How did we get here and how we need to resolve this:
Dylan Ratigan explains the U.S.'s fiscal calamity, how we got here and how we get out with economist Professor Peter Morici, Ari Melber of the Nation, Democratic Strategist Krystal Ball and Imogen Lloyd Webber.
Part 1 - http://www
Part 2 - http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Here's the framework.
Medicare IS on the table.
No increases in revenue - Whether it's been on the table or not, it SHOULD be on the table.
As far as a Balanced Budget Amendment, it's the same as House-pass
after Oct. 1, 2011 but before the end of year.
‣Similar to House-pass
debt limit increase of $1.5T if:
‣Joint Committee cuts spending by greater amount than the requested debt limit hike,
OR
‣A Balanced Budget Amendment is sent to the states.
‣Creates incentive for previous opponents of a BBA to now support it.
Of course it's a victory for Republican
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
And I haven't even begun on Obama's agreeing to amend the Constituti
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republican
The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcende
On the domestic front, the job creation possibilit
The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcin
The SinglePaye
With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physic
It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs and non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation. As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternativ
Then there are the benefits from fixing US' infrastruc
These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side. The corporate side.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
This deal, the first traunch, has $1 TRILLION in cuts and NO revenue increases.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
This alternativ
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Keep in mind that Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressiv
Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressiv
Republican
Republican
Republican
Obama created this mess; it suits his and the DLC's plan, to make wage slaves out of Americans and end the Great Society programs of real Democrats past.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republican
Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress, he said he was going to do more caving. The effect of that, along with Obama's flip-flopp
Aides say that the president's been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorm ing with administra tion officials about the best way to revamp the strategies & goals of the WhiteHouse .
And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislatin g power, including perhaps control of the House & even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructiv e nature from the GOP.
"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsibl e, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipate d, & so the strategy of just saying no to everything & sitting on the sidelines & throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."
DickDurbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited & focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." TomDaschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive. "
A Blast from the past - What Democrats voted for in the House budget bill just 4 months ago:
$414 million in cuts to grants for state and local police departments.
A whopping $1.6 billion cut in the EnvironmentalProtect ionAgency' s budget, of which nearly $1 billion comes from grants for clean water and other projects by local government s and Indian tribes.
$600 million in cuts to community health centers.
Cuts to homeland security programs for the first time ever, though much of the agency's two percent decrease stems from a $786 million cut in first responder grants to state and local governments.
A $7 million cut to the Bureau of Public Debt, which accounts for and provides reports on the debt.
A $1 billion cut to HIV and disease-prevention funds.
A $3 billion cut to agriculture programs, the biggest portion of which comes from the Women Infants and Children fund, which loses $504 million.
A $390 million cut to low-income heating assistance; Community Developmen t Funds are cut by $942 million.
A $650 million cut to federal highway investments.
Contributions to the United Nations and other internatio nal institutio ns are cut by $377 million.
$45 million pulled from nuclear nonproliferation funds.
A rider tucked in by lawmakers from Western states that allows states to remove wolves from the endangered species list.
Old Chinese proverb:
"Republica
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama can still invoke the 14th amendment. Remember his admonition in 2008 when 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?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
No, those were not my worst fears. I don't accept those as my words or my thinking. The economy is the subject here.
Democratic and Republican poIitician
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 manufactur
Once in power, Democrats consolidat
Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate
If you want to lie the country into war for oil and profiteeri
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 and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. Barack Obama. Obama's '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).
Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigan
Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal, not crazy" etc.) is custom-tai
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Shorter version is that the Tea Party's objectives
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
That was your worst fear, wasn't it? All those things that Democratic voters were terrified would happen if McCain won, Obama actually has done.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
It doesn't matter. Even the most liberal of Democrats have sold us out.
But make no mistake about it, the only people in this new 'Congress' will be those who are 'safe' (from being thrown out of office) and assured to deliver to Big Business.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
When there is a word count limit, yes, it is. That's one reason why people here use abbreviati
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in AfghanistaSee more of how it would have been the same here.n, engaged in worldwide extrajudic ial assassinat ion, destabiliz ed nuclear-ar med Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNe tanyahu to the negotiatin g table, expanded prosecutio n of whistle-bl owers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo , failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reformthe financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastroph e, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.
Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the Democratic Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-makin g mass media, and understand ing what this demonstrat es about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.
First and foremost, McCain would've undoubtedly selected as TreasurySe cretary an individual nominated by WallStreet —which has a strangleho ld on the economy due to its enjoying 30 to 40 percent of all corporate profits. If he didn’t select TimGeithne r, a reliable servant of financial interests whose nomination might have allowed McCain to trumpet his “maverick” credential s, whoever he did select would clearly have also moved to bail out the financial institutio ns and allow them to water down needed financial reforms.
It's Over.Vote Third Party. At least it gets third parties the 5 percent needed to get a seat at the table to have the People's issues discussed on the public stage.
Obama apologizing centrists can hardly be called progressiv e or even moderate. There is nothing either progressiv e OR moderate about a philosophy that allows for capitulati on and compromise in the face of fascist rhetoric. But seeing the sunny, smiling faces of 30 year-old TV pundits, ironically decrying the "same old Washington gridlock," one is reminded again and again that when the smoke clears from this latest fiscal "debate" the winners will include everyone we have seen debating it as well as those reporting it. And the losers -- ah the losers, well, as always, that's us folks -- the working-cl ass.
And as always, the idiots in the ever-rightward shifting center will allow for all of it. Passionate Centrism is just another name for an energized but apathetic, political delusion. "Believing " in something you aren't ready and willing to fight and die for is little better than a House Slave helping his master chase down a rebellious field slave. Passionate Centrists will leave no stone unturned beating down leftists who in their opinion "go just a little too far," but on the other hand, are first in line to compromise the advances of the working-cl ass they themselves never actually fought for in the first place.
When unions first began losing ground to the political thrusts of relentless capitalists, the centrists said, "O.K."
When Clinton introduced NAFTA, The End Of Welfare As We Know It, and allowed for the gutting of Glass-Steagall, the centrists said, "O.K., sounds reasonable ." No Public Option? "No problem" said the Blue Dogs. And now, after Obama himself has brought Social Security to the table for discussion and dissection , who I ask but the most delusional among us would now expect this president to invoke the relatively shaky ground of the 14th Amendment rather than subscribin g to spending cuts he himself has little problem with enacting?
IT'S OVER.
—JPriest
The whole idea of not voting Dem because you don't get what you want should never be encouraged because, as Bush proved, the alternative can be horrific.
The whole idea of not voting Dem because you don't get what you want should never be encouraged because, as Bush proved, the alternative can be horrific.
I think you need to read this.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Yes, you're wrong.
Read and learn, grasshoppe
The reason is for 'plausible deniabilit
When wars are on the books, on the budget, it means that the various congressio
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
And I guess you missed this news story buried in this SHOCK & AWE coverage of the debt ceiling situation - How They Hacked The 2004 Presidenti
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Bashing Nader again?
2000 was a stolen election. It was a coup d'etat; a bloodless coup, but a coup nonetheles
Al Gore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
Whatever the means necessary to get Bush-Chene
If the means for getting Bush-Chene
For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida. That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-elect
Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceeding
There was a coup d'etat in this country in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheles
We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administra
By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Jonathan Alter is a DLC/corpor
The #1 obstacle to getting to what we thought we were voting for when we put Obama & Democrats into power: The'Pragmatis
Lord, help us from those ever "well-mean
We hear about "pragmatis
'Pragmatis
'Pragmatis
Two of the best recent examples of the Obama Administra
See here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
KEEP READING
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Excuse me, I misread what you wrote.
The facts about the public option are this:
The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.
A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconcilia
Obama nixxed it.
The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"
After the (allegedly
And, it was all designed up front to be a massive giveaway to the insuance and pharmaceut
Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public healthcare
There never will be a public option or any kind of affordable
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
It's not off the table. It's now in the hands of this "super congress".
Learn the facts, grasshoppe
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
They're not doing it alone.
Nothing would get done without the Democratic politician
Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table, not the Republican
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Andrea Mitchell just said it all about the political party system.
She said that John Boehner can't control the Tea Party members in the House because many of them don't care about getting reelected, so he can't use the usual tools and take them to the woodshed, deny them help or funds for reelection in order to get them to vote the way he wants.
We on the left could take a page out of their book. We have a president who put Social Security and Medicare on the table. It wasn't Republican
We have a politician
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Third parties. They need 5 percent of the votes just to get a seat at the table, to get any media coverage on these issues from the People's perspectiv
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
SHOCK & AWE, does it all the time!
Nothing that has gotten passed, not today and not in the past, has gotten passed without Democrats signing on.
In this case, it's Obama driving the locomotive
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
This really couldn't get any simpler:
Politician
Back when Obama extended Bush's tax cuts as he'd pledged, I wrote that the 'Rule of Thumb' about when tax cuts make sense is, "When a nation's bills are paid". When the nation is in surplus. You don't go on vacation when you haven't paid the rent. You don't buy a Rolls Royce when you're living in your parents' garage. You don't buy Godiva chocolates when there's no food in the fridge or the cupboards to feed your kids.
When a tax cut requires a nation to borrow more money, adding to the deficit, increasing the national debt, that's robbing the People to give to the rich. Average Americans, our children, grandchild
Ten years ago, Bush's tax cuts were sold to us as "job creators" - "They'd stimulate the economy". They didn't then and they haven't since they became Obama's tax cuts last December. The money for Bush's tax cuts had to be borrowed. The money is all gone. We're now stuck with cleaning up the party that the rich had (investing overseas, in other nations, outsourcin
Working Americans are tired of paying for the parties of the rich. But it's even worse: We're not only paying for their parties, we're taking out loans so that they can stuff their mattresses
First, Obama needs to raise the debt ceiling irrespecti
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Three facts:
(1) Three days ago, Democratic Rep. John Conyers, appearing at a meeting of the Out of Poverty caucus, said: "The Republicans -- SpeakerBoe hner or MajorityLe aderCantor -- did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that" (video here, at 1:30);
(2) The reported deal on the debt ceiling is so completely one-sided -- brutal domestic cuts with no tax increases on the rich and the likelihood of serious entitlement cuts in six months with a "Super Congressio nal" deficit commission -- that even Howard Kurtz was able to observe: "If there are $3 trillion in cuts and no tax hikes, Obama will have to explain how it is that the Republican s got 98 pct. of what they wanted," while GroverNorq uist, the Right of the Right on such matters, happily proclaimed: "Sounds like a budget deal with real savings and no tax hikes is a go."
In other words, a slew of millionaire politician s who spent the last decade exploding the national debt with EndlessWar , a sprawling Surveillan ceState, and tax cuts for the rich are now imposing extreme suffering on the already-su ffering ordinary citizenry, all at the direction of their plutocrati c overlords, who are prospering more than ever and will sacrifice virtually nothing under this deal (despite their responsibi lity for the 2008 financial collapse that continues to spawn economic misery). And all of this will be justified by these politician s and their millionair e media mouthpiece s with the obscenely deceitful slogans of "shared sacrifice" and "balanced debt reduction" -- two of the most odiously Orwellian phrases since "Look Forward, not Backward" and "2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate" (and anyone claiming that Obama was involuntar ily forced by the "crazy" Tea Party into massive budget cuts at a time of almost 10% unemployme nt: see the actual facts here).
Bernie Sanders to Primary Obama? Don’t Make Me Laugh
[...]
It is unquestionable that the Tea Party moved the entire debt ceiling deal to the right. How did they do it? By taking out the people who failed them. Arlen Specter. Charlie Crist. Lincoln Chaffee. The people they felt betrayed their principles . Even if you don’t agree with those principles , their consistent adherence to them got results.
Whenever the talk of a primary comes up, I always ask “who is going to do this?” The answer is always someone like Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky, the same people whose job it is to put the Good Liberal Housekeepi ng Seal of Approval on whatever piece of neoliberal shit the White House cooks up to please the bond vigilantes . The people who suddenly become okay with war when the White House says so, who shake their fists in the air with outrage right before they fold, the people you can count on to always be there when there’s nothing they can do…and are nowhere to be found when they can.
There were 173 Democrats in the House – including Dennis Kucinich and every single member of the Progressive Caucus – who voted for Reid’s Catfood II Super Congress yesterday. The one that is designed to cut Social Security and Medicare. That’s what it’s there for. That’s the only reason it exists. To allow Congress to fork over the power entrusted to them by the citizens who elected them to an elite body that stands above congress itself, and escape electoral retributio n for doing something that 82% of the country does not want them to do.
[...]
Just when many if not most Americans are coming to realize that the US Senate is an anachronis
"I tells ya, they gots the game rigged no matter how we plays it." - Pogo
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The only thing "Alinskian
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
That means that you HAVE to accept the fact that a majority in this country voted for a GOP House. You can't just suppose that a majority actually supports Obama's ideas and then hope that Obama will govern as a dictator. That's not how democracy works
==========
In 2008, a majority in this country voted for a Democratic House, Senate and White House.
I expect a Democratic House, Senate and White House to legislate and govern as Democrats, NOT as Republican
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
What Bush taught us is that IF you're willing to lie to the American people, you can sell them anything. Obama prefers not to lie.
==========
Obama spins/lies as much as, and better than, Bush.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Mushy-mind
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people. Obama got his healthcare legislatio
During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. In 2006, we did. Nothing changed.
NancyPelos
They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".
In 2008, we gave them 60 for the Democratic
Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America than ever voted for any other presidenti
And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election and a filibuster
Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. Those who know anything about politics know that this was a dead giveaway that the last thing these politician
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
FDR didn't achieve the New Deal all on his own. He was able to sign the New Deal into law ONLY BECAUSE he had a Dem House AND a 60+ Dem majority in the Senate. Obama never had something like that. So from the very beginning, he had to compromise MUCH more.
The problem for the Dems is NOT "how to get more progressives in Congress", the problem for the Dems is: how to get more Dem INFLUENCE in Congress. That means that often it may be better to have a moderate Dem or even a Blue Dog than a progressiv e, as what Dems in Congress need is a team that can work together and find common ground, not only with Dems but also with Republican s. If not, no bill can ever pass Congress, and no progress can be made AT ALL. But these very pragmatic kind of problems are DIFFERENT than our problem as progressiv e citizens. Our problem is: HOW to move Congress more to the left? To do so we first of all need more Dems in Congress, and as 2009-2010 have shown, even a Blue Dog is better than the current GOP, because with Blue Dogs you still can pass historic legislatio n, with Republican s almost nothing is possible.
I certainly respect your opinion, but as I already said, to me you're what Saul Alinsky calls a "Rhetorical progressiv e". We share the same ultimate goals, but Rhetorical progressiv es always want the world to be changed BEFORE WE actually change it.
© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
