Reply #16: I watched the Wednesday open meeting

[karynnj]

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JointDef

The reason nothing was said on entitlements was it was not the topic of the hearing.

Kerry's questions are at about 1 hour 17 minutes. They are similar to what was reported in the various accounts. One thing not reported, is like others he did reference the huge growth in wealth of the 1%. His questions tried to get at the fact that the stimulus did indeed raise GDP and that not renewing the Bush tax cuts at the high end would hurt the economy less than would be gained by its impact in reducing the debt.

Given the leaked plan, it seems the first question was designed to back the inclusion of the stimulus piece. They will likely have the budget group estimate the impact that the higher GDP it creates. They will likely take credit for the expected deficit reduction as higher GDP means higher tax revenues.) Van Hollen (at about 1 hr 30 minutes) actually referenced Kerry's question and then asked about the impact on the deficit of not being at full employment and he then asked about impact of infrastructure spending. (Van Hollen did a great job expanding these points.)

- the latter question was I think to diminish the arguments of the Republicans that increasing taxes on the top hurt the economy. (Van Hollen backed this question as well.)


The protest was at 1:27 The woman was extremely focused, calm and her comments were far more detailed and intelligent than reports gave her credit for.