Matt Taibbi asks the question:
Category: Class War
Bread and circuses
Peter Orzag is a condescending asshole who would rather resort to gimmicks than admit that the American working class has been underpaid and overworked for thirty years. But hey, he’s a millionaire now!
Peter Orszag, now a new vice-chairman of global banking at Citigroup and former US Office of Management and Budget under Barack Obama, has written a provocative and (with all due respect, Peter) wrong-headed Financial Times oped proposing that the way to promote savings among America’s low-income workers is to attach the prospect of winning millions to them scurrying away a few dollars here and there — sort of a lottery ticket that goes into their savings rather than into state coffers to help subsidize education or to the profits of the local milk and cigarette stand.
My local paper
Brendan points out this editorial in yesterday’s Daily News:
HERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT to know about President Obama’s 2012 budget: It has absolutely no chance of passing.
But his proposal – all 2,304 pages of it – tells a sad tale. In fact, it’s pretty much a horror story.
Remember, even when the president had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress to work with, he couldn’t get his fiscal 2011 budget through. The federal government is operating only because Congress passed a “continuing resolution” (CR) in December. It’s due to expire March 4.
And House Republicans are demanding $100 billion in federal spending cuts this year in exchange for passing another CR to keep the government open. If they don’t get what they want – and Obama has threatened to veto the CR because the cuts are too deep – Republicans say they will shut government down.
Many of the Republican proposals are quite insane- slashing community policing, NASA, Amtrak, and research into alternative energy. In addition, the cuts would reduce food-safety inspections and weaken protections for clean drinking water. A proposed $1.7 billion cut to the Social Security Administration would shut it for 20 days, meaning the checks wouldn’t be mailed. Especially telling: a proposed $747 million cut to the Women, Infant and Children program that provides nutritional food to pregnant women. Now there’s an example of conservatives’ fierce love for the unborn.
It is against this frenzied anti-government backdrop that Obama unveiled his proposed budget, and the theme couldn’t be clearer: Just a few weeks after extending tax cuts for rich people – adding $868 billion to the deficit – Obama wants to get it back from poor people.
Continue reading “My local paper”
Finally
As the crowds of protesters grow to more than 30,000, Obama finally gets out in front of the Wisconsin union movement and actually takes a side:
President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin’s broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits while planning similar action in other state capitals.
Obama accused Scott Walker, the state’s new Republican governor, of unleashing an “assault” on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would nullify collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.
The president’s political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.
Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.
By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were working to organize additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Under Walker’s plan, most public workers – excluding police, firefighters and state troopers – would have to pay half of their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs. They would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay. Walker, who took office last month, says the emergency measure is needed to save $300 million over the next two years to help close a $3.6 billion budget gap.
“Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter, taking the unusual step of inviting a local station into the White House for a sit-down interview. “I think everybody’s got to make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”
The White House political operation, Organizing for America, got involved Monday, after Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, a party official said.
The group made phone calls, distributed messages via Twitter and Facebook, and sent e-mails to its state and national lists to try to build crowds for rallies Wednesday and Thursday, a party official said.
Is Wisconsin our Egypt?
Solidarity
And this is why I love Athenae:
I’ve seen a lot of comfortably situated loudmouths today asking, “Why should you be protected from losing your job, if I’m not?”
I wish they asked the question, “Why don’t I have protection from the most capricious employers, from the whims of shareholders, from bosses who would rather steal than steward?”
I wish they asked the question, “Seeing these people united, how can I go on alone?”
I wish they asked the question, “Who will be there for me when someone rips the world out from under me?”
They say, you shouldn’t be safe if I’m not.
Thirty thousand people in Wisconsin say, I am not safe if you’re not.
NASCAR
Anyone who doesn’t want the Pentagon to put out the money to sponsor it is a Marxist and should be killed.
And really, who can argue with that logic?
Flown the coop
Wisconsin’s Democratic Senators have decamped to Illinois, denying the Republicans and the governor a quorum. They say they won’t come back until union-busting’s off the table.
These are real Dems! God bless ’em all.
Kabuki
This is happening in every state with a Republican governor. You’d think some reporter would connect the dots:
Wisconsin’s new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker’s collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times.
The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures — service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money — rolling back worker’s bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker’s doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.
Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state’s fiscal bureau — the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office — concluded that Wisconsin isn’t even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.
“Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control,” says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future — a public interest think tank. “He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts… so he could rush through these other changes.”
“The state of Wisconsin has not reached the point at which austerity measures are needed,” Norman adds.