This may seem like the most obvious headline ever, but I think it's something that needs to be reiterated.
We can debate ad nauseum whether the president made a serious offer or is playing 11-dimensional chess. We can debate whether chained CPI is a cut and whether the president should have offered it. We can debate whether the gradual but significant hardship that will come from chained CPI is worse than the immediate hardship that will come if people lose their unemployment benefits suddenly and failure to reach a deal on taxes pushes the economy back into recession. There are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides.
But it is insane that there seems to be more anger toward the president and Democrats in Congress than there is toward the Republicans who looted the treasury to put us in this position. I write today to argue that the best thing we can do for the American people is to train our anger on the Republicans who made this mess and work to expose them for the reckless extremists that they are.
On Thursday night, there was more outrage on this blog about the president's offer than there was about the fact that House Republicans shamelessly passed a bill that would prevent the defense cuts in the sequester by cutting food stamps, ending the child tax credit for non-U.S. citizens, slashing Medicaid funding, canceling the Home Affordable Modification Program, defund the subsidies for low-income families purchasing health insurance on the new exchanges, and even cutting Meals on Wheels.
Where was the outrage about that? Where was the concerted effort to call out main stream media outlets that merely reported the Republicans' effort as "replacing defense cuts with cuts to domestic spending", which in the abstract probably sounds good to most Americans. House Democrats put out press releases and tweets to expose how heartless the Republicans' bill was, but many of us were too busy attacking them over chained CPI to help get the message out.
Where is the outrage at the Republicans who deliberately squandered the surplus Clinton left them in one year and left for President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficitand an economy in the toilet, forcing him and Democrats in Congress to have to balance between acting to kickstart the economy and avoiding passing on even more debt for their children to pay off with interest.
Where is the outrage that Congressional Republicans who are supposedly so concerned about the deficit are willing to risk another recession by raising middle class taxes unless the president agrees to spare their rich cronies from having to make even a trifling sacrifice? Where is the outrage that they deliberately made the deficit so large during the Bush years to "starve the beast" and force spending cuts in the future?
I'm not saying that the president has handled everything the right way or that he doesn't bear some blame for the situation. But regardless of the mistakes he has made, I cannot understand why there is more anger trained on him and on Democrats in Congress than on the Republicans who made this mess.
We should be out there reminding people how they squandered the surplus with tax cuts for the rich and borrowing with interest to fund two wars, and now try to blame President Obama for the deficit. We should be screaming about the fact that they shamelessly and heartlessly voted to cut food stamps and meals on wheels to fund weapons that the Pentagon doesn't even want.
The House GOP showed more clearly than ever the other night what their true priorities are, and the best thing we can do for this country is help to expose them for the extremists that they are.
Instead of threatening to sit out 2014 if we don't like the way this latest GOP-manufactured crisis gets solved, we should be out there screaming about the Republicans' willingness to plunge the country into recession and even default on the full faith and credit of the United States rather than raise taxes even on incomes over $1 million.
There has never before been a wave election in an off year that favored the president's party, but I don't think there has ever been a group of House Republicans that was this extreme and this reckless. If we can help expose their unprecedented assault on poor and middle class Americans and their unprecedented recklessness in taking the debt ceiling and the economy hostage, maybe we can make history in 2014 by creating a big enough wave to flip control of the House to the president's party.
As mad as we might be at Democrats who seem inclined to capitulate, the best thing we can do for seniors, veterans, workers, food stamp recipients, students, and everyone else we care about is to train our outrage on the Republicans who made this mess and working to turn the public against them en masse the way we did in 2006.
On Edit: This under-noticed diary highlights yet another example of the Republican effort to screw the poor, by cutting the ACA's scheduled boost to very inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates as a price for passing the annual Medicare doc fix. Yet another example of how we are failing to expose their extremism while we fight over whether President Obama is selling us out.
Edit 2: I just got home from finally getting around to doing holiday shopping (proud to say I went to almost all local stores) and discovered this made the rec list. Thank you very much to everyone who rec'd it and joined the conversation.