Obama plays 12-dimensional #SocialSecurity chess with 11-dimension mind, gets burned

Eleven-dimensional chess is the inside-the-Beltway idea of a master politician thinking not just one move ahead, but at least one dimension ahead, of his foes.

Obamiacs both inside and outside the Beltway, in things like the Bush Obama tax cuts, the sequester, and now budget deals, have consistently said that we mere true liberal mortals couldn't see ahead the end result of Obama's 11-dimensional moves.

Well, it seems like the GOP is handing him his hat in the 12th dimension on chained CPI for Social Security, older eligibility age for Medicare, and more.

And, per the second page of the story, the right-wing talking machine is already spreading lies:

“Politically, this is not a winner. Our brand is the party that brought you Social Security,” said Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), adding that his mother said she had heard that Obama was eliminating benefits for people older than 80. “We’ve now opened up the door for rumors about how Social Security will be reduced or eliminated. We don’t need that.”

Wow.

Followed by this:

The Club for Growth, another group that promotes conservative economic policies, threatened to find a primary opponent for Walden. President Chris Chocola noted that in 2005 “it was Republicans who said no” to President George W. Bush’s more ambitious plan to overhaul Social Security by adding private accounts.

Nooo, it was we the progressive people who helped stop it.

So, these are the folks whom Obama thought he could sweet talk with his mellifluous voice singing Kumbaya. (April 30: Democratic House members eying midterm elections are trying to distance themselves from that voice.)

Meanwhile, the "most transparent administration in history" signs into law the bill I saw last week, where Congress exempts its own members and staffers from online financial disclosures.

Obamiacs must have perpetual flu viruses; they can't wake up and smell coffee.

Once again, Obama, and Obamiacs, demonstrate the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I am more and more at the point where I fully think Obama's a worse president than Jimmy Carter.

But, just at times I wonder whether W. was that stupid, or rather, he was that devious, I wonder whether Dear Leader is that politically naive, or its more he's that, that, that neoliberal, that, re the Obamiacs, he's in Dimension 13, looking for even more austerity.

Sequester blame game? It's at least 50-50 Obama

I have said before that Barack Obama was one-third to blame for the sequester because, when he agreed to the idea back in 2011, he believed he was dealing with generally rational critters amongst House Republicans when, by late fall 2011 when he made that deal, he had plenty of evidence to prove him wrong.

Pushing the blame more than one-third into Obama's court is the idea that, then, and possibly even now, he continued to believe in the powers of his mellifluous voice (thanks, soft bigotry of low expectations) to have charms to soothe the savage wingnut breast. Wrong.

Pushing the blame level to 50 percent Dear Leader or higher? His negotiating away too much on the tax side on the "fiscal cliff," with the sequester looming in the headlights ahead, made his negotiating position weaker.

Putting 50-50 at the starting point at least? He's the man who appointed the Catfood Commission more than three years ago, the gang that started us down this road in the first place.

Now, I don't totally agree with Bob Woodward's take on the actual 2011 lowdown. But, he's not totally wrong, either.  And, for all that's wrong with Woody, being a consummate Beltway guy means he actually has a fair amount of cred on an issue like this.

As for Andrew Sullivan calling Woody a liar, hell, there's not that many black pots and kettles in Paula Deen's kitchen. And, no, I wouldn't pay Sully for a subscription to read shite like this.

Hell, for all we know, Obama may kind of want this to be going down. He'll eventually get to austerity-lite, blame the GOP, and tell Dems this was the best he could do. (Sully gets that fact spot-on in his link.) And a lot of Obamiacs will continue to ... stand by their man. Even if Hillary's not there baking cookies and going to teas any more.

Yes, tea partiers may love the sequester, but, Obama had to know that by late 2011, and he doesn't totally hate it himself. With librulz NOT part of the reality-based community on this issue, we're going to hear more Obamiac nonsense in days ahead.

#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.

#Debtmageddon: Boehner passes DOA bill

Techically, the sticking pile of crapola that just passed the House does meet President Obama's requirement of pushing the debt ceiling issue past the 2012 elections - with one big catch.

The House plan would raise it by $900 billion, allowing the government to pay its bills for about six more months, but with another $1.6 trillion increase possible if the House and Senate agree — by a two-thirds vote — to a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Boehner knows that's not going to happen. Tea partiers in the House GOP know the same. So, Boehner's final bill is all about posturing. This turkey will die in the Senate, even if the antiquated rules there mean we have to wait until Monday for it to die.

Of course, that means a full weekend of additional posturing by both halves of the duopoly, while we wait to see, and ponder, how many House Republicans will sign off on Harry Reid's bill if it passes the Senate.

Of course, that's a big if right there. What if the GOP does the fake filibuster threat? Will Reid force the Senate GOP into an actual filibuster? Does Mitch McConnell really want to go down that road?

And, what if Team Obama can pick off enough House Republicans to get Reid's bill passed? What happens to those folks within their own caucus? And, are House Dems dumb enough to try to recruit any of them as blue dogs?

But that's all about political theater. Let's look at political realities.

The Reid bill is little better.

Whether as debt theater, or as what the country really needs, it's little better.

Alleged savings from Iraq and Afghanistan? Please. With the Peace Prize Prez who hasn't met a war on his watch that is, per his 2002 non-antiwar speech, "rash and stupid"?

Medicare savings? Not a chance. Not when, year after year, Congress votes not to implement tighter Medicare payments to doctors.

And, there's many more alleged deficit cuts in both Reid's bill and Boehner's that aren't real cuts.

But, true progressives know those are secondary issues.

Douthat "gets" Obama - while Obamiacs still don't

Ross Douthat knows what true progressives like me know: Obama WANTS a conservative budget/debt deal.

The not-so-secret secret is that the White House has given ground on purpose. Just as Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to make the president live with bigger spending cuts than he would otherwise support, Obama’s political team wants to use the leverage provided by those cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers to make Democrats live with bigger spending cuts than they normally would support.

Why? Because the more conservative-seeming the final deal, the better for the president’s re-election effort.

Nothing truer.

At the same time, he doesn't get Obama or the GOP, assuming that both will agree to let the Bush Obama tax cuts expire in the future:

If Obama gains a second term, Congressional Republicans will have to choose between a deal that lets the top rate go back to 39 percent (a $700 billion tax increase over 10 years) or no deal at all (a $3.8 trillion tax increase). Obviously, this dilemma won’t exist if President Mitt Romney occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But Obama’s re-election is the more likely scenario, meaning that any deal struck this summer comes with a very large asterisk attached: *Includes tax increases to be named later.

Nothing could be falser.

The time for emails to Obama is long gone

First, on issues like Social Security and Medicare, he is NOT Bill Clinton "triangulating" in the mid-1990s. He actually wants these cuts. That's one reason he has squeezed House Democrats out of the picture. (Take note, David Brookses of the world who critique his leadership style.)

More proof that he wants these cuts? Remember, the "Catfood Commission" was HIS commission and he has never disavowed its recommendations. Second, his knifing in the back single-payer national health care.

The health care issue also shows not just that Obama lied when he talked about how "open" his administration would be, but the degree of brazenness with which he lied.

And, yet, many people think that clicking a link from MoveOn will magically inspire Obama to "save Social Security."

Wrong.

Get it through your thick heads, people who still have Obama love affairs, bromances, unreturned infatuations. Grover Cleveland Obama doesn't care how you feel, unless you finally get a clue and tell him you're voting Green.

And, that you make that a reality, not just an idle threat.

The only things you accomplish by clicking a MoveOn link are encouraging online slacktivism and encouraging MoveOn to try to hit you up for money.

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.