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It seems that, as Susie formerly called him, Pete Peterson's pet dog, the smarmy David Walker, made his way back onto MSNBC this Friday and surprise, surprise, he's endorsing Mitt Romney. Color me not shocked, even though the media constantly tries to portray this guy as some bipartisan straight shooter.

Apparently Walker isn't too happy that he hasn't managed to get his "grand bargain" passed under President Obama and he twists himself in knots trying to defend Romney's fuzzy math on his budget numbers that simply don't add up without raising taxes on the middle class and resorts to more or less questioning what the definition of middle class is.

As Susie noted in the post linked above, regardless of what Walker says here, she went to one of his seminars and the people who were in attendance were not buying the snake oil the man and his group were selling. You can read more about Walker and Pete Peterson here: Peterson's Grand Bargain Campaign To Kick Off After Election and here: Meet Pete Peterson, Architect of Social Security and Medicare Cuts.

Rough transcript of Walker's interview below the fold.

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Here's what we get to look forward to if Mitt Romney wins the presidential election. More ex-Bushies making their way back on to our television sets, like Tara Wall, who I had hoped to never see on the air again after Bush finally left office. No such luck since Romney's hired her as an adviser, and not a very good one at that. How bad are you on the stump when you let MSNBC's little Luke Russert trip you up?

From Think Progress: Romney Adviser Stumped On How Romney Would Reduce The Debt:

Mitt Romney’s campaign has fired back at questions about his tenure at Bain Capital and his failure to release tax returns by blaming President Obama’s campaign for not wanting to talk about the economy. Given a chance to talk about the economy this morning, though, a Romney adviser failed to deliver specifics about how his plan would boost economic growth while also balancing the budget, as Romney claims he will do.

As ThinkProgress has noted, Romney’s plan to provide a massive tax cut to the rich would blow a hole in the federal budget Romney promises to balance by 2020. When MSNBC’s Luke Russert asked Romney adviser Tara Wall how Romney would offset the lost revenue, she failed to offer any specifics, telling Americans they could instead “research” his plan to find them. When Russert returned to the subject, Wall again failed to deliver an answer, saying Romney’s business experience is the reason he would balance the budget:

RUSSERT: What are the offsets? What are we specifically going to do to balance the budget?

WALL: Well, I believe Americans will hear a lot more about Governor Romney’s plan, and if you want to see in depth what his plan is, you can certainly research that and look at that more in depth. But overall, there have been a number of new regulations, over-zealous regulations, on small businesses enacted by this administration, and we have to look at those things. [...]

RUSSERT: Even with those small business cuts you’re talking about, they’re in the billions. We’re talking trillions with a T. Non-partisan: increase by the debt, Mr. Romney’s plan with these tax cuts, by $2.6 trillion. Why are there no specifics? You guys want to talk about big ideas, you don’t want to talk about Bain and the tax issues. I don’t want to talk about that. I’m asking you specifically: How does Mitt Romney’s plan balance the budget by 2020?

WALL: I think, if you look at the economic numbers, I’m not an economist and I’m not going to play an economist, I think that Mitt Romney has a proven record of bringing economies back. He brought down unemployment as governor, he created jobs as a governor, he was effective as a businessperson overall, and I think you have to apply those concepts. [...] You can’t discount that, and you can’t discount the fact that we have to be able to look at how we begin solving the debt problem and bringing that down, and to do that, number one, is to start with streamlining our tax code, bringing down our marginal tax rate, the regulations that have been overburdensome, and making real true spending cuts.

As they noted, the trouble with that is, Romney hasn't provided a plan with any specifics that would offset the tax cuts. We all know where he'd likely get the money, which is taking it out of the hides of the poor and the middle class. I'm sure he'd rather not put that in writing since it might harm his chances of being elected.

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From this Friday evening's Real Time with Bill Maher's online Overtime segment, The Daily Caller's S.E. Cupp is asked from one of the viewers who wrote into the show if she believes Paul Ryan's budget "meets moral criteria." Color me not shocked that Cupp skated around the question and didn't really answer it, just as Ryan did in his response to the publication she was citing.

Apparently Cupp was also unaware that Paul Ryan had just thrown his hero, Ayn Rand under the bus, but Paul Begala did a nice job of summing up just what part of her philosophy he was no longer enamored with.

Rough transcript of the clip above below the fold.

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Rep. Paul Ryan appeared on this Tuesday's Morning Joe and defended his latest terrible budget proposal which is more or less a repeat of the last one and that Republicans are apparently going to be willing to support again, despite the fact that once most Americans get a chance to take a good look at what he's proposing, reject the type of policies he's advocating for.

Think Progress has done a good deal of fact checking on this and flagged this portion of Ryan's appearance on MSNBC -- Paul Ryan’s Budget Includes $3 Trillion Giveaway To Corporations, The Rich:

The budget unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) this morning includes substantial changes to the American tax code, both for corporations and individuals. Ryan’s tax plan shrinks the number of income tax brackets from six to two, with marginal tax rates set at 10 percent and 25 percent. He repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), slices the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and repeals all of the health care taxes contained in the Affordable Care Act. It also repeals the repatriation tax on profits corporations earn overseas then bring back to the United States.

In all, those tax breaks amount to a $3 trillion giveaway to the richest Americans and corporations, according to the Tax Policy Center. Repealing the repatriation tax would add roughly $130 billion to that.

This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Ryan insisted that the plan would generate the same amount of revenue as the government currently receives. In true Ryan form, though, he wouldn’t say how:

RYAN: We’re taking the tax system and reforming it along the way this new bipartisan compromise and consensus is showing. Get rid of the special interest loopholes, special deductions, lower everybody’s tax rates, bring in at least as much revenue to the government but grow the economy and create jobs, and get spending under control so we can pay off this debt.

SCARBOROUGH: So you say that you want to bring as much revenue into the government even with lower tax rates. There are obviously only a few ways to do that as far as eliminating tax loopholes, whether you’re talking about the home mortgage loophole, the health care loophole, or the charitable interest deductions. Which one of those do you eliminate?

RYAN: We want to do this in the light of day and in front of everybody. So the Ways and Means Committee, which is in charge of the tax system, sent us the plan here, which is a 10 and 25 percent bracket for individuals and small businesses, and then they want to have hearings and, in light of day, show how they would go about doing this.

The taxes Ryan wants to repeal all primarily impact the richest Americans and corporations. Repealing the repatriation tax, as Republicans have attempted multiple times since taking control of the House in 2011, amounts to a huge giveaway to corporations. And ending the AMT and investment taxes from the ACA while dropping the top income tax rate would give massive tax breaks to the rich. That isn’t surprising — it’s virtually identical to what Ryan attempted in last year’s budget, which he called the “Path to Prosperity.”

And here's more from their site on Ryan's budget -- The 5 Worst Things About The House GOP’s Budget:

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As unhappy as I am about how this whole debt ceiling hostage taking is going and wondering what we're in for after we get more details on what's being agreed to right now, I was glad to see someone finally push back at this Republican talking point I hear them repeat day after day, week after week -- Democrats never passed a budget and so that makes the horrid Ryan budget passed by the House somehow "responsible."

Sen. Dick Durbin finally shot that one down on Fox News Sunday this morning and explained why they never got anything passed -- 60 votes -- or in other words, Republican filibusters and obstruction.

BAIER: Senator Kyl, when you hear the president say this no way to run the government, you know, that we'll likely also face another standoff at the end of September when the continuing resolution runs out and government funding -- you know, we're up against another government shutdown. You know, former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once famously said, "Never waste a crisis."

Do Republicans now risk become the -- becoming the party that's always pushing up to the cliff, always using that cliff to try to extract concessions? I mean, do you fear the American people will have crisis fatigue, if they don't already, and that it will hurt your party?

KYL: You mentioned the possibility of a continuing resolution. Why would Congress have to pass a continuing resolution? Because the Senate Democrats now, for the third year in a row, will not have passed a budget. That's their job.

The House Republicans have passed a budget. Senate Democrats said no to that budget. So I think it's very unfair to suggest that Republicans are responsible.

We don't have the votes in the U.S. Senate. But where they do have the votes, in the House of Representatives, they've done their job.

BAIER: Senator Durbin, why haven't the Senate Democrats passed a budget?

DURBIN: It's called 60 votes. And what it boils down to is this: we have 53 Democratic senators.

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Never mind the fact that Republicans are completely inflexible and unwilling to give an inch in what is supposed to be a negotiation, or that their leadership has walked out of these meetings, it's all President Obama's fault that they haven't reached an agreement on raising the debt limit according to Sen. Marco Rubio on Face the Nation this morning.

Rubio also pretended like there wasn't any actual negotiations going on unless the president was directly involved himself, which is ridiculous.

RUBIO: As far as waiting long to deal with this, here are the facts, I-- I came to the Washington in January. We already knew this debt limit issue was upon us, nothing happened during the State of the Union. He proposed a budget that was so ludicrous not even the Democrats and the Senate would vote for it, a-- a budget that increased the debt, not solved it. Months went by, weeks went by and up until very recently the President was completely disengaged from this debt limit debate. And I do think that in the context of politics, there was a strategy to leave this to the last possible moment so that there would be a take it or leave it scenario like what some are painting right now. And I repeat-- this is not a game. This is a very serious issue, people watching at home they don’t care who’s going to win this debt limit debate. They want to know how come they can’t find a job and the answer is because until America has a credible solution to its debt problem, people will be afraid to invest in America’s economy and create jobs here at home.

While I don't think raising the debt ceiling and doing negotiations on the budget should have ever been allowed to even be part of the same conversation, there's one party that's shown that it apparently does not know what the word negotiate means, and that's the Republicans.

Rubio also wasn't too happy when Bob Schieffer dared to point out that President Obama inherited a deficit and a bad economy from George Bush, demanding to know when things are going to get better with job creation, even though they've done everything in their power to obstruct anything being passed after Obama was elected that would improve the economy since they want to sabotage it on purpose to help them win in 2012.

They've also all got their latest petulant talking point for the week any time one of them is asked why they haven't moved in agreeing to anything yet on raising the debt ceiling -- President Obama hasn't given them anything in writing yet so they don't know what he's offering during the negotiations.

RUBIO: All right. So where is the President’s plan? I’ve never seen a piece of paper with the President’s name on it that his plan to solve this problem. I’ve seen press conferences. I have seen lectures that he’s given to the Congress. I have seen these press avails where the camera comes in and takes a bunch of pictures. I haven’t seen a plan, where is the President’s plan?

Sen. Rubio, what the hell is your leadership doing in the room during these negotiations if they're not bothering to relay back to you what's being offered by the administration during these meetings? These people really do need to come up with some better talking points because right now they sound like nothing but a bunch of foot-stomping spoiled petulant children.

Sen. Bernie Sanders was all over the airways today talking about the negotiations on raising the debt ceiling, and Fran already made note of Sanders' letter to President Obama and his petition in the open thread this evening, but I wanted to share Sanders' floor speech from today as well.

As Fran already pointed out, you can sign Sen. Sanders' petition here as well and here's a copy of his letter to the President -- Shared Sacrifice:

Dear Mr. President,

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today - which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit - a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.

Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand with the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to survive economically, not with the millionaires and billionaires who have never had it so good.

Respectfully,
Sen. Bernie Sanders;
and Co-signers

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As progressive blogger mooncat at Left in Alabama points out, freshman GOP Rep. Martha Roby was recently asking for a truce from the Obama administration and Democrats, pleading with them not to run any attack ads holding her to account for her vote in favor of Paul Ryan's budget and its accompanying plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system.

Amazingly, even after that, they decide to trot her out to give the Republican Weekly Address defending Ryan's budget. That said, worrying about blatant hypocrisy and whether anyone in the media might bother to point it out has never been one of the GOP's big concerns.

Here's more from Left in Alabama:

Will Roby again beg President Obama for mercy for her vote to "essentially end Medicare?"

She probably should, but the text of her pre-recorded message is already available and Roby confines herself to holding the debt limit hostage and a reiteration of the GOP platitude that "everything should be on the table -- everything, that is, except tax increases. We cannot tax the same people we expect to create jobs."

Seriously. That's a verbatim quote from Martha Roby.

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. Tax cuts don't create jobs, they create deficits. If tax cuts were going to create jobs, the Bush tax cuts would have created jobs. Instead, as the Wall Street Journal remarked, George W. Bush had the worst record on job creation since they started keeping records!

She was also touting more "drill baby drill" energy policies, as though we've got enough oil available here in the United States to make any difference compared to what we consume, and that that oil doesn't end up being sold by a cartel where we've got no control over the price, and pretending the solution for our country is not figuring out how to get off of oil dependence all together. And of course, she said nothing about whether oil speculators are running those costs up as well.

She also pulled out the Republicans' favorite boogeyman -- tax hikes -- as being harmful to the economy when we all know full well that they don't care how badly taxes are raised on the poor and the middle class or small businesses as long as their wealthy campaign contributors don't see their taxes go up. If they actually cared about protecting small businesses and taxing those who are hoarding all of the wealth in the United States, the Republicans would have voted to let the Bush tax cuts expire for anyone making less than $250,000. Instead they decided to hold the unemployed hostage to get those tax cuts back for the upper earners.

And when any of our politicians in this country start talking about outsourcing and a race to the bottom on wages, I'll believe they're serious about whether our economy actually improves or not. Naturally any discussion on those topics rarely makes the national discourse by our corporate media.

Transcript via the LA Times below the fold:

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It looks like someone is getting cold feet on Paul Ryan's draconian budget plan that would basically turn Medicare into a voucher program. On Fox News Sunday, Michele Bachmann now says she's worried about the burden that the plan would place on seniors.

From Think Progress -- Bachmann Backs Away From GOP Medicare Plan: ‘I’m Concerned About Shifting The Cost Burden To Seniors’:

But even Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — perhaps Congress’ most outspoken conservative and most sincere promoter of the anti-government Tea Party movement — seems to be backing away from the plan. Appearing on Fox News Sunday today with host Chris Wallace, Bachmann refused to back everything in the GOP budget, saying there should be an “asterisk” next to her vote for the plan because she is concerned about how it would shift healthcare costs to seniors:

WALLACE: What do you tell people nearing retirement who say I can’t afford to pay more of my own healthcare costs out of pocket? Which is what the Ryan and Republican Study Committee plans would do.

BACHMANN: And I understand that. I put an asterisks on my support, I put a blog posting up that said just as much. That is my area of concern, I support this bill with that proviso. … One position that I’m concerned about shifting the cost burden to senior citizens. Seniors are saying, look, I’m not in a positon to be able to handle that. I also share that real fear, that’s why I put that asterisks out there. [...]

WALLACE: So you’re not wedded to the idea of a voucher program for Medicare?

BACHMANN: I’m wedded to the idea of efficiencies and cost cuttings and savings in healthcare, but how we get there is open to discussion.

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In the wake of the news that Harry Reid is going to force the Senate Republicans to vote on Paul Ryan's horrid budget proposal that already passed in the House, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough looked to me like he was giving former Club for Growth President and current Senator from Pennsylvania Pat Toomey a chance to do some early damage control if Reid does force the Senate Republicans to take a vote on Ryan and the House Republican's budget bill.

I hate to break it to Toomey and Scarborough, but all of the talk in the world about how "serious" and "adult" and supposedly necessary Ryan's budget cuts are, it's not going to make his draconian proposals go over any better with the voters once they get a look at his plan.

And of course Toomey and Scarborough's ridiculous interview doesn't get to the substance of what is being cut. Just saying it's unreasonable that we can't take spending back to the levels the government had in previous years is completely ridiculous. The devil is in the details with who they're taking care of and who they're cutting services to and not just broad, sweeping, meaningless talking points like we saw out of the two of them here. And also par for the course, there was no mention of the Ryan budget cutting taxes for corporations on the backs of the poor, the working class and our seniors.

What matters are our priorities and Toomey's priorities are taking care of his rich campaign donors. We'll see how well that goes over with voters once Harry Reid forces that vote on the Senate floor. I'm sure Toomey knows full well that he and his fellow Republican Senators might be in for some town hall meetings like we've seen their counterparts in the House putting up with if they vote for Ryan's budget. Here's more from TPM on that.

Reid To Senate Republicans: You Wanna Privatize Medicare? Vote For It!:

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