RICHARD “DICK” DURBIN (D-IL)
Member
Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, was first elected to the Senate in 1996. He serves as the Democratic Majority Whip and on the Senate Appropriations, Judiciary, and Rules committees. Before being elected to the Senate, Sen. Durbin spent 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a press release issued in April by his office, Sen. Durbin said he wanted the fiscal commission to focus on three things (none of which, we note, are spending cuts): “avoiding harm to the current recovery; raising revenue more equitably, including the revenue we spend on tax breaks for the wealthy and not the middle class; and developing a vision for our country which considers the impact of growing income disparity.”
At the City Club of Chicago last month, Sen. Durbin did note that Congress should consider small cuts, particularly for defense and agriculture. The senator also said Congress should raise taxes on Americans who earn more than $250,000 and pass another stimulus, this time focusing on increased spending for infrastructure and education. When it comes to Social Security, Sen. Durbin said he’d be open to raising the retirement age and raising the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes.
Regardless of the proposals he’s personally made, Sen. Durbin is skeptical about what the commission can accomplish. According to USA Today’s political blog, in June, Sen. Durbin said, “I don’t know if it’s [agreement] politically possible, when I look around the table.” The fiscal commission needs 14 of its 18 members to agree on proposed recommendations before it can even issue a report.
All of the stimulus packages seem to go to ridiculous causes or the minorities when everyone is hurting, and the rest either disappears or gets shipped to the IMF, under secret wrap of course, as if we were idiots. 3 trillion missing? look in the international monetary fund, thats where all our spare change goes. Instead of bailing out the auto industry and Big Banks we would have better served us if that money shored up Social security Medicare and medicaid, Social security, half of which goes into the general fund , that’s spelled the Federal reserve, or just plain chump change, half shouldnt’ go anywhere except back to us so I don’t know what the big deal is about social security, stop giving the UN 7% of our gross national income and maybe we woudlnt’ have half the problems we have, let the power elite pay their own errand boys, have I made myself clear? By the way, who are the
http://www.oas.org/en/ and who is the http://www.usaid.gov/recovery/ ? They sound expensive, has anyone ever heard of these groups, I’ll wager they haven’t, thats just one of many spin off groups we kick into. I dont’ think the Gov. will have a problem coughing up money for social security, do you?
This is what you call getting to big for your britches, I dont’ want to tell you how many groups , foreign groups, we pay for, not to mention all the green groups that are lining up waiting for the cap and trade tax. This is really sickening.
most of what dick says i agree with.radically cut military spending.also we must cut the unchecked spending that is not part of the federal budget.s to farm pay outs they need to be reigned in though i do understand why we need some of them.