(crossposted at five before chaos)
I’ve met our congressman, Peter Welch, several times, having the pleasure of interviewing him once a few years ago. He’s a nice guy, and a rather wonky, intelligent guy, too. I had this in mind as I was screaming at the radio in the car last Friday, when Welch was the guest on Vermont Edition (you can listen to the podcast here).
Welch recently signed on to a letter with 59 other reps calling for austerity measures (more on that here, with Welch’s response, here). As I heard Welch defend this on the radio, a few things were apparent to me. He buys into the deficit problem as being bigger as it is… remember, if we did nothing but wind down the wars and let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, this problem takes care of itself, something lost on Welch, apparently. It’s from Congress’ own CBO, and it’s so fucking obvious that it’s even reported on right-wing media sites, fer Chrissake. From what I could gather, he’s buying into the Social Security myth, too, as not once did I hear him mention that Social Security is not a deficit driver, and therefore should be off of the table.
But the biggest thing more than anything else (and I’ve seen this alluded to in some of his other comments, previously) is that Welch, for the most part, buys into the whole “both sides do it” bullshit. Although he mentioned several times a few ridiculous Republican ideas that were causing problems, over and over, he mentioned how the reason there’s no progress is because of the ideologues in both parties, as though there are just as many radicals in the Democratic Party as in the Republican Party. Unless I’m missing something, apparently defending the social safety net (not some “radical” push to expand it, mind you) is no different than pushing for more tax cuts for the wealthy, having a billion bills introduced to curtail abortion rights, and privatizing Medicare. As I see it, nothing’s getting accomplished because of the draconian radicals in the GOP trying to repeal the 20th century, and the Democrats are playing a meek defense, at best, when they're not being complicit.
By Welch spinning this bullshit narrative, it makes the problem worse, and it gives him cover for not getting on board and playing offense, which is what really needs to be done here, and it keeps those low-information voters believing that “both sides do it” – believe me, it works, as evidenced by the crap I even hear from an unnamed family member who consumes copious amounts of MSM. Welch keeps saying how “everything needs to be on the table,” which is really a load of crap. Republicans aren’t putting anything on the table other than more Randian horsenuggets, and more to the point, things like Social Security and other important programs shouldn’t be on the table to begin with, as the major reason we have this crisis is due to 30 years of supply-side economics thanks to the GOP and a number of Democrat enablers. Cutting these vital, popular programs was part of the game plan all along.
He’s certainly not representing his constituents well, that’s for sure. He’s not a stupid man, so if he’s not, that means he’s bullshitting us and hoping we won’t notice.
CODA: Just caught this from Benen – more than anything else, this is what Welch seems to be willingly oblivious to:
At a certain level, the very idea of including Bush-era tax breaks in the discussion probably seems bizarre to anyone outside the GOP caucus. The panel’s members were given one task: reach a deal on debt reduction that totaled at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. With this assignment in mind, Republicans on the committee, from the outset, decided that their principal goal was locking in tax cuts that (a) are largely responsible for the massive debt; and (b) would make the debt much worse going forward.
Yes, it’s ideologues on both sides, Mr. Welch. Uh-huh.