Debt deal revitalizes the Catfood Commission; nothing "clean" here

Or, some sort of surrogate for it.

As part of the deal on the Senate's bill that ended the federal government shutdown and pushed back the debt ceiling limit, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to fast track discussions on  what sure sounds like it will lead to "entitlement reforms:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday that under his agreement with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, the two leaders would name members to a bicameral budget conference committee “that will set our country on a long-term path to fiscal sustainability.” ...

The ultimate deal may end up looking like the one that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., proposed last week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “We could provide relief from the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act in exchange for structural reforms to entitlement programs.”

So, while the Democratic Party may have gotten a "clean" win in yesterday's votes, we the non-neoliberal people did not. Cue up the Catfood Commission theme music.

And, it will be harder for non-neoliberals to slow this down in the Senate:

“Probably the most important part of budget reconciliation is that a reconciliation bill can approve policy reforms with only 51 votes in the Senate,” said Loren Adler, the research director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This fast-track process “could be critical in increasing the chances for tax reform” and reform of entitlement programs to succeed.

Wunderbar. 

That's even though the Gipper himself knew that entitlements (theoretically, per Al Gore's "lockbox") weren't connected to the deficit:



Beyond that, some economists say the deficit is being reduced too quickly right now.

Obama surrenders on sequester and GOP knows it

Hey, Obamiacs, want to try defending his actions on the sequester, especially after the "cave" on smaller city air traffic controllers?

With the GOP crowing, you know you can't. Once again, Dear Leader and his self-believed mellifluous Kumbaya voice gets his 11-dimensional chess playing skills handed to him on a 12-dimensional board.

Add this to two years of 11-dimensional failure of playing with himself on the Bush Obama tax cuts, the Catfood Commission he appointed, and the admission by even some Democrats that Obamacare's headed for being a train wreck unless Dear Leader intervenes and fast.

Once again, "Soft bigotry of low expectations" when compared with Shrub. Nothing else.

Right now, if we double kindly give W. a double-gentleman's D, in wake of the Bush Library opening, Dear Leader gets at best a gentleman's C.

And, well in advance of 2016, you know the answer: Vote Green.

Especially because Dear Leader is about to get punked again by the GOP.

#Obama, #Obamiacs, crickets and Social Security

"Crickets" is the most likely sound we'll hear from Obamiacs after Dear Leader just "sold out" Social Security. (April 30: Crickets is not the sound from Democratic House members, struggling to distance themselves from Obama before midterm elcctions.)

Those who do feel compelled to speak will offer one of the following options:
A. This is the "best possible deal" he could get to prevent sequester-like problems from recurring.
B. He's actually got some secret political jujitsu planned because he knows the House GOP won't accept it.
C. Social Security actually is in trouble.

Response:
A. Bullshit. Obama is again compromising for compromise's sake because he continued to be in love with the allegedly messianic powers of his mellifluous voice. Once again, Shrub Bush's favorite line about "the soft bigotry of low expectations" exemplifies his successor.
B. I actually heard this in the run-up to the sequester. That's a sequester that Obama helped cause, by the way, in part because he's too dumb to deal with the GOP in the first place.
C. Spoken like a true neoliberal, anybody who says this. Actually, not all neolibs like this, even. Brat Pack op-eder (not a journalist) Matt Yglesias worries that Obama has created a political box for himself.

And, as for longer-term relief from austerity in Europe and austerity lite in the US?

A debt jubilee, or anything close to it, won't happen, to riff on Voltaire, until the last neoliberal politician is strangled with the entrails of the last neoliberal technocrat.

I think again of a Catfood Commission whose members were all appointed by Obama.

Meanwhile, there's lots more fun with Obama and social issues.

The very insightful Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer notes that a lot of businesses will opt out of continuing to offer their employees insurance next year.

Why?

The $2,000 per employee penalty is less than half their annual per-employee cost for their share of health insurance, on average.

And, if you're lower middle class and without insurance right now? Obamacare sounds great on paper. But ... paper's going to be part of the problem for people unaccustomed to the paperwork that insurers will snow them with. CJR has the extensive details on what this will probably be like, as America's Health Insurance Plans is surely loving this part of the self-gifting of the Obamacare it helped create.

Prrivate health care sux, as does privatization in general

How else to put it? The NYT has a damned good take on it, starting with for-profit nursing homes doping up people a lot more than nonprofit ones.

And, the piece gets worse, from there. Like this:

We let the private sector handle tasks other countries would never dream of moving outside the government’s purview. Consider bail bondsmen and their rugged sidekicks, the bounty hunters.

American TV audiences may reminisce fondly about Lee Majors in “The Fall Guy” chasing bad guys in a souped-up GMC truck — a cheap way to get felons to court. People in most other nations see them as an undue commercial intrusion into the criminal justice system that discriminates against the poor. 

The author notes it's part of the bullshit rugged individualist myth. 

That's the myth that sees under-50 Americans with the worst lifespan in any of 17 developed nations.

And a neoliberal president, with a "national health care" plan reliant on the private sector, with a Catfood Commission that could well push more privatization in other areas?

He doesn't care. Or at least gives no public indication of that.

Obamacare has no cost controls. It established no federal bureau for insurance regulation. Government PSAs for preventative health? When have you seen one?

Obama's Social Security sellout is starting - let the lies follow

Yeah, yeah, Obamiacs. Tell me how "he's better than the alternative." Tell me about how his hands are tied, etc.

And, I'll respond with reality.

So will Ronald Reagan, who also, to put it politely, sets Obama straight, or to put it bluntly, calls him a liar:



Obama's already caving on how COLAs will be calculated for Social Security. And he's also caving on the Bush Obama tax cuts ending, changing the baseline from $250K to $400K.

And, we're nowhere near a "deal" or Jan. 1, 2013 yet.

What's next?

Raising the retirement age?

Raising the Medicare eligibility age?

And what of substance is the GOP giving back?

Have we heard anything about raising rates on capital gains? Closing top-end loopholes?

No and no.

Simpson and Bowles will probably get invited to a White House press conference about the Catfood Commission's stamp of approval before that happens. Stand by for Dear Leader to continue compromising away the compromise.

Krugman says he's not sure on the deal parameters so far, and, he's not mentioning what else could be in the mix before we're done. Ezra Klein says it is indeed possible it will include Medicare age hikes.

So, I will actually be in the reality-based community.

Where the Obama-based community will be, I don't know.

Beyond a backstabber, he's a liar, if Social Security is being put in the mix in order to cut the deficit. Because we all know that FICA taxes have nothing to do with the deficit. Period. End of story.

Therefore, Obama acting as though they do? He's a liar. Sorry ... no other word for it. He's not claiming it's to help Social Security's solvency. Rather, it's part of a deficit/debt deal in the general budget, therefore he's a liar.

Will Harry Reid stand by his pledge last month to reject any "deal" that includes Social Security, or will he become a liar, too? Stay tuned. His most recent verbiage have him at least halfway firm, but, White House pressure to do any deal before Christmas will probably get hot and heavy.

For a realistic idea about what to do to try to stop this, go here.

Two bankrupt candidates, lying about bankruptcy

Well, Mitt Romney was right about one thing in tonight’s debate ­— both he and Barack Obama falsely believe (or at least profess to falsely believe) Social Secuirty is going bankrupt. Hence’s Romney’s desire to privatize it, and Obama’s Catfood Commission.

It was at that point, after about half an hour of tuning in, that I decided it was high time to tune out again and turn off the TV.

In “chess match” terms, Obama didn’t wax the floor with Romney, from what I saw, unlike Biden with Ryan. But, he did seem ahead on points, to use boxing analogies, while counterpunching a bit better than Romney and throwing his own jabs, too.

Sometime later this week, I’ll probably do a more in-depth post on one Democrat/Obamiac cherished anti-Green, etc., talking point — the appointment of Supreme Court justices — and myth vs. reality here.

Teapot Tommy has a Warren Buffet bromance

Tom Friedman once again plummets to the depths of his political column inanity. About the only thing he could have done worse this time is actually mention Americans Elect, and I'm surprised he didn't, even though it's a dying dodo.

He says Dear Leader didn't use Buffett well enough. That's true enough. And trite and trivial enough, to boot.


But, from that, he leverages into an entire column that's yet another paean to the mythical inside-the-Beltway (plus NYC extension) "centrism," which ignores that Dear Leader is, with the stumbling exception of gay rights, a centrist.


If an Overton window exists in the GOP, it's because a parallel Overton window exists in the febrile minds of "pundits" like Teapot Tommy.


The Teapot Tommy who ignores that the reason the GOP didn't play ball with Obama is because he's Kumbaya. The Teapot Tommy who ignores that Obama created the Catfood Commission.


If Teapot Tommy wanted to write a good "wasted" column, he'd write one about the Peter Principle and how he's wasting good op-ed turf at the NYT.


That's ignoring the fact that Warren Buffett ain't such a centrist, either. Besides his pablum, how specific does he want to get as to HOW to have him pay more taxes than his secretary? When Buffett mentions limiting deductions for executive pay and raising the capital gains tax rate, then we'll know he's at least more serious than Teapot Tommy Friedman.

What Obama should do in Term 2 -- and won't

Some of the staff at the under-new-ownership New Republic, on the grounds that President Obama has at least a 50-50 shot at re-election, offer up a laundry list of what he should do with that second term.


It's actually kind of laughable.


Civil liberties? From the Dear Leader who flip-flopped on telecom snooping immunity in the middle of the 2008 campaign? Talk like a liberal? Fat chance, if he's not already. Political reform? Won't happen, and fake "reform" wouldn't be extended to third parties, anyway. Fiscal policy? Well, his Catfood Commission has already proposed that. Real liberals shouldn't want more of the same.

Isn't this just one more exercise in "projecting" stuff onto Obama?


That all said,  the new ownership probably won't move TNR off its current neoliberal focal point. And, how do you "triangulate" off neoliberalism and Democratic Party policy?


Meanwhile, per the first link, I think all opinion journals would be smart to transition as much as possible to web-based publishing, given ongoing problems to be likely with second-class postal rates, delivery, paper costs, etc.

The #neolib budget sellout by #DearLeader starts

C'mon, now. Unless you're a diehard Obamiac, don't tell me you didn't see some of this coming months ago, no, more than a year ago, when he created the Catfood Commission.

From the latest on "debt supercommission" talks:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said President Barack Obama shares his view that the Pentagon should be shielded from any additional budget cutting.

 Showing just what's wrong with an imperialistic economy based on the military-industrial complex, Panetta then personalized the issue from his days in Congress:
Recalling his time as a member of the U.S. House, Panetta noted that a military base in his district was cut in 1994.

"I lost Fort Ord. ... That represented 25 percent of my local economy. So I know what it means to go through this process," he said. "We have to do this right, and we can do it right."

Fort Ord is in Monterey Bay. Monterey. Carmel. Garlic and strawberry growing capitals of the U.S. just a few miles inland, centered on Gilroy and Hollister. Santa Cruz and a university to the north.

Rather, Panetta should have been decrying that a fort was 25 percent of the economy in his 17th Congressional District. (Then the 16th.)

Dear Obama; Instead of cutting Medicare

Which you clearly want to do, and which both your Catfood Commission and the debt supercommission want to do even more of ...

Revisit Obamacare. Cut out a variety of corporate tax deductions in the medical world. Raise the maximum income subject to FICA tax. Do something to prove you're even close to actually being liberal.

And, this news from California shows that Obamacare, as well as the health care system it purports to fix, is broken.

And that's the bottom line. When a car has a blown engine, you don't pour new oil in that engine and crank it up again. You replace the engine.


Unless you're a neoliberal currying favor with Valvoline, to extend the analogy. And, that's exactly what Obama did with Obamacare. He bought a bunch of Valvoline from Big Pharma and poured it into a broken engine.

If necessary, you do so to forestall more radical action, like people saying the entire car needs to be replaced instead of just the engine. FDR knew that. He was able to double-deal in California in 1934 to undercut Sinclair Lewis, but knew that Huey Long and Charles Coughlin (pre-Nazi shark jumping) were a different matter. (I'm setting aside conspiracy theories about who "really" killed Huey Long.)

FDR knew that, for all the reservations he had about it (and he had a LOT, including forcing it to have a separate tax rather than coming out of general income taxes; take him off the pedestal here), that he needed to approve some form of Social Security or a Huey Long would indeed "primary" him in 9136.

Meanwhile, readers here: Get off the fence. Stop even thinking of voting for Dear Leader.

#Debtmaggedon - the Catfood duo weighs in

What else are Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson going to say other than the debt deal didn't cut enough?

First, while rhetorically mentioning the need for more defense cuts, they don't name specifics. Not one.

Second, they repeat alarmist claims about the need to cut Social Security a lot, and soon, if we don't "reform" it. Everything on Social Security they say is a lie, other than calling for raising the cap on income subject to FICA tax. On Medicare, they're a mix of laughable and clueless:

We should ask more of health care providers and drug companies through adjustments in payment formulas and increased drug rebates for Medicaid and Medicare, more from beneficiaries through more rational cost-sharing rules that discourage the overutilization of care, and more from lawyers through tort reform. And we need to cap growth in the long run.

"Ask more"? Like "Pretty please, Blue Cross, pretty please, Merck, don't gouge the public so much? "Rational cost-sharing rules?" That's an euphemism for higher co-pays, folks. "Tort reform"? The old GOP canard, cosigned by a neolib Democrat. "Cap growth"? That means ... stop getting so damned sick?

Third, they're kind of weaselly on taxes, too:

We need new revenue to finance the increasing costs of our health care system and an aging population — but it should come from reducing or eliminating tax breaks, not from higher rates. The tax code is riddled with annual tax breaks amounting to $1 trillion — most of which are just government spending in disguise. By reforming them, we can reduce individual and corporate tax rates in a way that keeps the tax code progressive while promoting economic growth and reducing the deficit at the same time.

They don't name which ones, probably because they know the firestorm over killing the mortgage interest deduction.

Remember, though, folks, Preznit Kumbaya still wants something along the lines of what they're talking about.

Should we officially call Obama a neocon?

Will Obama snatch defeat from the jaws of debt talks victory?

That was the original title for this blog post, but I realized it had become something more ... the more that's the new title.

And, about that?

Answer at the end of this post.

Well, of course, would be the obvious example. If even David Brooks can find a blind-hog acorn by pointing out the problems with Obama's "consensus" style of what passes for leadership, you know this is a concern and not just inside the MSM.

On debt ceiling talks with the GOP, the L.A. Times nails it:

(E)ven if Obama were to gain all the tax-law changes he wants, new revenue would make up only about 15 cents of each dollar in deficit reduction in the package. An agreement by the Republicans to accept new revenue would be a political victory for Obama because "no new taxes" has been such an article of faith for the GOP.

That's just half the problem, though. Here's the bigger half:

Acquiescing to GOP demands would be the third major compromise for Democrats in the past year — a point of considerable frustration for the party's liberal base. Despite Democratic opposition, Congress voted in December to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and agreed this spring to steep budget reductions to avert a federal government shutdown.

Some Democrats believe Obama set the stage for the current situation by opening negotiations on deficit reduction this spring with a proposal that contained a 3-to-1 ratio between spending reductions and tax increases. Administration officials defend that move, saying the president began discussions at what one senior official called a "realistic starting point," not one designed to maximize his bargaining position.

Well, wrong, Preznit Kumbaya.

As with the stimulus package, you negotiated away the compromise in public before it was time to start compromising. And, this time, we can't even blame Rahm Emanuel for this. And, neither can you.

It's clear that you WANT to have "compromises" like this, Mr. Semiconservative, no longer even a neoliberal.

You're the same Preznit Grover Cleveland Obama who appointed all the members of that Catfood Commission, and never disavowed its work. For all we know, you're making a side deal with members of the Congressional GOP as we speak.

Seriously, shouldn't we start calling Obama a neoconservative? Given that he started from an affiliation with the "radical" reformer Saul Alinsky, similar to the left-wing roots of many of today's neocons, has connections to the University of Chicago, if not its economics school, has become boxed-in on his position vis-a-vis Israel and will probably shift further right, and is a clear global warmonger beyond the wet dreams of GOP neocons, we probably should.

I see I'm not the first on this ... two years ago, a Harper's article called him Barack Hoover Obama. I think the general comparison is true ... brainy but by the book, even though in pre-presidential lives, these people had operated outside the book at times.

However, there's a difference. I think Hoover, more than Obama, recognized the magnitude of the problem facing the country at that time. And, pre-FDR, there was little template for boldness.

Obama has the the advantage of seeing that template. He has the advantage of much more being developed in economic policy theory in 80 years since Hoover was president.

And yet ...

He chooses to be "incremental" in change. Or, not even wanting real "change" in fiscal and economic policy, whether on taxation, regulation, or other issues.

Douthat lies about corporate income taxes

Technically, it's a half-truth to claim, as the Rosster does, that:

(T)he private sector has to labor under one of the higher corporate tax rates in the developed West.

True that our marginal rates are that high, but when the S-corporations, LLPs, LLCs, etc., all the way up to the Koch brothers, pay little to no corporate taxes year after year, not telling the American public that our effective rate on corporate income taxes is pretty much the lowest in the developed West -- especially when you should and do (I assume) know better -- is an outright lie.

Beyond that, the rest of the column is, unsurprisingly, a largely uncritical acceptance of Obama's Catfood Commission. No surprise that Douthat was one of the conservative columnists invited to dinner with Obama two years ago.

I can cut the deficit better than the NYT

The New York Times, in an interactive page, lets readers try to balance the budget. Even within the NYT's chintzy constraints, I actually produced a surplus.

Among the chintzy constraints? It won't let you get ALL troops out of A-stan and Iraq by 2015; no surprise from the warmongers there. It also won't let you address corporate income tax loopholes, just some individual ones.

If the NYT would allow all the tax changes I'd like, I'd produce a $300 billion surplus by 2030, without breaking a sweat.

That said, I do agree with it and the Catfood Commission on eliminating a few individual income tax exemptions, above all the mortgage interest deduction. It would stop McMansions, speculative home buying and other evils. It's about the only Catfood Commission idea, other than inadequate defense cuts, I agree with.

Wrong on the deficit, GOP

The federal budget deficit only ranks No. 5 on Americans' worries. Unemployment has passed general economic concerns into No. 1. Will Obama listen, or will he listen more to his Catfood Commission?