Now we get to see how many Democrats will vote to pay for the tax cuts by gutting SS and Medicare.

Enough to pass them, obviously.

Letting the tax cuts expire would have probably resulted in a much more progressive outcome.

What did Democrats gain from this deal? Chiefly, a one year extension of long-term unemployment benefits- which ends up being about a two billion dollar item. Certainly two billion dollars isn’t exactly chump change, but most likely Democrats could have found some sweetener in a $500+ billion dollar tax cut deal to preserve them after the cliff.

And the administration creates yet another hostage situation by delaying sequestration for two months. If you connect all of the dots, the resulting picture clearly isn’t one of a happy kitten. What it appears to be instead is a picture of a president being “forced” to cut great society programs as part of the next sequestration/debt ceiling charade and the Democratic party falling right in line right behind him.

Just on CNN- Grover Norquist supports the deal. Robert Reich opposes. Amusing.

David,
I think you are a national treasure- I hope you can take a well-deserved break and than maybe come back bigger than ever.

I’d rather call Obama mendacious rather than a “pragmatist”. Sure, our government has been corrupted enough that the two have become synonymous- particularly within the corporate media bubble where Democratic politicians are routinely expected to act against the interests of their voters. But the fact is that Obama and Democrats like him sold out from day one. Sure, occasionally they throw out a bone to progressives so that they can try to hide their true goals from us huddled masses. But in the end, they act in their funders interests, not ours.

My theory is that Obama has been mendacious from day 1 in that he knew that he was uniquely positioned to sell out Democratic voters to his FIRE sector backers. His whole strategy has essentially been pretty words for his voters, concrete actions for his funders with the occasional bone thrown to the base for appearance sake. And of course a complete embrace and expansion of the Bush security state policies so that he doesn’t look weak on the national security front.

Having said that, he does have one more election to get through. And you would think that he is smart enough to see the writing on the wall- if he concedes too much to the radical right, then Democrats will probably suffer large losses again in the mid terms. Not that I think he really cares much about the Democratic party, but I doubt that he wants to spend his last two years fighting impeachment or otherwise having to deal with tea-party nonsense. So I am hoping that Obama will realize that it is in his short-term political interests to not sell-out the new deal or otherwise behave like his previous center-right corporatist incarnation.

It’s as if Romney’s real campaign message was, “I’ll Lie for You.”

Yup. Republicans want their politicians to be liars. Why? because they really don’t believe in democracy- they much prefer a corrupt system where their votes are the only ones that count, where their politicians can lie with impunity to fool the press or the Democrats into supporting (or not opposing) an issue they know the rest of the voting public wouldn’t support… i.e. they know their politicians are liars, they just think the lies advance the agenda of their side. I think one of the reasons this is true is a lot of Republicans see themselves as the privileged elite who need to protect themselves any way they can from the horde of lazy moochers who want their stuff. It doesn’t really bother them that their politicians say a few things that aren’t true- because they think they are in on the con.

Nice essay Leighton.

In the end, in this pay-to-play democracy, both parties are primarily serving their funders interests. However, at the moment, the Republican party has to be much more cognizant of their voters than the Democratic party because they depend more on a populist, emotional appeal to sway their voters. Over time, that can be a dangerous thing. It appears the billionaires have successfully muzzled their astro-turfed tea party rabble this election- but I’m not sure how long that will hold. For one thing, this election they get to keep poking at the race button.

Also, the radical billionaires and their minions on the right don’t necessarily support elite technocratic rule. In fact, they want pretty much to destroy a functioning government (aka “drown it in the bathtub”) in order to replace it with I guess either fascism or perhaps a theocracy (or maybe both…) Unfortunately, their radical agenda gives a huge opening for the “more reasonable” corporate corruption wing of the democratic party to sell themselves to the highest bidder while they slightly mitigate the more disastrous aspects of their funders policies. As represented, for example, by Obama’s promise not to “slash” Social Security.

In the end, the billionaires will want absolute power- and there can only be one king, so win or loose this election, most likely their will be continued conflicts between the zealots, the billionaires and the technocrats in the Republican party.

The latest example: “I will not slash benefits or privatize social security”

He parses his words to mislead what his true goals are: i.e. come up with a grand bargain with the Republicans that includes benefit cuts. That’s mendacity in my opinion.

David you are exactly right on this. I couldn’t agree more. Not to trot out the old muckraker, but Upton Sinclar’s famous quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” Pretty much sums up the state of the current Democratic party (and probably America as a whole). Although I have to acknowledge that the mendacity of Obama and Democrats like him show that they understand that acting for their funders interests and not their voters is essentially corruption and doing that is something they at least need to make some token effort to hide.

I actually think privatization is Obama & the rest of the corporate democrats end-game. Of course, being the clever politicians they are, they will never come out and say it directly, but they can sell themselves to Wall Street as the guys that can deliver the changes the billionaires (and the corporations they love) want without angering the huddled masses too much. But they still need the radical right to have some semblance of power to get away with their mendacity, hence the aversion to supporting true Democrats and the emphasis on respecting the Ayn Rand cultists of the Republican party.

Most likely Rahm just expected the teachers union to STFU like the rest of us retards. btw, have you seen what his new position is? Yes, that’s right, he’s in charge of raising PAC money from the billionaires (and the corporations that love them) for Obama. Who do you think he really cares more about- the kids of Chicago or the people that made him a very rich man?

I think one of the problems with what’s going on is that as far as I know, the Defense Department still hasn’t said how it plans to implement sequestration, which I guess in itself is a political act- although I’m not sure exactly who it benefits. Really, the DoD should release its sequestration cuts, then let congress argue about them. It would probably quickly take the wind out of the mass pink-slip approach, as well as give congress some concrete facts to argue about.

Nice post cocktailhag, I too would have never imagined the destructive spiral our nation has taken since then (although a lot of good stuff happened as well that I also never imagined…) But the early 80′s definitely felt like a transition period at the time to me.

Sometimes I wonder if somehow we got stuck in some dysfunctional parallel universe at that time. Do you think that maybe there is an alternate time stream where Reagan somehow lost the election and now 2012 America is a nation at peace, and has instituted universal health-care, free college education and put Dick Cheney behind bars?

Actually, I think what Obama is really upset about is that he wants the corporate media to reward him for essentially acting as a mendacious agent of the status quo. He doesn’t want honest reporting, he just wants the favor he’s doing for them returned. Obama is winking furiously at them in hopes for some campaign love and yet they keep going on and on about his failures…

Truth be told, both parties seem to fear democracy- the Republicans fear the shifting demographics of our country, and the Democrats, in their quest to be the other party of business, pretty much despise their core constituency. Unfortunately, the Democrats too clever by half strategy of lying to their base while voting for their funders interests so they can portray themselves as the responsible, apolitical “centrists” muzzles what should be outrage among the entire party and effectively enables the Republicans continued subversion of our democracy.

Unfortunately police departments are increasingly being turned into revenue sources for strapped local and state governments. This in itself is a hugely problematic trend. Do you know what the cost of the ticket in California is for a rolling stop? $560 dollars! Well, of course technically the fine is only $100, but taxes and fees add the rest (and some of those were even passed by proposition) Not surprisingly, this ticket is the #1 ticket given out in the state- more than even speeding tickets.

Outrageous ticket costs are essentially regressive random driving taxes. But of course, since they bring in so much revenue (billions in California), the corrupt legislature will never do anything about it as they shift the cost of government unto the backs of the poor and middle class and away from their big money campaign donors.