Paul Krugman is most legitimately righteous, and his newspaper's editorial board even more vehemently so, about the so-called budget "negotiations" between Democrats and Republicans (led by the "'Gang of Six' In The Senate Seeking A Plan On Debt"), in his spot-on column in Monday's NY Times, entitled: "Let’s Not Be Civil."
Let’s Not Be Civil
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
April 18, 2011
Last week, President Obama offered a spirited defense of his party’s values — in effect, of the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. Immediately thereafter, as always happens when Democrats take a stand, the civility police came out in force. The president, we were told, was being too partisan; he needs to treat his opponents with respect; he should have lunch with them, and work out a consensus.
That’s a bad idea. Equally important, it’s an undemocratic idea...
Krugman walks through the past two week's history reminding us of the House GOPer's budget proposal, "...selling it to credulous pundits as a statement of necessity, not ideology — a document telling America What Must Be Done."
He speaks of the Republican's deficit/debt fear-mongering, and their focus upon maintaining low taxes among our nation's wealthiest.
The bottom line is: "...it revealed a deep difference in views about how the world works."
Krugman writes about how we should remember that the G.O.P. ran on fear-mongering regarding Medicare cuts during the mid-terms; but, somehow, they're supporting a budget which would, eventually, "dismantle Medicare completely."
In closing, he reminds us of recently publicized polls that "...suggest that the public’s priorities are nothing like those embodied in the Republican budget. Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy. Large majorities — including a majority of Republicans — also oppose major changes to Medicare."
Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues...
...
...So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
As I noted above, also in today's edition, the Times' editors talk of the Republicans and "...the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun."
The New Republican Landscape
Editorial
New York Times
April 18, 2011
Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun. If it was not clear before, it is obvious now that the party is fully engaged in a project to dismantle the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to liberate business and the rich from the inconveniences of oversight and taxes.
At first it seemed that only a few freshmen and noisy followers of the Tea Party would support the new extremism. But on Friday, nearly unanimous House Republicans showed just how far their mainstream has been dragged to the right. They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare...
...
...President Obama, after staying in the shadows too long, is starting to illuminate the serious damage that Republicans are doing. Their vision, he said last week, “is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.” Other Democrats are also beginning to stand up and reject these ideas, having been cowed for months by the electoral wave. Their newfound confidence will give voters a clearer view of this bare and pessimistic landscape.
In yet another piece, from Sunday's edition, we learn more about the current state of budget negotiations via the: "‘Gang of Six’ in the Senate Seeking a Plan on Debt."
We're told of "progressive" Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking senator in the majority party in that august body, and how he is working closely with two other Democrats (Warner of Virginia and Conrad of North Dakota), along with three Republicans (Chamblis of Georgia, Coburn of Oklahoma and Crapo of Idaho), and they're "nearing consensus" on a $4-trillion debt reduction plan.
For over 30 years, the status quo's minions in Washington have been eviscerating America's middle and lower classes. As a result, we're witnessing the greatest income inequality between our nation's haves and have-nots since reliable metrics were first established, well before our nation's Great Depression, to benchmark this inconvenient truth.
We now live in a world where the "bipartisan negotiation" meme is just another reminder that, inside the Beltway, as Joseph Stiglitz just noted it, it's a government "Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%."
"The Pirates Of Capitol Hill," the veritable foxes, guard the henhouse.
Since when did it become acceptable policy to negotiate with terrorists?
It is time for our government, from the White House on down, to focus their campaign financing efforts towards the same place where their mouths are directed.
Otherwise, at the end of the day--and it will be the very last "day" for many on Main Streets across this country, too--it's just more of the same if Medicare is eviscerated and other economic transgressions against our country's poor and those getting poorer are enabled under the moniker of "bipartisan negotiation."
F*ck that!
Never has Krugman been so spot-on as he is in today's NY Times!
One more time, if for nothing else than EMPHASIS...
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
Take the case to the voters. They want what the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party wants. That's what I would call the most important "consensus" of all.
And, while we're at it, send a message to Conrad, Durbin, Warner and everyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to drop this "bipartisan negotiation" bullshit!
What has "civility" done for our nation's middle and lower classes over the past three decades?
This is Einstein's definition of insanity, writ large: "Repeating the same action and expecting a different result."
Democrats are at a crossroads. Right now. We can continue to do what we've done and we'll get what we've got. Or, not!
"Let's Not Be Civil!"