Obama Blasts Mitt Romney's Debate Candor: 'You Owe The American People The Truth'

Peterson is not new to the austerity scene. From 2007 to 2011, he personally contributed at least $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which portrays all government spending as in crisis, desperately needing dramatic cuts. Peterson’s millions have done next to nothing to change public opinion: In survey after survey, Americans reject the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare. A recent national tour largely funded by the foundation met with audiences who rebuffed its proposals.

It doesn’t matter if the public won’t buy the dog food. The politicians have. They’ve been positioning themselves to get this done for over two years. Only tax-averse Republicans who wouldn’t provide the cover needed for all the cuts stopped the deal the first time. And they have this massive machine to contend with from the Big Money Boys. These are people who want politicians to quit whining about poor people. They would rather keep them marginalized.

The President had an opportunity to defend social insurance programs last night, and he started with a dodge to give himself maximum political maneuverability before moving (not very convincingly) to a set of animating values about the people who need these benefits (without commenting on whether current benefits are adequate). This was pretty transparently discomforting.

I actually thought there was a decent enough debate about Medicare on both sides, but in the end it comes down to someone who wants to radically transform the system and someone who wants to, in his words, “tweak” it. And that means both sides are playing on the same side of the field.

Last night's debate was an expression of both candidates’ shared view of the importance of deficits and budget-balancing over our needs. Keynes is dead; long live Pinochet/Friedmanomics.

The whole premise of that opening, endless exchange about taxes turned on the fact that BOTH of these cruds care more about the deficit than about creating jobs or programs to help people in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Depression.

In the end both of the candidates agreed on the issues that were most important to the ruling class, and Romney won because he did it all with more passion and surprising fluency.
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