President Barack Obama says his soon-to-be released budget, already criticized by friends and foes, is not his "ideal plan" but offers "tough reforms" for benefit programs and scuttles some tax breaks for the wealthy.
That's a mix, he contends, that will provide long-term deficit reduction without harming the economy.Nothing about harming actual people though.
With all due respect, Mr. Obama is a moron, and I don't say that lightly. It's not intended as an insult, but rather a description. This proposal would harm a great many people, and it is already doing a disservice to his party as well. For what exactly?
"Deficit reduction" is a non-issue economically. It helps no one, either now or later. It shrinks the pie for everyone, and it creates economic instability and human suffering. Moreover, it has ample precedent, e.g., in 1937, when the fragile recovery was aborted through austerity. Curtailing Social Security payments ten years out by chaining CPI has virtually nothing to do with deficit reduction. Pursuing such a policy is best characterized as moronic.
Characteristically, Mr. Obama picked up reduction of benefit indexing from the GOP — remember The Contract with America? And, like his proposal of crafting "Romneycare" as "Obamacare, he admits that it is not an "ideal solution" and not his first choice. Sorry, Mr. President, but that's no excuse for being moronic. Indeed, it is also politically craven and cowardly to boot.
Indeed, the president might even reasonably suspect that the opposition is attempting to push him a direction designed to undermine his presidency and set the country up for regime change owing to dissatisfaction with the way the president and Democrats are handling the economy.
Welcome to 1937, as the numbers come in from the sequester — which was the president's idea, as was Bowles-Simpson. In fact, thinking about it, "moron" may be a euphemism.
The Huffington Post
Obama: Proposed Budget Not His 'Ideal Plan'
Jim Kuhnhenn
The Huffington Post
Obama: Proposed Budget Not His 'Ideal Plan'
Jim Kuhnhenn
"The president should drop these misguided cuts in benefits and focus instead on building support in Congress for investing in jobs," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement Friday.Amen.
Indeed, the president might even reasonably suspect that the opposition is attempting to push him a direction designed to undermine his presidency and set the country up for regime change owing to dissatisfaction with the way the president and Democrats are handling the economy
ReplyDeleteMuch as I've come to expect it, it's still hard to believe. When the D's took Congress back in '06 and then '08 I knew better than to expect that they'd institute sweeping reforms or pursue an aggressive left-liberal agenda. I did kind of think that they'd have a modicum of self-preservation instinct and actually do a few things that their voting base would like. It seems now that they don't even try to fake it anymore. Obama thinks the beltway media will take care of his "legacy" and say he's "bold," "pragmatic" and whatever, and beyond that he's already packed his trunk, waiting for the brilliant "retirement" that will be his in just a few short years.
I flipped on Chris Mathews the other day and briefly heard him going to commercial break saying about Obama, paraphrasing: "Is he the President that finally has the courage to do something meaningful about the deficit?"
ReplyDeleteCourage.
It does take courage to be the President that impoverishes the country.
Can Obama do it AND maintain favorable public opinion?
Can Obama do it AND maintain favorable public opinion?
ReplyDeleteAs Bill Clinton realized, "It's the economy, stupid."
Americans want positive tangible outcomes —sufficient middle class jobs, rising incomes, affordable homes, food, energy, education and health care, a secure retirement, a renewal of the American dream and a vision of another American century with the US as the beacon of democracy.
If Democrats can't deliver significant progress on this with a Democratic president at the helm for eight years , they are out, and rightly so. It's not looking good for them.
Yet 5 years in Obama still has pretty good favoribility ratings among the public. Besides the elite, who is better off? Gays. That's about it.
ReplyDeleteAt least Bill Clinton benefited from the tech boom. Obama doesn't have that, but still remains popular.
Seems to me he's a once in a generation politician. That smile, and his intellectual tone of speak, and his seeming sincerity, is truly blinding for liberals in general.
When the 'left' is being hoodwinked, we're in big trouble… precisely because the left tends to pride itself on being educated and informed. The 'right' is often happy to be the simple, naive, rural small town leave-us-alone crowd.
Chris Matthews gets the same feathers for his nest that Obama does. Courage brought to you by GE among others.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic Party is headed for a serious rupture. The strain between the economic progressives and the big business-hugging and finance-hugging folks who are only socially liberal is growing very tense. Obama's attack on social insurance programs could blow it wide open.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing is going on in the UK with the labor party. The Old Left is rediscovering its tradition and its voice.
JK, Obama is very popular but he is not running again. His performance is not rate so good and the public is beginning to say that they have more confidence in the GOP getting the economy going again than Democrats. They is looking bad for coming elections in '14 and '16.
ReplyDeleteMoronic? You bet!
ReplyDeleteI agree,this could rupture the Democratic Party, Once you have lost those things that kept you together, what is the point of it all? We no longer have a common view of the future and what we believe helps people, what we believe is the public purpose. Some part of the party could easily decide to go in another direction. What is there to lose?
@ Dan
ReplyDeleteThat is a shit storm blowing up right now, as I am sure you know. The problem is that progressives don't have a source of funding, like the insurgency on the right, for instance. The money is on the side of the establishment so far and it will remain so until the numbers shift toward the progressive.
I don't think that major change toward the left is possible without getting the money out of politics, which requires a constitutional amendment after Citizens United.
It's beginning to look like representative democracy is unsuited to large modern nations due to the tendency to plutonomy, in which the selection process is highly biased by wealth, leading to cronyism and corruption.
As some constitutional law professors are now speculating, we need to thinking about a new constitution suitable for this era. The context in which the present constitution arose is no longer applicable and the document is not a statement of universal principles that hold across time. So we need a complete overhaul in light of the present time and foreseeable future heading into a globalized world and new challenges and opportunities nationally and internationally.
Good statement, Tom. My sentiments too. The only thing I'd add to the "moron" characterization, is "closed-minded" in front of "moron."
ReplyDelete