If you’re going to play the dumb beltway game of being fiscally responsible in a recession, then the smart move is to put out a budget-cutting plan that takes effect mostly in the out years, leverages cuts you were already going to make (like ending wars) and doubles the opposition’s deficit reduction number by adding in tax increases on millionaires. That’s what Obama appears to have proposed. He’s also backing it up with a promise to veto any plan that doesn’t include a tax increase on the wealthy. If the best that Saint Paul Ryan can do is call it “class warfare”, that’s a war I’m willing to sign up for.
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Samara Morgan
The big problem in America is the perception of Wall Street’s relationship to Main Street.
While it true that what hurts Wall Street hurts Main Street (because the bankstahs and the “freed” market make it so), but what helps Wall Street doesn’t neccessarily help Main Street.
i dont know how you correct for that.
Mark S.
Most millionaires aren’t that well off. They’re just middle class like you and me.
Mino
Very likely to be his platform for the election. It sure ain’t going anywhere in the House.
burnspbesq
Campaign rhetoric is all this is as a practical matter. But it’s the right kind of campaign rhetoric.
WereBear
It has the added virtue of being true.
Samara Morgan
@Mino: not until the PIGS (portugal, italy, greece, spain) crash the euro-economy and we start seeing euro-style street riots in America.
There is plenty of time for that to happen in the runup to Nov 2012.
lacp
Spending cuts or tax increases? Gee, I wonder which one stands a chance of getting passed. It is a mystery…
beltane
Most people would like to see some class warfare; it is certainly preferable to the class rout we’re seeing now.
And for those who like to ask “When is the last time a poor person gave anyone a job?”, let us remind them that their servile, grovelling attitude towards the rich omits the fact that a job is not charity, and it is always the employer who benefits from the relationship more than the employee. I’d love to see an example of someone who became rich all on his own, without any employees doing the work for him (or her). Please do not include trust fund babies in your answer. A trip through the birth canal of a rich man’s wife does not count as work in this analysis.
danimal
Sign me up, too, Mrmix.
There are more of us than there are of them.
magurakurin
@lacp: According to the President, if we are to take him at his word, the only thing that stands a chance is both, since he will veto cuts only. But through the House, yeah, cuts only. This is what people have been calling for Obama to do for quite some time now. Draw a line in the sand and push for a tax on the wealthy even if it has no chance in hell of happening. I hope those same folks won’t now decide to call Obama a loser when he can’t get the tax increases though.
Thomas
Bill Clinton kicking ass on The Today show this a.m. Called out the GOP for always saying that tax increases on the wealthy will cause job losses. Called them out for being extreme, etc.
OzoneR
This will do precisely nothing to either his approval ratings or chances at getting anything passed, and instead two months from now the left will be complaining he didn’t fight hard enough because his ideas didn’t come to fruition.
Mino
@magurakurin: I hope the Republicans are stupid enough to give him a bill to veto.
Samara Morgan
@OzoneR: that is false.
Obama can let the Bush tax cuts expire in toto in December.
In a way, this is a veiled threat to do just that.
then he can craft a bill for tax relief for the middle class only and let the teabagger GOP try to demagogue that.
Marc
@OzoneR:
I think he’s going to use two things for his re-election campaign:
1) I want a jobs program that the Republicans blocked;
2) I want to fix the long-term deficit, and the sensible way to do it is to end the wars and raise taxes on the wealthy.
It’s hard for me to see a better plan for him, given that everything will be blocked. And the Republicans appear perfectly willing to jump off a cliff on the subject of taxes for their masters, so I’m confident that this will work.
OzoneR
@Samara Morgan:
Next December
and he will, as he did the first time only to have Democrats refused to vote on it, and Republicans will demagogue it as class warfare, and they’ll win anyway, because people want jobs not ideas that can’t pass, and liberals will blame Obama.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And if you hear of people decrying it as class warfare, say “Yeah, the rich have been fighting a class war against the rest of us for 30 years. It’s a shame you just woke up to it.”
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
So much of the Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, and Grover Norquist.
magurakurin
@Mino: I wonder. One of the shocking things about Boehner’s House is just how few bills they really have passed. They’ll probably just wait until this next “government shutdown showdown” sucks all the oxygen out of the room so they don’t have to do anything.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@magurakurin: There’s a chart on Rachel Maddow that shows that the worst configuration for job and wage growth in the country is to have Republicans in charge of the House.
RosiesDad
I’m with you. And on that, this was sent to me by a friend this morning. A talking point progressives can latch hold of–Cheap Labor Conservatives.
Mino
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): That is an excellent meme to get out there.
El Cid
I think it’s pretty gutsy given the past decade’s dominant ideology to propose large tax hikes on the rich, whatever the realities of the policies would be. It’s very in-the-face of the conservative-loving billion dollar media and their hacks.
El Cid
“Class warfare,” you’d think, would actually be about destroying or at least completely defeating until surrender an entire class.
This is more of a class price-hike, or a class raising of the homeowners’ association fees.
Mino
@El Cid: LOL. It’s at least a change in the tax rhetoric.
Special Patrol Group
It’s just like those Lucky Duckies to engage in class warfare.
burnspbesq
I have this fantasy about Eric Canor sitting right in the front row of his temple at Rosh Hashana services next week, and being called out by name by his rabbi for failing to advance the cause of social and economic justice in America. Probably won’t happen, but it should.
burnspbesq
If I were Greek, I’d have a special message for Wolfgang Schauble.
Special Patrol Group
If Paris Hilton’s marginal tax rate is marginally increased, the Moochers win.
Zagloba
@burnspbesq: Do we know that his shul is on the progressive side?
Mino
@burnspbesq: Whoah, can you get a note to his rabbi?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Exactly. And they’ve been winning.
4tehlulz
@burnspbesq: Are you paying for his rabbi’s tax attorney?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Samara Morgan: You are dreaming if you think anything like European riots are coming here.
Jewish Steel
@burnspbesq:
A-fucking-men. Talk about your shonda.
Roger Moore
@Samara Morgan:
More realistically, not until John Boehner thinks his Speaker gig is at risk. I don’t think a little thing like riots is enough to scare the Republicans; they’ll just call for more police, the National Guard, etc. Losing the election is the only thing that really scares them.
harlana
OT but sorta related, surprised the E. Warren post only got 36 comments(??) – it’s only the death of the middle class. Maybe it’s just too damned depressing
schlemizel - was Alwhite
The wealthy better be spending a ton of money on guns and ammunition because if these loons have their way with us I think there is a very high probability that there will be real class warfare in a few years.
harlana
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): indeed, people will be shot dead on sight, if it ever comes to that
Senyordave
@burnspbesq: My guess is Cantor belongs to the type of Synagogue where they hung banners during the Gaza attack saying how much they support Israel and that Israel was being as humanitarian as possible (by only targeting infrasturcture – I actually saw a letter to the editor from a Rabbi claiming this). At some Synagogues, social justice would never be discussed, nor desired because they would have to examine Israel’s policies.
Mino
@harlana: Amen. Crowd control has come a loooong way since dogs and firehoses. And in this environment even a Kent State event would be applauded by the polis.
Dr.BDH
Cutting Medicare. How is that going to help?
OzoneR
@Samara Morgan:
We won’t and if we did, most Americans will want to see them crushed.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
As it happens, I just finished reading Zinn’s A People’s History of The United States. Class warfare has been going on in the United States for half a millennium, at the very least, and has been been part of civilization’s story everywhere on the planet for thousands of years.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Dr.BDH: Any mention of benefit cuts? No? Then I wouldn’t be overly concerned.
Dr.BDH
Yes, the Early Show reported Medicare cuts as part of the President’s anticipated deficit reduction package.
burnspbesq
@4tehlulz:
Fuck, I’ll do it pro bono.
OzoneR
@Dr.BDH:
not benefit cuts, cuts to overpayments to providers.
Ash Can
@Dr.BDH: Omnes means, be more specific — was it benefit cuts?
(Edited to acknowledge that I was beaten to it, and to correct punctuation fail.)
bk
Does that guy look like Eddie Haskell, or what?
Omnes Omnibus
@ Dr.BDH: I asked about benefit cuts.
Mark
@burnspbesq: I had this fantasy about Joe Lieberman’s rabbi during the ACA process. So I emailed him and asked him to say something about it:
“What you suggest is illegal. As clergy in a tax exempt institution, we are not allowed to take public political positions. That would jeopardize our synagogue’s tax exempt status. Our political positions are private.
Also, I believe in separation of church and state. Even if I believed that the Jewish law had a position on this issue, I think that politicians should do what’s best for the country. I don’t think Halacha has a definite idea on health insurance.”
First of all, Halacha says a lot about access to medical care, which is why Israel has single-payer and why virtually every Jewish organization came out in favor of health care reform in 1993…
But second, what a sack of shit. We had just watched the catholic bishops try to pull their bullshit through Bart Stupak, but he thinks it would be illegal for him to talk to Joe Lieberman?
I think you’ll find that the assholes in congress find religious people who are willing to cover for them.
eemom
I see…..I see……the future……it’s an argument about cuts vs “cuts”……
eemom
@Mark:
helped right along by Cantor. One of the more amusing sideshows in that circus, I thought, was when Idiot Eric gave an impassioned speech declaring that he “stood with the Bishops” on the abortion issue.
Wonder what his rabbi thought of THAT.
harlana
@Amir Khalid:
y’know, i get that and all, but, naively, i really thot we were better than this, as a nation (y’know, special and all that) and i’m not really sure why we feel the need to regress as opposed to move forward towards greater equality
but that seems to be what the public wants, thanks american electorate, for taking us rational people down with you! really appreciate that. only don’t expect us to help you when you land flat on your @ss, k? on your own, pull self up by bootstraps, etc. – don’t forget, you ASKED for this
FlipYrWhig
@Dr.BDH:
Via Benen, here’s the official White House fact sheet about the proposal.
Scroll down to “Health Savings.”
Do we really have to go through yet again the difference between “Medicare cuts” as reducing overspending on/in the program, on the one hand, vs. as reduced payments to beneficiaries?
The fact sheet specifies “Any savings that affect beneficiaries do not begin until 2017.” I don’t know what that specifically means, and I’d be happy to see health policy experts and advocates slug it out over the implications.
ksmiami
As George Carlin said before, the rich have a club and you ain’t in it. Believe me, I would rather live in a fair society with great infrastructure and immunizations than Hobessian England, or Somalia – um hello we’ve been down that route before. It was rather unpleasant.
2012 – CAN WE PLEASE DEFEAT the CONFEDERATE GOP?
giltay
In another time or another place, “class warfare” would be called “standing up and fighting for the little guy”.
Omnes Omnibus
@ eemom: To use a personal budget analogy, if I go through my checking account statement and find that I am still paying an AOL membership, I can eliminate it and cut my budget without “cutting” into my lifestyle one whit. I can also call my cable company and renegotiate my rates for current services, thus cutting my expenses but not my services. Just sayin’.
FlipYrWhig
Also, the title of the OP has managed to get stuck in my head “Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@eemom: So, if Obama signed a bill eliminating the entire Medicare Advantage system, moving everyone back under regular Medicare, you would decry it as a reduction in benefits?
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: [boggle] You just compared the government to a household budget! You’re validating Republican memes! Oh my God, what have you DONE?! Take it back, take it back, before someone sees and makes us all eat cat food, and not those boutique grain-free brands… _corporate_ cat food! NOOOOoooooOOOO!!
FlipYrWhig
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m pretty sure eemom was preparing for other people’s imminent displays of obliviousness on the subject, not joining in with them.
Princess
Seems like Obama’s political team is setting his economic policy now, rather than his economic team. And they are doing a much better job of it…
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m still trying to figure out why Bush calling himself a “compassionate conservative” was co-opting Democratic memes but Obama calling tax increases on the rich “deficit reduction” is validating Republican memes. Is it a Lakoff thing?
ETA: Obviously, I know you’re being sarcastic, but I really am starting to get pissed off at people for taking phrases at face value when we just had to spend 8 years deconstructing the freakin’ language every time Bush opened his mouth to figure out what Democratic/liberal idea he was trying to co-opt this time.
harlana
@giltay:
which now, apparently, translates into “soshulism”
maya
As an adjunct tactic to the upcoming (class) War of 2012, with it’s accompaning Second burning of Washington, Tea Partiers should be asked, whenever encountered, this simple question: WHO’s tea was it that was thrown into Boston harbor, friend? Was it Obama’s tea? Nope. Was it Liberal or Union Tea? Ha! Hardley. It was the British East India COMPANY’s Tea!
You (Tea Partiers) aren’t the second coming of any colonial revolutionaries. You are an historical misnomer. You’re actually more like the hired goons for Koch Industries and shall henceforth be known as The Pinkerton Party.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Oh, yeah, you and me both. The lefty blogosphere doesn’t get the idea of co-opting rhetoric — it’s like a one-drop rule, where any fleeting instance of apparent Republicanism in deed, word, or attitude proves its user entirely Republican.
Judas Escargot
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
This is true. American riots will have more guns present than their European counterparts. Also, more trucker hats.
Apples and oranges.
canuckistani
Sign up for it? You’ve been on the front lines of class warfare since the day you were born.
Frankensteinbeck
Princess:
Obama has always set his own economic policy, and it hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that it’s campaign season and people are listening. Even the MSM who reeeeally don’t want to.
Svensker
@harlana:
Union thugs.
Bruce S
Looks like the President failed to follow the advice of progressives again. I’ve read a lot of passionate claims here that cutting the cost of living adjustments on Social Security and raising the Medicare eligibility age were changes in so-called “entitlements” that progressives should get behind to reduce deficits.
I can’t understand why Obama failed, once again, to fulfill the expectations of his “base” among commenters here and at places like People’s View and didn’t propose any of this stuff. Maybe he actually thought it sucked as policy or maybe he was just doing his usual wimpy thing of compromising with people who relentlessly criticize him…like Jared Bernstein, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, etc. etc.
Doesn’t he know those guys won’t be satisfied no matter what he does?
boss bitch
@Bruce S:
You need to stop lying about what is argued on this site and stop trashing The People’s View. Actually I’m sort of happy some of you are uhm irritated by that site. That it deals with facts and calls bull shit on firebagger lies is a wonderful thing.
Again, stop lying and argue using facts. And yeah, progressives can go fuck themselves.
desraye
Could it be that he was never going to do these things? I also read alot of passonate claims that Obama was going to cut Social Security and Medicare that some progressives kept claiming that would happen.
Emma
@Bruce S: I’ve read a lot of passionate claims here that cutting the cost of living adjustments on Social Security and raising the Medicare eligibility age were changes in so-called “entitlements” that progressives should get behind to reduce deficits.
Linkie, please. I don’t remember ever seeing that one.
Davis X. Machina
@Senyordave: Like all good Jews, my wife has a shul she used to go to and wouldn’t be caught dead in now.
She calls it ‘Temple B’Nai MW.’
Omnes Omnibus
@ Bruce S.: Who here passionatel advocated for those changes? My memory is that people argued that decrease in COLA rates was not a cut.
Bruce S
Actually, I read about this in mainstream news reports citing “White House sources” that the President had negotiated with Boehner offering COLA cuts and an increase in the Medicare eligibility age. Rather than respond with the simple and true observation that this is bad policy were it truly “on the table”, or with evidence that no such cuts were actually being offered, there was a “push-back” at Party Line Hack outlets like People’s View or certain voices here that shall remain unnamed that this was actually a fine idea. That Obama heard other voices making the more serious argument that this was both bad policy and bad politics is undoubtedly irrelevant in the eyes of those folks who bent over backward – or tried to bend the rest of us over – justifying this stuff in the event that it actually was promoted by the President.
Whether they were one factor in this crap not being “on the table” in the President’s proposals or not, the positions of the “non-hacks” appear to be more consistent with the President’s actual policies than the apologists whose scrambling to rationalize added to the fears that this might actually be the view from the Oval Office. At least as of today, it’s not. The reality is that there is at least the possibility that we can thank the folks who made noises about bad policy and politics for the quality of the actual package we are discussing today. As for the apologists-for-anything, we know we can thank them for nothing but echoing Republican talking points.
desraye
Really?
Bruce S
“My memory is that people argued that decrease in COLA rates was not a cut.”
This has been hashed over and quite frankly, the folks who made that argument are using the same logic that Paul Ryan uses to claim that he’s not cutting Medicare by linking his vouchers to cost-of-living rather than cost-of-health-care.
“Changing the basis of increase is not a cut!” Chained CPI isn’t anything close to being on the same scale, but it uses the same bogus logic if the claim is that it’s not a “cut in benefits.” It is, over time, without question. The reason that false logic was being applied with such desperation is because the apologists were responding to the same reports that this stuff was being discussed within the White House that the Evil Emoprogs were, but their impulse, rather than critiquing it as policy – whether it was official or “anonymously sourced” by mainstream news, including folks like Ezra Klein – was preemptively attempting to rationalize it. Let’s get real as to what was going on and why.
The only reason I’m being ironic about this one here is because as late as yesterday I was called “stupid” for having actual math skills as opposed to mouthing bullshit to make myself feel good.
Marc
Bruce, people were arguing with you about a completely different point. Instead of trying to score retroactive debating points, it may be more productive to look at what the president actually did.
I like it. There is a good emphasis on tax raises for the rich, military cuts, and what look to be reasonable ideas on entitlements.
It will be interesting to see the reaction on all fronts. In our puddle, this will distinguish between the hardcore Obama rejectionists and those who are still listening to him. I’ll be keeping score…
Bruce S
#75 – Emma – are you serious? Read any ABL thread where the arguments went fast and furious about how these weren’t real cuts. I have no intention of wasting my time re-reading those typically 500+ comment threads, but why the hell would anyone make that argument if they weren’t trying to justify the policies and feared that the reports they were bashing were, in fact, true? My original comment was couched in ironic terms, for anyone who is challenged on that front.
Bruce S
#81 – actually, this was absolutely part of the argument. You were on the thread. Yesterday.
Maybe the reason I’m enjoying a moment of irony is because I knew memories would be short. I like the President’s proposal as well. And I’m glad that these issues were brought to the fore for debate. It’s likely that it helped make the proposal more solid, both as policy and as politics.
Bruce S
Marc – yeah, let’s definitely move forward…while you’re keeping score! Glad you’re in such an open and conciliatory mood.
Neo
This certainly makes clear the truth of “Medi-Scare” or the “Big Lie” .. or both.
Bruce S
Incidentally, the snarky attacks on “the left” started at comment #12. My first comment – intended ironically, I note once again – was at #73.
But, yeah…I need to move forward. Not that I expect anything to change here among the usual suspects.
TenguPhule
In the War against the Cruel Rich and Republicans, No Quarter and No Prisoners.
Neo
I guess this takes “Medi-Scare” off the table for the election.
But it leaves the question unanswered .. how many times can Obama take moeny from Medicare before anybody actually notices ?
$500 billion taken as part of ObamaCare, now nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending.
central texas
Now if he manages to go 72 hours without announcing a standard preemptive capitulation, I’ll begin to, er, hope, that we are making progress.
Marc
@Bruce S:
You’re still playing the same rhetorical games Bruce, and still not figuring out that acting like a jerk doesn’t persuade.
Marc
@Marc:
To clarify, we were having a discussion here; you then came in and claimed that the budget choices made by the president somehow vindicated you. Because we were talking about whether some choices were “cuts”, or changes in the accounting for inflation. So, naturally, a budget that doesn’t include them proves…something…about the nature of such hypothetical choices.
And you then added a bunch of wounded sneering about how this was all the fault of the left, or something. Yup, totally productive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bruce S: Goal post moving. Well done. I wasn’t rearguing that issue. IIRC, at one point, we agreed it was basically a semantic argument. In avy case, my point was that that discussion did not constitute a passionate argument that benefits needed to be cut.
Bruce S
Marc – with all due respect, I don’t find your whining and obfuscation particularly productive. And your attempts to hang stuff on my that I haven’t said are standard “jerk” IMHO. False claims of civility.
Bruce S
Omnes Omnia – I don’t claim that you made passionate arguments – but some made strong arguments that these cuts should be embraced by “progressives” and that this entire issue was being ginned up by some Evil Emoprogs or Firebaggers. Those goal posts haven’t been moved. The reality is that the folks defending those cuts or raises in Medicare eligibility age were doing it because THEY thought Obama was likely to propose such – otherwise why make those arguments?
Folks like to play games here…simple as that. There’s already crap in another thread accusing the chairs of the Progressive Caucus of “hating” the President…
Some serious pathologies on both sides of this one…what burns my ass is the self-righteousness of so many who yell “Left!” or “Firebagger” at the first signs of serious debates among Dems or suggestions that the White House could use or should listen to some advice from outside of their inner circle. The “progressives” who criticized any benefit cuts to SS or Medicare look a hell of a lot less foolish and divisive today than the characters who were trying to gin up support before the fact and are still screaming about “the left.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Bruce S:
You know what, if you want to focus your attention on what people like OzoneR or a couple of the Obama is capable of no wrong crowd, go ahead, but don’t be surprised if people coming from the side that generally supports the President focus on the loudest extremists either. The is a conversation going on, on this blog, underneath the shouting. If you want to actually be a part of it, you need look past the provocations once in a while.