the Minnesota Republican.

Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief, said Bachmann had a track record of putting people first, calling her the kind of leader the country needs.

“I’m certain there’s a new breath out there of fresh air that is lead by someone like Congresswoman Bachmann,” Failor said.

Ankeny resident Judy McBee said she liked what she heard in Bachmann’s speech and was familiar with Bachmann before the event.

McBee said what she’s heard before about the Congresswoman depended on the source, as McBee felt the national television media would make her seem extreme or a “big mouth.” She admitted sometimes it can get her riled up to get behind politicians like Bachmann when it seemed the media was attacking her.

“We can pretty well recognize who we’re in agreement with and so we will probably support anyway,” McBee said. “But yeah, you might feel more determined, but we kind of do that anyway to those we’re in agreement with.”

But what it lacks in legal compliance, it at least makes up in creativity, running one ad in the form of a mock sales pitch for a commemorative coin that honors President Obama and various Democratic congressmen for increasing the national debt:

“They’ve probably run some of the more entertaining ads this cycle,” says Evan Tracey, who tracks political ads for a living at the Campaign Media Analysis Group. “They don’t look like a lot of the ads that are being shown over and over and over, by candidates and the parties and the other groups in a lot of these races.”

The “commemorative coin” ad is running against candidates in several states. It follows the Republicans’ broad strategy this year of linking the local Democrat to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the national debt.

The Commission indicated in its March IRS filing that it had no plans to spend any money to influence elections, yet its ads, nearly any way you slice it, are political. They don’t explicitly say to vote for or against a candidate, but they criticize Democratic incumbents facing tight re-election races and compare them unfavorably to their Republican opponents.”There’s not a whole lot of gray area as to whether these are about issues,” Tracey told NPR. “They’re strictly about politics and elections.” Maybe the Commission believes that the ads’ satirical nature exempts them from basic reporting practices, but this seems like a dubious legal strategy at best.

A group like this seems like an ideal candidate for the IRS or the FEC to single out and make an example of following the campaign season, but most news accounts are pessimistic about the chances of either agency doing much about it. Before Congress departed for recess, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) asked the IRS to undertake a thorough investigation of nonprofit groups that appear as if they may be in violation of their tax-exempt status, but since then there’s been little word of progress from the agency and Sen. Baucus’ office.

Sens. Sanders and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) unveiled the resolution Thursday during a conference call with reporters, arguing that Social Security is not the cause of the national debt.

“Do not send Congress a plan that will cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age, or privatize this life and death program,” Sanders said on the call. “If you do, we’ll vote it down, and do everything we can to see it defeated.”

The commission is reportedly exploring ways to reduce payouts for Social Security, which is currently running a $2.5 trillion surplus, according to its trustees report, but is projected to run into financial problems in 2037. Its recommendations will be unveiled in December and voted on by Congress during the lame-duck session.

“We strongly believe that cuts to Social Security benefits must not be part of any recommendations or any policymaking,” Brown said. “This isn’t just a political exercise.”

In addition to Sanders and Brown, the 10 co-sponsors are Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). The full list is here.

The lawmakers could be in for a battle with not just Republicans but some members of the Democratic leadership, who have proposed incremental increases to the retirement age in accordance with average life span as a solution to the program’s long-term financial difficulties.

Eighty-five percent of the American public opposes cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit, according to an AARP-GfK Roper poll last month.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference at the Capitol to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Social Security Act. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

This summer, Social Security – the government program that provides a steady check for seniors – turned 75. In Washington, lawmakers celebrated its platinum anniversary not with champagne, but with a heated argument over whether to reform the costly entitlement program by slashing benefits or raising the retirement age. Indeed, with the national debt over $13 trillion and the government running at a $1 trillion a year loss, the Obama administration created a deficit commission — the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — to find ways to return the country to the black. In anticipation of its report, and in anticipation of possible changes to the program, lawmakers have started discussing how to reform Social Security.

[Economy1] After running a surplus for years and building up a sizable trust fund, Social Security now runs in the red. Though the program is far from bankrupt, more money is pouring out than going in. Economists project that the trust fund will be emptied by 2037. From there, opinions diverge on how far into debt the program will fall if nothing is done.

“Social Security is not in immediate trouble. There’s been a lot of exaggeration of that problem,” says Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the deficit commission. “It is not on a solid basis for the long run, however. The sooner we act, the less we have to do.”

The problem is, there’s no consensus on what form that action should take. And many of the most commonly discussed tactics for stemming the flow of red ink would disproportionately impact lower-income Americans, the segment of the population that depends on Social Security the most.

One idea that comes up frequently is raising the retirement age. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), for instance, proposes lifting it to 70; some economists have suggested lifting it to as high as 75.

The idea sounds good: People are living longer, so it makes sense they will be working longer as well, right? But raising the retirement age will not necessarily keep people in the workforce longer, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research. For lower-income Americans, it would often just consign them to a retirement of lower benefit checks.

Already, around two-thirds of non-disabled workers elect to begin receiving smaller checks at 62 rather than full payments at 65. The hardship of raising the retirement age falls disproportionately on low-income workers who work in physically demanding professions, jobs they may not be able to continue through their seventh decade. According to Baker, 45 percent of workers over the age of 58 hold physically demanding jobs. Among those who lack a high-school diploma, that percentage skyrockets to around 75 percent. “If the hope is that people will work longer, that’s a very difficult thing for low and moderate income Americans to do,” Baker says.

Moreover, though the average lifespan has increased since Social Security’s creation, those extra years aren’t enjoyed equally by all Americans. Overall, Americans are living about 7 years longer. But the poorest 20 percent of Americans are living just two years longer – coinciding with that increase in retirement age. Baker notes that minority Americans fare even worse. “Even at 65, there’s a gap of about two years in lifespan. Also, on average, they have much lower wealth at retirement, so they’re much more dependent on Social Security.”

Center and right-leaning policy experts say another way to limit Social Security expenditures is to change the baseline for the benefits calculator from a wage index to a price index. Since the price of goods tends to grow more slowly than wages do, this shift would reduce the amount the program would have to pay out in the future. Supporters of this proposal say that because the benefits will still increase along with price inflation, seniors won’t suffer a shortfall in real-dollar terms.

This logic works in theory. But in practice, it would seriously impact lower-income Americans. Why? Seniors spend differently than average-aged workers: They buy more healthcare goods and services. And healthcare costs are skyrocketing well above the average inflation rate, so lowering benefits would make it more difficult for retirees to cover their costs. The more economically strapped the American, the more it would hurt.

Other plans would have less impact on those least able to shoulder the burden. One idea would be to reduce benefits for wealthy retirees. The idea is that “Bill Gates doesn’t need social security,” says Brookings’ Rivlin.

The problem is deciding where to set the bar: Too low, and you ensnare middle-class families, too high, and you only earn the ire of the superrich without contributing much to the bottom line. Some experts, including Rivlin, think the political cost probably wouldn’t be worth the impact on the bottom line. Polls show that even wealthy Americans want their Social Security, and are willing to pay for it. The government might net a little more money, but it would lose the public support and buy-in of wealthy (and thereby influential) citizens.

“U.S. benefits relative to earnings are low by comparison with those in other wealthy nations,” says Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think there’s a strong case for cutting benefits on the merits of the idea. In my view, the bulk of the fix should come from the revenue side.”

Many economists on the left share that sentiment. “It makes sense to fix social security by increasing revenues and making sure a good chunk of those revenues come from the high end of the income distribution,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

Raising the payroll cap is one popular idea. Currently, the first $106,800 an American makes is subject to the Social Security tax; above that, the earner pays nothing. “If you eliminate the cap, you’re probably getting very close to eliminating the entire Social Security deficit for the next 75 years,” says Christian Weller, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “The more common proposal is to raise the cap so 90 percent of earnings are subject to the tax, which would eliminate about a third of the deficit.”

Another idea under consideration is raising the payroll tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point. Although the flat rate of this tax is inherently regressive, some left-leaning experts say it’s preferable to a cut in benefits, especially when the prospect is discussed in conjunction with other modifications like a minimum benefit, as described in a recent report by the Urban Institute.

Not everyone thinks adding to the payroll tax rate is the way to go, though. “It seems to me that raising the payroll tax is the least desirable way to try to move the program towards solvency,” says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute. “It’s a tax on work and makes it more expensive for employers.”

Marshall supports ideas more commonly embraced by the right to make up the shortfall, including an increase in the retirement age and a downward adjustment on the formula used to calculate benefits.

Some Republican politicians are still pushing for privatization, pointing to the rise of the stock market over the long term. Mike Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, asserts that even if a retiree cashed out at the trough of the market in 2009, he or she would have still experienced a growth in wealth. Given the wariness with which many Americans bruised by a drop in their 401(k) and home values now view the stock market, though, privatization may be a tough sell at least until the current bear market fades from our collective memory. “A lot of Republicans seem to view private investment as some kind of panacea, which I don’t think is correct,” says PPI’s Marshall. “That wouldn’t solve the underlying structural problems.”

Right-leaning experts tend to paint a bleaker view of the Social Security situation in general. Cato’s Tanner explains that the difference is that they include in their calculation of upcoming obligations the cost to be borne by the Treasury when the program cashes in its trust fund bonds. Obviously, that money will have to come from somewhere, but progressive economists like CAP’s Weller, counter that it’s disingenuous for the right to say those bonds pose an economic risk when the Social Security surplus is one factor that was used to justify Bush-era tax cuts in the first place.

Experts of all stripes like to point out that Social Security reform should be a snap compared to changing more complex programs like Medicare. In a strictly economic sense, that’s true. But the discussion around Social Security often threatens to collapse under the metaphorical weight lawmakers have conferred on the program. “It’ll probably be more politically determined than substantively determined,” PPI’s Marshall concedes. “Right now neither side wants to come out of its assigned place.”