SocraticGadfly: Democrats who still don't get it on the GOP, the budget, and Catfood!

May 08, 2013

Democrats who still don't get it on the GOP, the budget, and Catfood!

And, no, this time, it's NOT Dear Leader, President Obama, who doesn't "get it."

It's a Democratic Senator.

The Washington Post has a story about how the shrinking budget deficit is gutting the likelihood of grand deals on debt-cutting.

First, how shrinking?

This:
In February, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that this year’s deficit would fall to $845 billion, down from nearly $1.1 trillion in 2012. Goldman Sachs recently predicted that the deficit would fall even further, to $775 billion, and return to sustainable levels within two years.
Take THAT, austerians, Catfood Commission, etc.

In turn, that's pushing back the next time the Congressional GOP gets to hold America hostage via hitting the debt ceiling limit.

That, in turn, has House GOP wingnuts like Eddie "Paul Ryan" Munster boo-hooing.

Now, the "Democrats who still don't get it." And, the Democrats who are "part of the problem."

They're the same person, this time:
“The American people — all of us — are tired of management by crisis,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said at the Peterson summit. “We need to start working now.”
WTF?

First, why is an alleged liberal like Patty Murray at a Pete Peterson (aka Catfood Commission eminence grise) "debt summit"? The same one Eddie Munster was at, to boot?

If you want to get a clue, read about austerity costing 2.2 million jobs.
That's the conclusion of a new study by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney at the Brookings Institution. In the 46 months since the Great Recession ended, state, local and federal governments have cut about 500,000 jobs. In contrast, in every other U.S. recession since 1970, the government hired approximately 1.7 million people, on average. That means the U.S. is an estimated 2.2 million jobs in the hole.

Given the size of the U.S. labor force, an extra 2.2 million jobs would mean the U.S. unemployment rate would be about 6.1 percent, instead of 7.5 percent. That would be below the 6.5 percent rate the Federal Reserve is targeting with its extraordinary bond-buying program known as quantitative easing.
Second, if "The American people — all of us" includes "House GOP," you're dead wrong. As your own party's cave on airport traffic controllers shows, the House GOP has seen management by crisis kind of, sort of, work, for its own ends.

Ergo, given A and B, and to riff on LBJ, er ... Patty?

Eddie Munster's got your ovaries in his pocket.

And, once again, people ask me why I continue to push Green Party voting?

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