I have no doubt that the phones are ringing off the hook. They expect this. The polls warned them long ago. I sorely doubt that anyone is reaching Senators “in play”. Harry Reid is scurrying around to game this out to passage. We will “win” a majority of purple state Senators who are up in two years and at risk of a Social Security “cutter” attack. Senator Franken will vote against. But Senator Klobuchar won this year by forty points and will be expected to vote behind the President. The urgency to get a Democratic majority vote in the Senate is gone. Obama provides the cover Republicans demanded. So what did the vaunted Obama negotiating skill get us from a position where repeal of the Bush tax cuts was automatic? The permanent extension of half of those unfunded cuts to be matched by savage cuts to the non-military discretionary spending to fill that hole. Capitulation on the budget ceiling, when a showdown would have put it to an end. And a sleight of hand fraud by which COLA tampering is used to mask savagely regressive Social Security cuts. Let there be no illusions, this puts entitlement cuts on the table every time we have a budget crisis, real or ginned up like this one. Elections have consequences? Boy aren’t we a bunch of suckers!
Iless, what a wonderfully concise and cogent comment.
And, alas, I concur with your warning. We will not get much attention.
But I’m old enough to never vote for a Democrat again, and I have never voted for a Republican.
Obama may well be to the Dem Party as Clegg is to the Dem Libs in Britain, bringer of death to a politican party.
Called my Senators and spoke with a staff members who, as usual, didn’t really understand what I was saying and were not up to date on the current sell-out plan. I am now a check mark on someone’s scratchpad which will have absolutely no impact on anything.
We’re toast. As I have been saying since before the election, the tea partiers are our only hope. If they take a hard line on any tax increases, there might be enough Dems voting no to squash the deal.
Otherwise, Barry has once more seized defeat from the jaws of victory, all the while performing a brilliant kabuki dance with Boehner.
Adams, it’s only defear if Obama didn’t intend an outcome which included cuts to SocSec and/or Medicare.
And he’s been saying since 2007 that he was going to put SocSec “on the table” –or was it chopping block? It put Krugman on high alert as to what Obama would be like as a president.
Well, now we know.
And it’s not good. But we knew that from the git go on health insurance profit protection as Obama handled it.
Oh, and making the Dems take the blame? Brilliant, if someone is trying to kill off the viable parts of the Democractic Party.
He’s Baining the Dem Party — leveraged buyout by Wall Street, sell of the seemingly viable or at least sellable parts, hollow it out, then let it disintegrate. Bingo, for Wall Street.
And Obama’s actions will make Repubs viable in the next elections!
I have no doubt that the phones are ringing off the hook. They expect this. The polls warned them long ago. I sorely doubt that anyone is reaching Senators “in play”. Harry Reid is scurrying around to game this out to passage. We will “win” a majority of purple state Senators who are up in two years and at risk of a Social Security “cutter” attack. Senator Franken will vote against. But Senator Klobuchar won this year by forty points and will be expected to vote behind the President. The urgency to get a Democratic majority vote in the Senate is gone. Obama provides the cover Republicans demanded. So what did the vaunted Obama negotiating skill get us from a position where repeal of the Bush tax cuts was automatic? The permanent extension of half of those unfunded cuts to be matched by savage cuts to the non-military discretionary spending to fill that hole. Capitulation on the budget ceiling, when a showdown would have put it to an end. And a sleight of hand fraud by which COLA tampering is used to mask savagely regressive Social Security cuts. Let there be no illusions, this puts entitlement cuts on the table every time we have a budget crisis, real or ginned up like this one. Elections have consequences? Boy aren’t we a bunch of suckers!
Iless, what a wonderfully concise and cogent comment.
And, alas, I concur with your warning. We will not get much attention.
But I’m old enough to never vote for a Democrat again, and I have never voted for a Republican.
Obama may well be to the Dem Party as Clegg is to the Dem Libs in Britain, bringer of death to a politican party.
Called my Senators and spoke with a staff members who, as usual, didn’t really understand what I was saying and were not up to date on the current sell-out plan. I am now a check mark on someone’s scratchpad which will have absolutely no impact on anything.
We’re toast. As I have been saying since before the election, the tea partiers are our only hope. If they take a hard line on any tax increases, there might be enough Dems voting no to squash the deal.
Otherwise, Barry has once more seized defeat from the jaws of victory, all the while performing a brilliant kabuki dance with Boehner.
Adams, it’s only defear if Obama didn’t intend an outcome which included cuts to SocSec and/or Medicare.
And he’s been saying since 2007 that he was going to put SocSec “on the table” –or was it chopping block? It put Krugman on high alert as to what Obama would be like as a president.
Well, now we know.
And it’s not good. But we knew that from the git go on health insurance profit protection as Obama handled it.
Oh, and making the Dems take the blame? Brilliant, if someone is trying to kill off the viable parts of the Democractic Party.
He’s Baining the Dem Party — leveraged buyout by Wall Street, sell of the seemingly viable or at least sellable parts, hollow it out, then let it disintegrate. Bingo, for Wall Street.
And Obama’s actions will make Repubs viable in the next elections!
Fookin’ brilliant, eh?