The only thing worse for the American people than the August recess is the holiday recess at the end of year. You're on vacation and distracted in July and August but you're even more distracted during the holiday season.
Horrible things happen legislatively during these times. The worst things happen then. Your White House and your Congress has to work harder and harder to do things that hurt you and these are the times when they have been most successful at getting away with them.
Those of you who scoff at the Zombie Catfood Commission are fools or deceivers. This is the mechanism that will start the fall down the slippery slope of killing the New Deal. Only one other time in my lifetime have I seen such an effort to get something so destructive done in Washington by both Republicans and Democrats. This commission will not die because there are powerful people in Washington who will not let it die. First they tried to get it in a straight forward manner using persuasion during the stimulus negotiations. It didn't happen. Then they tried Shock Doctrine tactics during the last debt ceiling negotiations. Our Senators blocked it. Then the president gave it life via Executive Order but it did not have as much power as it would have had if it had been created by Congress. It fell flat on its face (though you would never know that since the president kept it alive by bringing the phony report and its appointed chairmen creators into the White House).
And now, it rises again, and the people who want it to succeed this time are going to great lengths to make sure it succeeds this time. Harry Reid gave it superpowers in his wholly unnecessary debt ceiling disaster capitalism deal. But even that wasn't enough. Now they want to put triggers in place to make sure it succeeds in firing the first shot to kill the New Deal and the Great Society programs, some of the most successful and decent programs this country has ever produced.
The whole world is watching right now. This is why Democrats can't do a straight vote on a bill that clearly cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But this is exactly what they intend to do. But they have to make it very confusing so that the American people don't realize that this is exactly what they are doing. And it will employ one or both of two mechanisms that attempt to keep the cutting a step removed from the Democrats or the Republicans, spreading the political risk, by employing commissions and triggers. As John Boehner put it, "lock arms" and "jump out of the boat together".
If Democrats believed that political absurdity by Boehner... We know who will take the political fall for this, even if the leaders of our party don't.
I expect that we will hear a glorious declaration that Democrats passed a bill that does not cut Social Security and Medicare! There is barely a chance in hell that Medicaid will be spared. Neither party truly cares about the poor anymore. The Democrats use them as a prop. No cuts to Social Security and Medicare! A win! A win for the Democrats! That is what the propanda is likely to be.
But my guess is that buried in that glorious bill will be a virtual guarantee that these programs will be cut, no matter what.
What a surprise, another monstrous eleventh hour deal after weeks and months of confusing the hell out of everyone and selling the phony debt ceiling crisis.
From the way things look, the deal will not only include this Zombie Catfood Commission...
But it will be backed up by that trigger mechanism you've been hearing so little about...
A trigger mechanism that guarantees that the cuts to the programs of the New Deal and the Great Society are completed by the end of the year.
So when people tell you that Harry Reid is slamming Mitch McConnell on the floor of the Senate, they are sadly mistaken. When they tell you that there are no cuts to Social Security and Medicare in the Reid bill or the upcoming compromise bill, they are, in my opinion, creating and/or spreading propaganda designed to pull the wool over your eyes. Any bill with the newly empowered Zombie Catfood Commission in it equals cuts to our already too weak social programs. Any bill with that commission and a trigger means guaranteed cuts to Social Security and Medicare. And not only does it mean cuts to those programs, it means that they are being done in a deceitful way and in an overly complicated way, a way that is designed to confuse people, a way that is designed to have people believe that Democrats did not cut the programs that 70% of the people do not want to be cut.
This is the way I believe this will be played out. The people we elected to represent us hope that people will remember the news headlines now, when everyone is paying attention: "No cuts to Social Security and Medicare! Hooray!" And they are banking on the fact that you won't notice as much when some commission recommends cuts at the end of the year and Congress passes their recommendations. Or if the recommendations don't get passed maybe there will be another "Hooray!" but it will be less reported that the cuts will go through anyway via that trigger mechanism that was hardly reportednoticed from the great August debt ceiling fiasco.
The lengths to which this White House and this Congress are going in order to achieve the great goal of the right-wing, killing the New Deal and Great Society programs... it's astounding.
They probably are polishing off the details on a plan hatched long ago as we speak, but at this point they are most likely getting down to the level of detail concerning how many Democrats will have to vote for this and how many Republicans in order to balance out their political risk. That is the kind of balance they are most concerned about. Well two balances: the balance of political risk between the conspiring parties and their bank balances in the future when they leave office. That's the kind of balance we get from this corrupt government.
If recent history repeats itself, President Obama will extract some liberal shiny object and from this disaster and throw it out on the street in front of us and expect us to be jubilant. In his speech to the nation last week he focused on the wealthy paying their fair share so this is probably the thing he is personally bargaining for, the thing he feels he can save himself with politically (and to hell with every other Democrat on a ballot in 2012 because every one of them is going to pay for these deals and the state of the economy).
He will probably extract some type of revenue increase or announce that the Bush tax cuts will not be extended to billionaires, or something. But they are set to expire anyway! And with all the talk of flattening the tax code, something the right-wingers like Forbes have been trying to do for decades, the Bush tax cuts might become irrelevant anyway.
But the fact that this president is helping to cut Social Security and Medicare was predictable. His economic advisers were in favor of it and his political advisers and his political advisers seem to have lost that battle. Maybe they thought the bin Laden kill would allow him to weather it. Or maybe they think they have an October Surprise that will trump cutting Social Security and Medicare and overcome the adages "It's the economy, stupid" and "Jobs Jobs Jobs". Or maybe they think they are still the smartest guys in the room with the 2008 wallpaper on it. Maybe they still have enormous faith in their magical marketing powers but anyone who is out here living in the real world knows what will happen to Democrats from the top of the ballot to the bottom.
No! This is not the best we can do! This president is not being held hostage by crazy Republicans. He's the most powerful man in the world and he has options, regardless of what picture is being painted right now. This country realizes that the Democrats have much more power than the Republicans right now. And the brinkmanship being staged by them right now will fade away in a New York minute if Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce decide to change their voting minds after a day or two of market chaos, should the Republicans decide to risk not voting for a clean debt ceiling bill should the president decide to demand one. And he knows that. They know that. The rest of it is theater by a group of powerful politicians using Shock Doctrine tactics to achieve draconian cuts and austerity.
Let's hope that the news about the trigger deal is inaccurate and that the president comes to his senses, schedules a televised address and says "Chill! I got this!" and tells the country and the world (in which we are a laughingstock right now, BTW) that enough is enough, he will no longer negotiate with economic terrorists and will take matters into his own hands, that he demands a clean debt ceiling bill like all other presidents have gotten and if he does not get one by Monday morning he will use the 14th amendment and take care of this debt ceiling situation himself.
Let's hope he doesn't hold himself hostage and cut this deal. But let's call him and our representatives again anyway. Call them and tell them that you are not fooled by the theatrics, the kabuki and the spin.
Contact information:
White House Comments Line: 202-456-1111
White House Switchboard: 202-456-1414
White House FAX: 202-456-2461
White House Email Page: www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Capitol Switchboard: (202)224-3121
(Just ask for your Rep.'s or Senator's office).
Look up your Representative's / Senator's contact information:
http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Push back like you have never pushed back before.
If this is the deal on the table right now, and it sure looks like it is, not only will this mean guaranteed cuts to Social Security and Medicare, but there will be other disastrous cuts too and Medicaid will not be spared which means suffering by people who already are struggling. It also means pulling more money out of our economy which will be disastrous for most Americans. Don't fall for the apologist propaganda.
8:25 AM PT: Oh, by the way, what caused that deficit anyway?