- Short of finalizing details and assuring enough bipartisan
support, it's a done deal to slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
and other social spending while leaving outsized military budgets and generous
handouts to corporate favorites in place.
-
- At the same time, the timeline to accomplish it is undetermined.
Political posturing may extend the August 2 deadline until fall or beyond.
-
- It's how corrupted Washington always works, notably since
the 1980s under both parties. Obama was elected to assure continuity and
accomplish by rhetorical duplicity what Republicans on their own can't
do.
-
- Notably after capitulating last December on tax cuts
for America's super-rich, he proposed deep budget cuts, affecting disease
prevention, children's and community healthcare, education, supplemental
grants to poor women and children, community block grants for housing,
energy efficiency and renewable energy, and other benefits for people most
in need.
-
- He's a charlatan, not a leader who cares. Earlier, he
proposed hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts. It was step one ahead of
incrementally ending entitlements and other social benefits altogether,
including publicly funded pensions, returning America to dark age harshness.
-
- Bipartisan duplicity supports it, including slashing
healthcare, education, housing, virtually all social benefits incrementally,
eliminating them all altogether. Obama and many Democrats tacitly agree.
Timing is mostly at issue with an eye to 2012.
-
- In principle, Obama and Speaker Boehner privately agreed
to $4 trillion in Social Security, Medicare, and other social spending
cuts, backtracking when word leaked prematurely to a more modest $2.4 trillion
package, then resurrecting the $4 trillion one.
-
- At a July 11 press conference, Obama again stressed "shared
sacrifice," leaving unexplained he means working households sacrifice
to let America's super-rich share.
-
- Also unmentioned was his 2006 debt ceiling position,
voting against raising it in the Senate saying:
-
- "The fact that we are here today to debate raising
America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that
the US government can't pay its bills. It is a sign that we now depend
on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government's
reckless fiscal policies."
-
- "Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically
and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead,
Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of
our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure
of leadership. Americans deserve better."
-
- As President, Obama endorsed reckless fiscal policies,
including:
-
- -- trillions of bailout dollars to bankers;
-
- -- generous handouts to other corporate favorites;
-
- -- record high military spending for multiple illegal
wars and proxy ones;
-
- -- the same anti-labor tax workers, not the rich policies
as Republicans;
-
- -- wrecking Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
other social spending policies; and
-
- -- rhetorically insisting the debt ceiling be raised
before the August 2 deadline as part of a deal to please Wall Street at
the expense of working households and seniors, dependent on vital entitlements
they can't afford to lose or see weakened.
-
- In fact, economist Michael Hudson accused Obama of governing
to the right of George Bush, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, the Republican
far right-wing extremist presidential candidate endorsing holy war on democratic
values.
-
- At the same time, he's triangulating more than Clinton
to appear responsible. The budget debate is a charade. Republicans are
playing bad cop. Obama plans selling out his constituency. Ahead is a nightmarish
scenario comparable to Greece, impoverishing working households to pay
bankers, starving states and cities of revenue, forcing them to sell public
assets cheap, putting America on sale at fire sale prices, creating a dystopian
Great Depression, wiping out generations of social progress.
-
- Moreover, only a democrat could do this, especially a
smooth talking charlatan like Obama - more duplicitous and pernicious than
hardline Republicans saying, "(M)eaningful changes to Medicare, Social
Security and Medicaid (plus other social spending policies must be made
to) preserve the integrity of the programs and keep our sacred trust with
our seniors (and other needy households), but make sure those programs
were there not for just this generation, but for the next generation."
-
- He lied. He wants them incrementally ended, perhaps over
the next decade when another president will have to answer for his social
destruction. His Wall Street and other corporate cronies demand it. They
also want and will get the debt ceiling raised. It's why they funded his
2008 campaign, put him in the White House, and assure his reelection if
he plays ball.
-
- Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donahue also weighed
in, saying:
-
- "An unprecedented default on the nation's bills
would have dire consequences for our economy, our markets, and Main Street
Americans."
-
- The Washington Post gave PIMCO's Bill Gross (the nation's
largest bond investor) July 13 op-ed space, saying:
-
- "Don't mess with the debt ceiling. Raise it unencumbered
if necessary. (Default) would....be a huge negative for the US and global
financial markets, introducing fear and unnecessary volatility into the
economy and global trade."
-
- False! America won't default, but doing so is the road
to recovery, forcing bondholders to take stiff haircuts, letting too-big-to-fail
banks take pain, collapsing their Ponzi scheme speculating, or shutting
them down altogether. Removing that cancer would facilitate recovery and
growth.
-
- Moreover, if post-2008 crash Fed created trillions went
into the real economy, creating jobs and stimulating growth, they'd be
no social spending cuts/debt ceiling debate because America again would
be healthy.
-
- Ignoring basic truths, a July 11 Washington Post editorial
called Obama's entitlement slashing a "truly progressive position."
-
- A June 1 New York Times editorial called congressional
posturing "Playing With Matches on the Debt," endorsing corporate
America's advocacy for raising it, slashing social spending to finagle
it, and keeping the nation on a fast track to third world status, including
workers transformed to serfs.
-
- On July 13, Fed Chairman Bernanke (Wall Street's hired
hand) said Washington's failure to service debt would cause "shock
waves through the entire global financial system," omitting what he
should have said: namely,
-
- -- that Washington has no debt creation limit;
-
- -- that quantitative easing buys all of it not absorbed
by sovereign or private buyers;
-
- -- that the Fed can issue whatever amount is needed to
service it; and
-
- -- most important that Congress can reassert money creation
power, replacing Federal Reserve notes with Treasury ones interest and
inflation free with no need to raise taxes if responsibly done.
-
- Doing so would end the budget cutting/debt ceiling charade.
Moreover, sustainable economic growth would follow because publicly controlled
money would reignite it free from predatory bankers, wrecking the economy
to buy assets cheap, complicit with corrupt politicians letting them.
-
- A Final Comment
-
- On July 12, economist Jack Rasmus tried "reading
the debt ceiling tea leaves," predicting what he sees ahead, saying:
-
- -- gutting Social Security and Medicare is planned;
-
- -- the debt ceiling will be raised;
-
- -- real negotiations will begin once it's done;
-
- -- for starters, slashing $3 trillion in entitlements
is a done deal;
-
- -- October 1 is the next deadline, the start of FY 2012;
at issue is passing next year's budget, including cuts;
-
- -- expect the retirement age to be raised to 70 as well
as sharply reduced disability benefits;
-
- -- Medicare recipients will absorb all future cost increases,
including Part B (raised to double the current level) and higher Part D
deductibles; "(t)hat way Obama can say he never 'cut' Medicare,"
yet, in fact, slash "$200 - $400 billion a year for the next decade;"
-
- -- Republicans will agree to token tax cuts, closing
loopholes easily offset by agreeing to overhaul the tax code favoring corporations;
specifically, the top corporate rate will be cut from 35% to 20%, though
gaming the system lets many corporations pay minimal taxes or get rebates
despite being profitable;
-
- -- "lowering rates for foreign profits (will) placate
multinational" firms;
-
- -- what political Washington takes with one hand goes
back twice over with the other, continuing "the decades long tax 'shell
game;' "
-
- It's why corporations' share of federal revenue dropped
from 20% years ago to 10% now, and falling because of bipartisan deceit.
-
- Obama and Congress now plan completing their financial
coup d'etat, ending America's social contract, leaving retirees, working
households, and impoverished millions on their own sink or swim.
-
- Only revolutionary change, impeaching Obama, and routing
bipartisan criminals can stop them. It's high time public anger demanded
it.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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