Obama's Chained CPI Offer is Genuine

It's a rare thing these days when right and left agree in Washington, so take a moment to appreciate the bigfoot sighting. Although they both have arrived at this point of agreement for wildly different reasons, the fact remains that they are there, sharing the same space, breathing the same air. This isn't exactly a moment of blissful brother- and sisterhood, but they are joined together in common purpose -- kill the President's proposed budget.

The right doesn't like it simply because it's from Obama. They'd reject renaming Washington "The Ronald Reagan Memorial Gun Refuge" if Obama proposed it. Their opposition is a given. These are not serious or honest people, they're spoiled children holding their breath until they get exactly what they want. And what they want is a nuclear strike on our recovering economy; no new revenues, only deep, deep cuts to spending -- which means hacking off demand at the knees. They'd practically guarantee a second recession. Luckily for us, if they can't do this then they don't want to do anything -- including pass the president's budget.

Which is where right meets left. The President's chained CPI proposal is a smoke-and-mirrors cut to Social Security benefits. And Obama proposes cuts to other entitlements as well. Lefty dems say there are quite enough gaps in the social safety net already, thank you very much. We don't need to take a scissors to it and start cutting more. Centrist and moderate Democrats, seeing that right and left hate Obama's budget, are keeping their opinions to themselves -- probably wisely.

The question is why would Barack Obama, a Democratic president, attack Social Security -- one of his party's greatest and most lasting achievements -- in a budget proposal. What gives?

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Putting Social Security and the Economy in Chains

It's one of those bad news/good news sorts of things. The bad news is that President Obama is definitely looking at some sort of benefit cut in entitlement spending. The good news is that congressional Democrats most definitely do not agree -- and if they say it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. After President Obama met with Republicans to iron out some sort of a deal on deficit reduction, he met with Senate Democrats to pitch ideas to them. It was not a sale.

The Hill:

...Though they are his most powerful congressional allies, there is tension in that relationship too given fears of liberal Democrats that Obama will make too many concessions with House and Senate Republicans on entitlement cuts, all in the hope of reaching a deficit deal.

Obama stood firm Tuesday when pressed to back away from benefit cuts during the meeting with the Senate Democratic Conference, according to lawmakers who attended.

[...]

[B]ehind closed doors, liberals in the Senate caucus raised concerns about Obama’s readiness to consider cuts to Social Security benefits and his support for a deficit-reduction package evenly split between spending cuts and tax increases.

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Corporate Parasites and the Failure of 'Trickle Down Economics'

If you want one clear message coming from the Occupy Wall Street crowd and the 99-percenters, you can boil all they're saying down into one argument; Reaganomics has failed and should die. After decades of bending over backwards to make sure that helped the wealthy become as wealthy as humanly possible, we see no real positive results. "Trickle down" economics is really the economics of scavenging -- if the wealthy have a big feast, they'll leave a lot of crumbs. And, as we shift the role of government away from helping people to helping business, even the holes left by cutting spending benefit corporations. Remember that after Bill Clinton ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the only real positive impact the reforms had were for the financial industry. A whole new market opened up and payday loan outfits sprouted up all over the nation like mushrooms, charging usurious rates to people with nowhere else to go. And of course, poverty is at an all-time high.

If this is a successful economic model, I think I'd prefer the old "failures" of New Deal liberals, thanks.

Still, all that wealth is sitting up there, just waiting to trickle down. We've sent pots and pots of money up the economic ladder all these years with pretty much nothing to show for it -- except this:


Chart courtesy of Mother Jones

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Thanks to the Media, Voter are the Big Losers in Last Night's GOP Debate

In politics, our journalists believe, it is better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It's better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere, thoughtful or humane. Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.)
-Jay Rosen, Why Political Coverage is Broken

It was just weeks ago -- August 26th -- that press critic Jay Rosen gave the speech that quote was taken from. Rosen's criticism of the news media, boiled down quite a bit, was that political journalists place more emphasis on political strategizing than they do on the real world ramifications of the policies. That reporters value "savviness" above truth. And that this wrongheaded approach to political coverage hurts us all by causing people to know more about political wrangling than outcomes or consequences.

There is no better example of this than the coverage of last night's GOP debate in Tampa last night. All the coverage is about who won, who got in the best shot, who had the best zinger, what this means to the candidates going forward, and who's gained the most supporters from it. What is barely being covered -- and, in many outlets, not covered at all -- is the fact that the candidates at the debate were lying. Shamelessly, continuously lying.

PolitiFact followed the debate with fact-checks of key statements made by the candidates. Of those statements, only one rated "true" and one "mostly true"-- both were when Mitt Romney pointed out that Rick Perry was lying about his past stance on Social Security. So even those few true statements were lie-related. The rest of the statements ranged from "half true" to "pants on fire."

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The Worst Possible Deal?

Let's start with a look at the real world.

Reuters:

More consumers had trouble making payments on credit cards and other debts during the first three months of the year due to higher food and gas prices, an industry report said on Thursday.

The American Bankers Association said the data showed a downturn from prior quarters and described the most recent quarter as a "soft patch."

"Consumers are feeling insecure about the economy and whether their financial resources can carry them through until conditions improve," ABA chief economist James Chessen said in a statement.

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Pickpocket Republicans

Yesterday, I wrote about an ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America supporting workers in Wisconsin against Governor Scott Walker's union busting. At the time, I said it was a good, compelling ad, akin to a documentary film. As of this writing, that ad has generated more that $200,000 to keep it on the air.

Those numbers come from across the nation, as many see the fight in Wisconsin as their own. Americans seem to be tired of watching Republicans grab what the middle class has, then turning around and giving it away to wealthy donors and corporations. Nationally, Republicans push for deep, wounding cuts to everything from PBS to Medicare, but leave giveaways to the wealthy untouched. For example, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently voted unanimously to extend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil, while telling workers that we're broke. This comes after demanding that $36 billion be added to the deficit in order to fund tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners. Every time a taxpayer turns around, he finds a Republican's hand in his pocket and some Wall Street type with their hand out.

That Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid money? That's yours. You paid for it. Likewise PBS, Planned Parenthood, a decent educational system, public highways, etc. All yours. And all being cut -- i.e., taken away from you -- so some oil cartel can keep getting corporate welfare or a handful of paper-shufflers and money resellers can hold on to their tax cut. At the very least, if these programs and institutions absolutely must be sold off, you should get the money. But this isn't the case. From you, to them. And here I thought Republicans were against the redistribution of wealth. Silly me.

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