Paul Krugman has an excellent column this morning that speaks the truth-that-cannot-be-said-by-the-Village:
While the election is over, the class war isn’t.
Paul Krugman, NY Times: "Class Wars of 2012"
In fact, the plutocrats seek to win by other means what they could not win at the ballot box:
The same people who bet big on Mr. Romney, and lost, are now trying to win by stealth — in the name of fiscal responsibility — the ground they failed to gain in an open election.
Paul Krugman, NY Times: "Class Wars of 2012"
Professor (and Nobel Prize winner) Paul Krugman supports his argument with several cogent examples. Here's one:
Consider, as a prime example, the push to raise the retirement age, the age of eligibility for Medicare, or both. This is only reasonable, we’re told — after all, life expectancy has risen, so shouldn’t we all retire later? In reality, however, it would be a hugely regressive policy change, imposing severe burdens on lower- and middle-income Americans while barely affecting the wealthy. Why? First of all, the increase in life expectancy is concentrated among the affluent; why should janitors have to retire later because lawyers are living longer? Second, both Social Security and Medicare are much more important, relative to income, to less-affluent Americans, so delaying their availability would be a far more severe hit to ordinary families than to the top 1 percent.
Paul Krugman, NY Times: "Class Wars of 2012"
This is why we must fight and why I am happy with the President's opening bid to the Republicans.
President Obama offered Republicans a detailed plan Thursday for averting the year-end “fiscal cliff” that calls for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, $50 billion in fresh spending on the economy and an effective end to congressional control over the size of the national debt.
The proposal, delivered to the Capitol by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, mirrors previous White House deficit-reduction plans and satisfies Democrats’ demands that negotiations begin on terms dictated by the newly-reelected president.
The offer lacks any concessions to Republicans, most notably on the core issue of where to set tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. After two weeks of talks between the White House and aides to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), it seemed to take Republicans by surprise.
WaPo
The class war continues and we must be vigilant:
It’s an uncomfortable but real truth that we are not all in this together; America’s top-down class warriors lost big in the election, but now they’re trying to use the pretense of concern about the deficit to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Let’s not let them pull it off.
Paul Krugman, NY Times: "Class Wars of 2012"
We won the election; we cannot lose the aftermath.