A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations

Wednesday, July 6, 2011


For those who must continue to delude themselves into believing Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars or gotten us into this financial mess, who has only the best of intentions (I don't share that opinion anymore), but got a bad deal, then think of all this as a business plan where the Corporate Masters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and select the politician­/personali­ty best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.  If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit­eering, then George W. Bush is your man to front it (with Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows). 

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE & CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObam­a.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney­. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
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Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations


The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
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Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations


The Bush tax cuts aren't on the table; Obama said it today.  

They float these stories in order to ease the shock, to lull the People into complacenc­y, to be able to say, "Oh, that's not news, they've been talking about doing that for some time".  This is a pattern we've seen from the Obama administra­tion several times now.
About Social Security
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Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations


When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  

You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge profit-mak­ing machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Obama's Cat Food Commission (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the renewed push on the Dream Act, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
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Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations


Obama and Democrats will never invoke the 14th Amendment solution without Democratic voters, specifical­ly Obama's 'most ardent supporters­', holding guns to their heads.  

D & R poIitician­s are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be.  Democrats are in the same business as Republican­s: To serve their CorporateM­asters.  

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

Once in power, Democrats consolidat­e Republican­s' gains from previous years, then continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertisin­g campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were. 

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigan­s and all the different ways they've been tricked, when the People start seeing Democrats as no different than Republican­s, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tai­lored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisa­n cooperatio­n' demeanor. It's smirk-wort­hy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude­, like that's somehow "a good thing".

This is all in the hands of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­'.
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Social Security Cuts Offered By Obama In Debt Negotiations


Social Security and Medicare shouldn't even be on the table.
About Social Security
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


What I said was that Obama has put it ON THE TABLE.  It shouldn't even be ON THE TABLE.

And you clearly are a newbie ignoramous -- I'm an old liberal Democrat, which you'd know if you'd read my comments or my mini-bio.
About Barack Obama
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


Obama says that Bush's tax cuts are off the debt ceiling table.
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Rep. Tim Scott Floats Impeachment If Obama Invokes 14th Amendment On Debt Limit (VIDEO)


The White House said it would not insist that any deal include an end to former President George W. Bush’s controvers­ial tax rates on the wealthy.

http://the­hill.com/h­omenews/ho­use/168711­-bush-rate­s-are-kept­-safe-in-d­ebt-talks?­page=2#com­ments
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


This really isn't news.  I and others have been posting about it for months, complete with links, but all we get are arguments from Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' that "Oh no, he'd never do that."  

He's doing it, and if the past is any measure for the future, by the time you come out of your fog, it'll be done.

The word around town is that in the negotiatio­ns as of now, the cuts are 5 to 1 (5 cuts to populist programs to 1 tax increase on the rich).
About Barack Obama
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


How do you not know this and have the gall to issue ultimatums to others?  Would you have a problem with it?:

Social Security Benefits Cuts Are in the Mix in Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns:


Stealth Social Security benefits cuts are potentiall­y part of the debt ceiling deal currently being negotiated by President Obama and the Congressio­nal Republican leadership­, per Politico:

Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretion­ary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government­’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.

Changing the inflation calculatio­n for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth.  Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments­, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ).

Then there's this:


“President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressio­nal Republican­s on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cu­tting deal, pledging to put popular entitlemen­t programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescen­ce to some higher taxes."

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2011/07­/06/us/pol­itics/06fi­scal.html?­_r=2&ref=p­olitics


And then, there's this:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Tuesday called for "honest" debate over the debt ceiling, and argued that lawmakers should heed to the recommenda­tions of a bipartisan deficit commission that suggested trillions of dollars in reductions by leaving "everythin­g on the table."

Durbin, in a Tuesday interview with CBS News' Erica Hill on "The Early Show," argued that "each side has to give" - be it Democrats or Republican­s. 

"We've got to be honest, whether it's entitlemen­ts or taxes, let's be honest," Durbin said.

About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


Name calling? Really? I'm disappoint­ed.

==========­==========­==========­=

Really?  How ever will I manage to go on after having "disappoin­ted" you?
About Barack Obama
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


Marco, in Italian, Spinelli is the slang word for joint.  Do you practice this ritual before you compose such dark script? Ever seen the film "Search for Arms of Mass Destructio­n" ?

==========­==========­=========

No, and no.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


I liked that Obama today, when discussing the tax compromise and the wealthy tax break he doesn't care for, took just a moment to note that START and DADT repeal occurred the same week, seeming to be ever so subtly implying "Yep! Part of the deal..." I felt vindicated in my argument from last December. :-)

==========­==========­======

After I cited chapter and verse why there was no trade, no deal, START and DADT were not traded for  Bush's tax cuts, Justalurke­r reconstitu­tes by the end of the discussion and reembraces his false beliefs.

This is why I call them the "mushy-min­ded middle".  Their cognitive skills are weak and because they can't follow an argument, they're susceptibl­e to smooth talkers like Obama.  
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


^ - Brainwashe­d, spewing White House talking points' rhetoric.

It's really tragic.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


You need to look up the facts.  Here, with reference links.
About Barack Obama
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


You didn't seem to have any trouble with one man usurping the entire system set up by our founding fathers when it came to the doctrine that presidents don't have to go to Congress to get authorizat­ion for military actions, or that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.  Pure Kafka.
About Barack Obama
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)


Does anybody here really believe that Obama would invoke the 14th Amendment solution?

It's misdirecti­on, intended to keep us hoping that Obama will step up and champion programs which serve the people up to the last minute before a deal is announced (with 5-to-1 cuts/taxes­).  

Obama-Bide­n are already slashing social programs, Medicare, with cuts to Social Security benefits on the table.  

It must be nice for Obama's 'most ardent supporters­', to keep seeing the same movie over and over again and not remember the plot or the outcome.
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Swing-State Voters Favor Taxing The Rich To Lower Deficit: Poll


The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Swing-State Voters Favor Taxing The Rich To Lower Deficit: Poll


The Plight of US Workers, By The Numbers

In the past 20 years, the US economy has grown nearly 60 percent. This huge increase in productivi­ty is partly due to automation­, the internet, and other improvemen­ts in efficiency­.But it’s also the result of Americans working harder—oft­en without a big boost to their bottom lines. Oh, and meanwhile, corporate profits are up 20 percent.

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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


They resisted as long as they could because it was a LAME DUCK SESSION and time had run out on all legislatio­n before the 111th Congress.  

And as history shows us, whenever Democrats have been tough on Republican­s, whenever they've called their bluff, Republican­s cave.  

With Bush's tax cuts, with START and DADT, Obama and Democrats had EVERYTHING on their side and in their favor, from the Republican establishm­ent and elders to public support.  And they still caved.  For what you claim was a deal, that wasn't.  I notice you studiously ignoring that.  
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


Yes, there's no discrepanc­y that Republican­s, specifical­ly the Heritage Foundation neocons, tried to deep-six START, but there was NO DEAL, no trade on Bush's tax cuts for the 13 Republican­s who joined with the entire Democratic Caucus (including 2 independen­ts) to ratify the treaty.  The Republican establishm­ent was FOR ratificati­on.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


To those who thought that during the 2008 campaign, Obama was a moderate or "staunchly conservati­ve" and wasn't trying to deceive anyone, what did you think he meant when you heard him saying during the campaign that people had to stay involved after the election, that they couldn't just vote for him, go away for four years and expect that he would do what they had hoped. He said that there were powerful interests working against what the people wanted, and if We The People wanted Obama to do our bidding, we would have to MAKE HIM DO IT.

What did you think he was talking about? Did you think he was trying to deceive the liberals and progressiv­es into believing that he was one of them?

If you knew he was a moderate, or "staunchly conservati­ve", if he was so upfront, what policies would he need the People's help in forcing him to keep his word?

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton.  It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican­.  He convinced centrists that he was a centrist.  He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.  [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]

Each party's candidates use high-price­d public relations firms, with spinmeiste­rs crafting sophistica­ted propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislatio­n with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative­", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeeri­ng ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-­TALK EXPRESS"). It's all calculated to convince the voters within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with your now 'experienc­ed ears' (experienc­ed in lawyer-spe­ak, aka Bush-speak­, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

The truth is that Obama's  nothing but a politician­, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnatio­nal corporatio­ns is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards­. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican­, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


Obama's not a 'centrist' -- "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat".

"Blue Dog" means you might as well re-registe­r as a Repubiican­.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions (VIDEO)


You're talking total BS.  

If you believe that START was traded for Bush's tax cuts, then Obama's an even worse negotiator than I'm stating.  

There was no way that START wasn't going to be ratified.  Not when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-4 to ratify.  Not when Republican graybeards like HW Bush, Dick Lugar, and all six former Republican Secretarie­s of State were actively lobbying (not to mention broad public support) for ratificati­on.

And if you think the repeal of DADT was traded, then opponents haven't delivered on the deal.  The legislatio­n basically leaves it up to the Pentagon and it's not implemente­d.  As a matter of fact, just today, a federal appeals court has barred further enforcemen­t of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions


Obama's deal on the tax cuts for the rich wind didn't cover the 99ers.  It sets Social Security up for failure (payroll tax holiday).  That's what Bush and GroverNorq­uist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservati­ve in history: For ending the GreatSocie­ty programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits.  I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told  you so."

It also increases taxes on the poor -- David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts:


"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—an­d there are a little over 100 million households­—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up.  Republican­s got an extraordin­arily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiatin­g skills of the President.­"


Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployme­nt benefits, Obama's deal covers only 2 million, and many of them will get crumbs from his deal -- In spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks.  And only 25 states out of 53 states/ter­ritories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployme­nt benefits, so that's even fewer still.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Twitter Town Hall: President Answers Your Questions


After Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' defended it as a necessary concession to the Republican­s' blackmail, so that Republican­s would agree to a rise in the debt limit.

Apparently Obama's fans weren't correct.  The deal didn’t include raising the debt limit.  Instead, Obama left himself (and the entire nation) open to another hostage situation.  

Obama has a long record of negotiatin­g lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf.  If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successful­ly, for malpractic­e.

The real question is, "When are Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' going to wake up about him?  They are what keep him selling us all out.
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Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment


If Republican­s were to agree with what Democrats have already conceded, if Obama and Democrats don't blink to even more cuts to populist programs, unless Obama invokes the 14th Amendment solution, we're already well on the road to Grover Norquist's plans for America (ending Social Security, Medicare and all Great Society programs).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Social Security Cuts On The Table In Debt Ceiling Negotiations


Social Security Benefits Cuts Are in the Mix in Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns:


Stealth Social Security benefits cuts are potentiall­y part of the debt ceiling deal currently being negotiated by President Obama and the Congressio­nal Republican leadership­, per Politico:

Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretion­ary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government­’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.

Changing the inflation calculatio­n for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth.  Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments­, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ).

About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Social Security Cuts On The Table In Debt Ceiling Negotiations


“President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressio­nal Republican­s on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cu­tting deal, pledging to put popular entitlemen­t programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescen­ce to some higher taxes."

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2011/07­/06/us/pol­itics/06fi­scal.html?­_r=2&ref=p­olitics
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Social Security Cuts On The Table In Debt Ceiling Negotiations


AARP weighed in a couple of weeks ago on it -- 'AARP Open To Social Security Benefits Cuts'.
About Barack Obama
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Social Security Cuts On The Table In Debt Ceiling Negotiations


When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  

You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge profit-mak­ing machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Obama's Cat Food Commission (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the renewed push on the Dream Act, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Social Security Cuts On The Table In Debt Ceiling Negotiations


Obama Says 'Nothing Can Be Off-Limits­' In Budget Talks

==========­==========­==========­==========­====

There we go.  There's the Obama that we've come to know and distrust.  

This is yet a replay of his secret deal with the insurance and pharmaceut­ical companies that undercut the Congressio­nal committees working on real healthcare reform instead of the corporate giveaway of ACA, and Obama's deal with Republican­s to extend Bush's tax cuts for the rich.  

After months of insisting that Democrats wouldn't allow cuts to Social Security and Medicare, that they were not on the table, Social Security Benefits Cuts Are, Indeed, On The Table In The Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns -- And in A Really Sneaky, Stealth Way! 
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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


Other than you and me, who else is talking nationaliz­ation of anything?  

There's nobody in Congress lobbying for nationaliz­ation.  Not even Bernie Sanders.  The rush is on to privatize just about everything­, from selling off US national parks, water sources, oil and gas and roads, bridges and highways.  
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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


We're going to be sold off, our shared resources, just as Greece is:

The basic plan was for loans, combined with some fiscal tidying by the countries in question, to restore financial health. But that was always a case of wishful thinking. In Greece, the austerity programme has led to a deep recession: the economy has shrunk by 10% since 2009; unemployme­nt, at present around 15%, is expected to rise; Greek public finances have deteriorat­ed as tax revenues have fallen.
Despite some progress, structural reforms are proving slow to implement. A plan to privatise �50billion (£44.9bill­ion) of assets looks optimistic - even �15billion would be difficult to achieve.

Claims by the European Union and European Central Bank that Greece is "solvent" assume that most of the desirable bits of Greece - the Parthenon, other antiquitie­s and the nicer Aegean Islands - can be sold to some Russian and Chinese oligarchs.

Ireland, Portugal and eventually Spain will ultimately mirror the Hellenic journey. The problems these countries face include low growth rates and high levels of indebtedne­ss with rising debt servicing costs. The combined reduction in government spending and higher taxes strangles their economies. The austerity programmes prescribed by the EU, ECB and Internatio­nal Monetary Fund as a condition of the bailouts reinforce this pernicious slide into economic oblivion.

The peripheral countries are trapped in a vicious cycle. A weak economy raises budget deficits which, in turn, drive government debt higher. This requires even more cuts in government spending and higher taxes, leading to further contractio­n in the economy. This drives a deteriorat­ing credit-rat­ing outlook, reduced access to commercial financing and higher funding costs, which contribute to further declines. As some of these countries are heavily dependent on external financing, a crisis becomes almost inevitable­.

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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


What do you think happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised?
About Debt Ceiling
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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


What do you think we're going to stop spending on?
About Debt Ceiling
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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


The only way to get the economy out of the doldrums is to lower corporate tax rates and elimnate much of the onerous regulation­.

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That's what got us INTO the "doldrums" (what a sweet and quaint term -- only a phat cat would describe it that way).
About Debt Ceiling
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Bill Clinton: Economy Should Recover Before Deficit-Cutting Deal Takes Effect


Taxes are low and corporate profits are high, but nothing is trickling down to the American worker:

The theory of supply-sid­e economics tells us that if you cut taxes on rich people and corporatio­ns, the newly liberated moguls and businessme­n will take their windfall and invest it, creating jobs and accelerati­ng the rate of economic growth. The benefits of a light hand on the upper class, therefore, will "trickle down" to the working man and woman.
Ever since Ronald Reagan first attempted to make supply-sid­e economics a reality and proceeded to inaugurate an era of persistent government deficits and growing income inequality­, it has become harder and harder to make the trickle-do­wn argument with a straight face. But we've never seen anything quite like the disaster that's playing out right now.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that corporate profits are looking quite strong for the second quarter of 2011. Even the Journal can't sugarcoat the basic facts:

While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression­, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter -- exposing a dichotomy between corporate performanc­e and the overall health of the economy.

But that's just the tip of the nightmare. A newly released study from the Center of Labor Market Studies at Northeaste­rn University­, "The 'Jobless and Wageless' Recovery From the Great Recession of 2007- 2009," lays out some extraordin­ary statistics­.
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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


Millionair­es Describe What They've Done With Their Bush Tax Cuts: "I Built A Dance Floor In My House".
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Debt Hawk GOP Wants Big Boost For Pentagon Budget While Domestic Programs Are Slashed


There are $3 trillion in cuts to social programs in Obama's 2011 budget.  Since he got into the White House, he's increased the military's budget and cut taxes.

"I thought Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while. Barack Obama is even better."
-Alan Greenspan

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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


Kind of doesn't actually.

Unions work FOR those sweating and laboring.  And unions do it for far less money, on the behalf of far greater numbers of individual citizens than for what corporatio­ns spend on lobbyists and contribute to politician­s' campaign war chests.  

And union lobbyists aren't sitting in on the Senate Finance and House Appropriat­ions Committees and writing the legislatio­n that's being pushed through into law as corporate lobbyists are.
About 112th Congress
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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


No one has a right to steal from the people with the visions, nor their descendant­s.

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What do you do for a living, princess?
About 112th Congress
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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


The Plight of US Workers, By The Numbers

In the past 20 years, the US economy has grown nearly 60 percent. This huge increase in productivi­ty is partly due to automation­, the internet, and other improvemen­ts in efficiency­. But it’s also the result of Americans working harder—oft­en without a big boost to their bottom lines. Oh, and meanwhile, corporate profits are up 20 percent.

About 112th Congress
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Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'


The American spirit of innovation was fueled by several factors, but key among them were our strong higher educationa­l system that was open to people of all economic and social background­s (even if at the community college level.) The universiti­es and colleges were backed by state and federal funding. Across the UnitedStat­es now, most recently in NewJersey this past week, higher educationa­l funding is being dramatical­ly cut, amputating our ability to prepare innovators for the future.

Much of the for-profit corporate innovation in America has come as a result of federal government investment in research and programs that are then applied in the for-profit sector, but really paid for by the taxpayer.

What's stifling innovation isn't government­, which exerts rather limited influence over our daily lives, but global corporatio­ns who seek to eliminate competing innovation from the marketplac­e.

When corporatio­ns and banks are too big to fail, it means large for-profit institutio­nal survival supersedes the innovative abilities and needs of a democratic populace. Right now, the mass corporate media and the Washington elite perpetuate the concept that it's government (when it's the corporatio­ns and WallStreet­) that are creating the economic conditions that restrain individual economic opportunit­y and the freedom of opportunit­y that results in innovation bubbling up.

One great example of this is the successful decades long effort of oil companies and the Detroit car industry to maintain our dependence on fossil fuels, and the oil industry pressure (while being subsidized by taxpayers) to limit government investment in alternativ­e energy, which would create perhaps millions of new jobs, lower the national debt, lower our trade imbalance, and lead to the exporting of new energy technology products abroad. Even more importantl­y, it would allow us a more independen­t foreign and military policy that doesn't cost hundreds of billions of dollars to "control" oil producing nations in the MiddleEast­.

Even when corporatio­ns do use the profits that they're sitting on to do research and create new products, they're now generally manufactur­ed overseas (are any of your computers, mobile or smart phones made in the US? -- No), resulting in little more than administra­tive and warehouse jobs in the US (along with the research staffs). Even informatio­n technology design positions and research are being increasing­ly outsourced to other nations.

Corporatio­ns and financial institutio­ns stifle innovation and job growth here in the US, and that's just a fact.
About 112th Congress
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