Category: Fuck the Poor

We’re all Irish now

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Neither the Obama administration nor the Democrats are doing an honest job of representing us. They’re about to railroad this plan through, blow up the deficit, and then they’ll rush in next year with an “austerity” plan — you know, the same Catfood Commission plan that couldn’t even get 18 panelists to back it.

Shades of the Shock Doctrine — we’re all Irish now!

While Vice President Biden and House Democrats met into the evening, White House budget director Jacob Lew and senior Treasury adviser Gene Sperling held an afternoon session to field questions from Senate Democrats, who were more accepting of the package than they were a day earlier in a meeting with Biden, participants said.

“Members are more open today as they read the analyses of this package,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat. Citing prominent liberals such as John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, and Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who endorsed the White House plan, Durbin said, “These are people that progressives respect and go to, and they’ve said positive things.”

Durbin added that “I just loathe” parts of the deal, such as the estate tax. But, he said, “I understand the predicament that we’re in.”

Biden faced a far tougher crowd in the House, where a fractious caucus dominated by angry liberals is emerging as the bigger legislative obstacle to the tax plan. During a two-hour meeting, dozens of lawmakers lined up to interrogate the vice president about the deal – almost all of them speaking in opposition, participants said.

“There remain very serious reservations on the House side. I think that there’s still a very serious question whether this package can pass in the form it’s in now,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said afterward. Van Hollen represented House Democrats in bipartisan talks about the tax cuts that were rendered moot when the White House began dealing directly with Republican leaders, a slight that rankled nearly as much as Obama’s decision to abandon the long-held Democratic position of opposing tax breaks for the wealthy.

Many Democrats, including Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House leader, emerged from the meeting saying they could not support the package unless major elements were changed, particularly the estate-tax provision.

Most Democrats would prefer to renew the tax, which lapsed last year, with a 45 percent rate on estates worth more than $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples. The Obama-GOP deal would impose a 35 percent tax on estates larger that $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples for the next two years. If that change were made permanent, it would add $100 billion to deficits over the next decade, Democrats said.

In a forceful presentation, however, Biden made clear that big changes are not in the cards. “The vice president said, ‘This is the deal. Take it or leave it,’ ” an irritated Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said, paraphrasing the vice president.

[…] Meanwhile, the White House embarked on an aggressive campaign to advance the tax package, issuing a series of announcements touting Democratic endorsements of the legislation. The list included Detroit Major Dave Bing; Michael B. Coleman, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; Rep. Chet Edwards (Tex.) and Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.).

In the Senate, lawmakers said they were warming to the package as they pored over the details of its provisions and reflected on the consequences of inaction: tax increases for virtually every American worker, beginning Jan. 1.

One of the first Democrats to sign on to the deal was Sen. James Webb (Va.), who is among 23 Senate Democrats facing reelection in 2012. “The proposal is the ultimate stimulus plan,” Webb said in a statement. “It will put more money directly into the pockets of people and small businesses, allowing that money to be quickly recycled as the economy expands.”

Lawmakers in both parties said they would seek to change the package through the amendment process. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said some conservatives are pushing a plan that would cover the cost of another year of jobless benefits – about $56 billion – by cutting spending elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a bloc of Democrats was circulating a proposal to add provisions that would trigger a broad deficit-reduction plan next year if the economy improved.

You know, I was just thinking that what we needed was the Catfood Commission! Great minds think alike, eh?

“There’s a legitimate case to be made for short-term stimulus,” said Sen. Mark Warner (Va.). “But if you don’t create a path to long-term deficit-reduction, you’re just borrowing $900 billion.” But he added that Congress must reach a compromise on the expiring tax cuts before adjourning for Christmas.

Juan Williams is worried about our self-respect

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Juan Williams is sincere when he says this. To a certain extent, it’s true. As someone who’s been unemployed for more than two years now, I don’t feel anywhere near as polished and professional as I used to be.

But here’s the thing, Juan, something you may not have noticed: There aren’t enough real jobs for all the people out of work. And people are struggling even with the unemployment checks. Yet you and a Fox News talking blonde say that for the sake of some theoretical self-respect (which apparently involves living in a cardboard box on the curb), you’re urging people to take low-paying part-time jobs with no security instead of unemployment checks — a decision that’s clearly against their economic self-interest.

Because you can’t take self-respect to the electric company, or to your landlord. It won’t put gas in the car, or food on the table. Sometimes you just have to swallow your self-respect to keep enough cash flow coming, right?

You, of all people, should understand. After all, you work for Fox!

Juan Williams told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that extended unemployment benefits are harmful to peoples’ work ethic and basic values.

The two were speaking about the fight over the extension of the benefits on Thursday’s “America Live.” Kelly told Williams that a man she knows is staying on unemployment because his jobless benefits bring him more money than a potential job.

“To me it’s crazy because the longer that person is unemployed the more difficult it is then for them to get a job,” Williams said. He continued:

“Because employers, potential employers, will look and see that gee, they’ve been out forever, it doesn’t make sense. And I think that’s partly playing in to this cycle. And at some point then it becomes a matter of you lose your work ethic, your values are impacted, you know, getting up, showing up, dressing well, all that good stuff. So I don’t know that that’s smart.”

Confessions of an economic hit man

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I read John Perkins’ book when it first came out, and for some reason, I never finished it. So this week I picked it up again and boy, is it depressing.

“Hit Man” was attacked by many people as a far-fetched conspiracy theory. Those people must not do much reading. Which part bothers them: That corporations purposely saddle countries with unaffordable debt so they can dictate corporate-friendly policies, or that they never heard of such things, so it must not be true?

Trading away our future

~ susie

It’s really, really important that you call Congress Tuesday:

Somehow finding time between their On Air with Ryan Seacrest appearances and Top Chef: Just Desserts guest judging, Federal Deficit Commission Co-Chairs and heartthrobs du jour Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson will take DeficitMania to Washington, D.C. this week. Today they resumed negotiations with the panel’s commissioners.Tomorrow the two will hold a press conference at 3:30 to update reporters on the negotiationsand just how much of your retirement will be spent reheating last night’s Ragu-and-Ramen Surprise. On Wednesday the commission will hold a public meeting as it holds a final vote on the details of its final recommendations.

People who have been briefed on the state of negotiations tell HuffPost Hill that the commissioners are within striking distance of the 14 of 18 votes needed for passage. The Simpson-Bowles plan put out recently is being blended with Jan Schakowsky’s progressive alternative and a third plan from deficit hawks Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin.

Teaching you a lesson

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

You know, I’ve about had it with all these corrupt millionaires who want to teach us things like “having to face the full costs of their medical decisions.” You mean, like the decision of whether you’ll have enough to buy food, or take your kid to the doctor’s? What amoral scum they are:

WASHINGTON — Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit.

Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminating tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-class mainstay.

The idea isn’t to just raise revenue, economists say, but finally to turn Americans into frugal health care consumers by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions.

Such a re-engineering was rejected by Democrats only a few months ago, at the height of the health care overhaul debate. But Washington has changed, with Republicans back in power and widespread fears that the burden of government debt may drag down the economy.

“There is no short-term prospect of enactment,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a leading Democratic adviser on health care. “However, in a tax reform (and) deficit reducing context in the long term, the prospects are much better,” said Daschle. He opposes repealing the tax break by itself, but says he would be “willing to look” at it with other changes that improve access to quality health care while reducing costs.

Labor unions believed they had squelched any such talk. Now, they’re preparing for another fight.

Tampering with health care tax breaks is “a terrible step in the wrong direction,” said Mary Kay Henry, the new president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents many hospital workers. “We want the middle class stabilized, not destabilized.”