Franken's SNL moment on the Senate floor

Franken's SNL moment on the Senate floor

Posted by: Jeremy Herb under Minnesota U.S. senators Updated: July 27, 2011 - 12:46 PM

• 46
• comments
• print

By Jim Spencer

For a moment Wednesday, Al Franken looked like he was back on the set of Saturday Night Live and not on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In a speech explaining that there would be no money to pay for military and security personnel if Congress doesn’t pass a bill increasing the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, Franken unveiled a large poster in the chamber that said, “Welcome Terrorists.”

Franken aimed his theater of the absurd at those who believe the U.S. doesn’t have to raise the debt limit to avoid economic catastrophe. He couched it as black humor, but certainly not as comic relief in a House and Senate deadlock that economists say puts the U.S. at risk of a financial meltdown. 

“About a month ago, the Bipartisan Policy Center briefed members of the House Republican Caucus on the actual implications of the Aug. 2nd deadline — what we could pay, what we couldn’t pay,” Franken said. “…in the month of August, we could pay our debt interest, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, vendors for defense projects, and unemployment insurance — and that’s all. 

“. . .no pay for active duty military.  No benefits for veterans.  No federal loans for low-income students about to head off to college in the fall.  No federal government employees, including counter-terrorism agents in the FBI, for example.  No border agents. Now before we default, we would have the time to make this sign. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Take a look at the senator’s visual aids here (click right arrow to view all 3 pages):

Franken Floor Charts

FS

Sen. Franken - Don\'t Cut Medicaid

FRANKEN DESTOYS FOCUS ON THE FAMILY WITNESS, EXPOSES MISUSE OF HHS STUDY | During this morning’s Senate DOMA hearings, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) destroyed Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery’s argument that children are better off with opposite-sex parents by demonstrating how Minnery misrepresented an HHS study. The study — which Minnery cited to oppose marriage equality — actually found that children do best in two-parent households, regardless of the parents’ gender. Watch it:

Franken introduces "Pay for War" Resolution: Daily Kos

To set the stage, remember this, the killer graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the budget and deficits.

The Bush tax cuts, which should have expired in January and which the GOP budget would make permanent, and the Bush wars. That's what is driving the deficit that the GOP says it cares about (though we know better). The very fact that jobs, the Bush tax cuts, and the wars aren't the focus of the deficit discussion suggests that for most politicians and pundits, Dem and GOP alike, this is just politics. But not all.

For example, Sen. Al Franken, who introduced the Pay for War Resolution in the Senate yesterday.

The Pay for War Resolution gives Congress the option to finance war through budget cuts, creating new revenue or a combination of both budgetary means. Franken said the bill is meant to avoid a repeat of the $1.25 trillion that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added to the national debt.

“We have to ensure that Iraq and Afghanistan remain anomalies in American history,” Franken said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “And that’s what my resolution seeks to do. It will ensure that future wars don’t make our deficit and debt problem worse. It will ensure that Congress and American citizens must face the financial sacrifice of going to war. And it will force us to decide whether a war is worth that sacrifice.”

“In the last ten years our wars have been paid for by borrowing,” Franken said. “The Iraq War was accompanied by a massive tax cut. That failed fiscal experiment created the impression that war requires no financial sacrifice. We know that is just not true. The question is who will bear the financial sacrifice, the generation that has decided to go to war or its children and grandchildren?”

In a press release Franken noted broad support for the idea from across an ideological spectrum, but with the most salient comment from Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research: “If we think that a situation requires the men and women in our military to risk their own lives, then the rest of us should at least be willing to pay for the cost of this adventure with our tax dollars.”

The most serious policy-maker in Washington D.C. today is former comedian. Go figure.

Link:  Many good comments !  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/07/964474/-Franken-introduces-Pay-for-War-resolution

~ Senator Al Franken supports WI union workers ~

Dear Virginia,

We were all shocked by what happened in Wisconsin Wednesday night.

Eighteen Republican state senators broke faith with the people who elected them. They broke their word. They may have even broken the law.

They wanted to bust public sector unions -- the last line of defense for the rights of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and other public servants -- so badly that they were willing to cheat the system.

Let’s be clear: They did this in the hopes that, with the bill passed, the crowds would dissipate and we’d let this go.

But they were wrong. We’re not going to let this go. We’re going to help the people of Wisconsin fight this bill -- and the illegal power grab it took to pass it -- every step of the way. We’re going to help them hold accountable the elected officials who sold out workers and subverted democracy.

And, most of all, we’re going to make sure that this is the end -- not the beginning -- of the right wing’s attempt to destroy the middle class. It took a power-hungry, corporate-backed governor and 18 senators with no respect for the law or the struggle of working families to bring this issue to national attention. But the fight to stand up for the middle class against corporations and the politicians they own has always been a national fight.

It’s up to us to make sure we win that fight for the working families whose voices -- whose livelihoods -- are at stake.

Thank you. And please stay tuned.

Al