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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did another excellent opening segment on the pervasive hypocrisy of Republicans in first trashing last year’s stimulus in D.C. and then praising the job-saving/creating effects of the stimulus in their home districts. The Republicans deserve to be called out, often and harshly, but they’re not the only ones.
What about the Democrats? Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine followed Rachel’s opening and agreed the Republicans should be called out. He then added that Democrats also needed to follow up with a jobs bill. But he neglected to mention that the Democratic bills Harry Reid’s Senate is preparing to create/save jobs are pathetically inadequate.
If the issue is hypocrisy, then it’s just as hypocritical for Democrats to be extolling the job creating virtues of last year’s stimulus while studiously avoiding anything that sounds like another stimulus. Instead they’re working as hard as they can to make sure whatever “jobs bill(s)” they pass will be an order of magnitude too small, given the Administration’s own forecasts for continued unacceptably high levels of unemployment.
For months, economists like Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong and many others of the nation’s best macro economists have been pleading with the Obama Administration to find some politically palatable way to pump more money into job-creation. If they couldn’t sell another “stimulus” per se — although given the “hypocrisy initiative,” it’s hard to understand why not — then call it a “jobs bill.” But whatever you call it, put enough money and smart design into the effort to make a difference and to counteract the fall-off in the earlier stimulus’ effects later this year.
If you can’t get a sufficiently large jobs bill out of a deficit-spooked Congress, then cram additional necessary funds into another emergency bill to help struggling states prevent massive layoffs for teachers, firemen and police; otherwise, they’re just 50 anti-stimulus drags.
And for heavens sake, get money to extend jobless benefits and continuing subsidies for COBRA health insurance coverage and other safety net items into a bill and on the President’s desk now, or better yet, yesterday.
And why isn’t the Administration putting better people in the Federal Reserve and demanding that the Federal Reserve use its monetary authority and its ability to set inflation targets to boost the economy more, given the fact that all forecasts seem to suggest only modest (by recovery standards) GDP growth and minimal inflation? Did anyone think to ask Bernanke for help while handing him another term?
Calling out the Republicans for their stimulus hypocrisy is important. But they’re not in charge. Worse hypocrites are the political and economic advisers in the Obama White House. The WH released their annual ARRA (stimulus bill) analysis today, and they make the case the stimulus worked. But they haven’t explained why, given the winding down of that apparently helpful effort and their own forecasts of continuing unemployment misery, they aren’t coming back with another round that’s at least as effective as they claim their first effort was. After all, the Obama Administration’s current unemployment forecasts are just as high as the original forecasts last year on which they based the first stimulus.
The next time Tim Kaine or any of the WH economic/political team are on Rachel Maddow, et al, they should have to answer these questions. [And maybe bring along a couple of those embarrassed Republican Senators -- looking at you, Snowe/Collins -- who should be willing to support a meaningful jobs package.]
More:
Calculated Risk, Obama Administration Unemployment Forecasts
Paul Krugman, The Case for Higher Inflation
FDL News/dday, Liberal Economists on Schumer/Hatch tax credits
Economic Policy Institute, States in distress
The Hill, Reid kills Baucus jobs bill, narrows focus
DeLong, When will it be morning in America?
Bob Herbert, What’s Wrong with U.S. Infrastructure?
Dean Baker, Schumer-Baker: Money for Nothing
FDL/Eli, Senate watches jobs circle down drain
Scarecrow, Why Bernanke’s Confirmation Is/Should Be In Trouble
56 Comments
Differences between Democrats and Republicans are like fights on the Titanic over arranging deck chairs. They are completely irrelevant to what is going on.
States had shortfalls of $192 billion in 2009. They currently are at around $110 billion for 2010 and expected to hit at least $180 billion by the end of the fiscal year. Harry Reid’s pissant jobs bill won’t make up for this. There will be a substantial net loss to the economy.
As for the Fed, with rates at zero, it has shot its last bolt. All low interest rates are doing now is funding the bubbles in stocks and commodities. I am not arguing for higher rates. Just pointing out that QE was a failure. The current wealth destroying casino banking system was the wrong vehicle to steer resources into.
It won’t happen on Maddow. She’s head cheerleader for Obama’s empire.. Maybe I should send her some pompoms because she sure doesn’t answer her emails.
It takes no courage to bash Republicans or Sarah Palin or Tea Parties. All that bashing just gives more exposure to their ideology. Plus it’s boring and repetitive.
I’m sick of “Sarah Palin is Stupid” or “Republicans are Terrible” blogs, especially on liberal websites. That’s just preaching to the choir and really isn’t worth anyone’s time. As David Sirota wrote:
I’m not saying FDL features Sarah Palin, Bad Republican stuff all the time. In fact, this site is better than all the other sites put together. Still, I say let’s not give them the exposure.
Maybe Obama is waiting for his new bipartisan deficit commission to be in place before he OKs any more spending.
Whats a good number for a jobs bill and where do we get the most bang for the buck? Jobs beat tax cuts as stimulus for example, Green Jobs beat Nuclear Reactors however only Tax cuts and Nuclear Reactors get passed.
Then we can give up on the election. We need jobs now. We need to keep people in their homes. We cannot let Obamacare pass.
Rachel Maddow is next to useless. She’s part of the machine, a little squeaky outlet for steam, helping to keep the whole faulty apparatus chugging along.
That’s what Daily Kos is…
Nothing more than a cheerleader blaming republicans for everything the democrats allow.
This is the primary reason why I quit watching Rachel and Ed’s shows. They are stuck on bashing republicans and Palin and purposely ignore the role the president and the democrats have played. The republicans cant stop or pass one damn thing so to continously bash them for the democratic ineptitude seems morally bankrupt. Reid’s puny job bill as a response to our massive unemployment is an insult to the citizens of this country and he and Obama shld be called out on it. Bashing republicans while ignoring the democrats is not very risky.
Seriously.
Rachel ought to turn and focus that razor sharp lens of hers on the Dems.
While it wouldn’t be a very pretty picture, it would be healthy and I suspect more than a little motivating to have a few pins prick that little bubble they seem to have gotten themselves trapped in.
If somebody doesn’t get through to them and fast, come November, all we’re going to hear is:
1) What happened?
2) It the voter’s fault for not understanding how things work
3) More of the Republican’s won’t let us get anything done blame game.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr…..
I swear, if could just get broadband without the TEEVEE, I’d throw both my sets out in the yard.
All this deficit posturing is just a run up to the sighs and groans they’ll parade when they really do kill Grandma by stealing Social Security.
Then, they’ll learn what the “third rail” really means. I’m beginning to suspect this is the only why, wherefore, whereof Obama was put in the WH in the first place.
He sure has the Moolah to extend the wars, tho doesn’t he?
The Republicans are just good foils and convenient fall guys. I guess ObamaRahma will get some more of them this next “election” to hide behind.
Not against green jobs but our creaky old reactors do need to be replaced. Preferably they’ll be replaced with modern thorium reactors… a 100 year rather than a 1000 year storage issue.
The biggest fail is in vastly underfunding rail and lightrail public transport. I think we could vastly cut down our gasoline use.
Anyway, we’ve got so many damn unemployed people that it’s silly not to use them to rebuild a greener economy. Paying them to sit at home is the kind of economics that only makes sense in one of Larry Summers excel spreadsheets.
Thanks for the post Scarecrow. I appreciate the push back in order to counter balance the noise from FOX.
Yeah, for the most part, Republicans and Palin should just be ignored.
The only way to lose to Palin is to be absolutely horrible. Sadly, the Democrats are trying to find creative ways to stay horrible and still beat Palin.
I agree. I quit watching Rachel for the most part. I did see the first part of her segment last night but when Mr. Personality Tim Kaine came on I went off. Rachel is a gifted interviewer, perhaps one of the best, with certain subjects, but she has made a mistake in being Obama’s cheerleader overlooking all the numerous warts on the administration.
I’m for Thorium reactors I’m for fusion however the reactors Obama is backing in Georgia are neither Thorium or fusion.
Back when I played duplicate bridge more often, I was discussing the results of a hand with a very good player that did not get to the optimal contract. He recognized that he should have been there, but offered as an excuse that his bidding system wouldn’t allow it.
Despite a widely recognized consensus to the economy Obama’s economic team won’t allow that approach.
Is this the commission where they will propose privatizing Social Security and Medicare? Obama’s right on track for being the greatest Republican president since Bill Clinton.
Nope Herbert Hoover
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Scarecrow and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Great post Citizen Scarecrow, the beast that the oligarchs have been feedin’ and trainin’ since Ronald MacDonald Reagan made his first successful assault on the SS trust is, of course privitization of Social Security. In the past, Obama has made some oblique references to his admiration for Reagan’s ability to “change the culture of Washington” in the same breath as his positive take on the deal with the devil that Tip O’Neil made to allow the draining of the trust administratively without the direct approval of the House of Representatives. This is the one area that I have real reservations about with regard to Obama’s agenda as given to ‘im by the Chicago School in 2004. So what I need to know is do you see any scenario that would allow for the House of Representatives as it is now politically constituted to do real SS reform? That is,instead of givin’ up the Social Security Trust, use a “Deficit Commission” as cover to pass Social Security reform that would include the elimination of the cap, a reduction of 1.5% of the FICA tax and the mandate that ALL workers and employers pay into the system. I have held out hope that Obama is NOT, as it appears right now, a Chicago School fascist economist and that he is callin’ for a bi-partisan Deficit Commission not to give political cover for the House of Representatives to give up their constitutional mandate to deal with all revenue and treasury actions but to pull a fast one and get the commisssion to recommend that everyone get a tax cut of 1.5% while extendin’ the reach of Social Security into every single paycheck. What are the odds, Scarecrow, is Obama really a dumb blond in disguise or does he play real 11 dimensional politics?
KEEPTHE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THE TRUTH IS HARD TO FIND WHEN YA AIN’T LOOKIN’!!!
From the last link, Podesta’s advice:
Yeah, that’ll do a lot of good. /s
Maybe he’s waiting for that savvy businessman Lloyd Blankenfucker of Goldman Sachs ( AKA Men with Sacks of Gold) to send over some new instructions?
I don’t fault Rachel Maddow for exposing Republican hypocrisy and obstruction — a lot more of that embarrassment is deserved and there are few willing or capable of doing it as well. And during the health-care debate she was tough on centrist holdouts and the WH, especially when they weakened, then abandoned the public option. Rachel isn’t the problem.
Look at today’s NYT, front page article by Jackie Calmes — bemoaning the “party gridlock” that is preventing us from reducing the deficit, and making the useless opportunist Evan Bye Bye seem like a principled hero. Daily stories like that in the Times and WaPo make is very difficult to move another stimulus/jobs billd — but this Administration and the Senate leadership aren’t even trying.
It’s maddening to read some of the blogs and comments on that site. I just want to take them by the shoulders and shake them, while yelling: “You’re harming this country with your unquestioning loyalty!” It wouldn’t do any good, though.
Kimbers, I think Obama has no regard for the Democratic Party now, if he ever did. I think he wants to work with a conservative Congress. I hope I’m wrong, but he dreamed up a bipartisan (non-elected) commission to gut SS and Medicare, and if that isn’t a final slap in our faces, nothing is.
Slightly off topic:
It appears that dKos has a few renegades, like New Deal democrat, that state explicitly that no *Real* Democrat is “ agnostic ” about Social Security.
“hear, hear!”
(hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!)
New post up top…
I think it’s very dangerous for “reforms” of Social Security to be even considered now. There is no near-term or even medium term crisis in SS; it’s in surplus now, will be for some time, has a huge fund to draw down for decades. In the present climate, in which Pete Peterson and other billionaires are driving the WaPo and NYT into hysteria over entitlements, and when the Presidency and Dem leadership are feckless, I wouldn’t trust these people to make even minor fixes that will preserve SS for another 75 years.
On the entitlements side, the budget deficit problem is not SS; it’s health care costs — not insurance costs, though that grabs all the headlines, but health provider/care costs. The health bills do a few things to slow it down, but nothing major. The reality is that the US pays doctors and health providers far more than other countries do, for no better results, and we have to figure out how to reverse that.
The health care reform bills, while claiming to be about insurance reform, are really an effort — a cover — to try to rein in Medicare costs, but without attacking the most important drivers of cost increases, including industry concentration and market power, conflicts of interest between docs and clinics/hospitals, massive drug cartels, the overselling of expensive technology, and so on. This is a massive regulatory problem, and the government is not equipped to be a competent regulator and has been mostly captured by those whose prices need to be regulated — because there is no market mechanism capable of solving this problem.
Obama merely uses his fetish for bipartisanship as cover for governing from the right.
So is C&L, Digby, and almost all the time HuffPost…if these blogs have mission statements, they usually say they are partisan Dems FIRST. At one time, C&L moderation wouldn’t even allow anyone to question the Dems at all. Same old lines from the flock…”on ya, you’re just Republican”….”well he’s better than McCain”….”he hasn’t had enough time yet”…etc, etc, etc
Great post, Scarecrow, thanks. I think we’d all like to see RM bust Democratic Party myths as ferociously as she does the GOP’s. At the very least, as this thread shows, exposing the GOP simultaneously shines the light, in an offhand way, on Obama’s cover stories. That’s where we come in.
We can’t expect an anchor or two, however talented, to find and bust every malicious myth out there, and do it in less than an hour for five nights a week. I see it as in baseball, where backing up your team mates is SOP, not cause for indignant alarm.
Oh and the latest line on those type of blogs……..from Huffpost “economic thinktanks all agree the stimulus saved almost 2 million jobs”…….prove it? Oh ya, you can’t so just throw crap at the fan and see if it sticks. Sounds EXACTLY like the Bush Admin.
OT for the FDL techies:
When I go to the next post using the nav link at the bottom of a post, the bottom of the next post says, “Sorry, comments are closed on this post,” the response window is not displayed and NO comments show. However, if I go to the same post from either my RSS feed or by clicking on FDL and scrolling to the post, comments and the response box both appear.
This has been a very predictable occurrence, so I think someone should look into fixing this bug in the html code.
/rant
Rachael gets me thinking.
Glen want’s to think for me.
Rush is plain thoughtless.
Fox News is Sensational puffery for profit(it’s the ratings stupid)
Keith makes me laugh.
Billo ?, you know.
Cheney is the Shadow Chief.
Sarah may be dumb, but she is not stupid.
Jon and Stephen keep things even.
The left is not right and the right is left out.
Altogether it makes me want to SCREAM:
It’s not B’lock Obama, its Barack Oboma
Citizen Scarecrow:
“It’s very dangerous for ‘reforms’ of Social Security to be even considered now.”
Of course it is…but war is dangerous too and sometimes we find ourselves forced to fight the right battles at the wrong times. This IS war, probably our biggest political war since the fight between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists and whether we like it or not the plutocrats are gunna force us to fight it now before there is a real crisis that makes it impossible to yank the Social Security rug out from under the people.
So what’s up with the deficit commission and can it be jujitsued into real economic reform?
Reforming Social Security is simply a smokescreen built around an attempt to hide the fact that the fund has been looted for years by swapping dollars for treasury bills. That might have been OK in normal circumstances but the current bank bailouts have put large amounts of bad bank loans onto the Treasury and the Fed balance sheets. The problem has never been SS but the opaque institutions who consider the largest banking and financial institutions as their number one responsibility. These crooks are chewing up SS cash to save the blood sucking vampire squids and the only simple path to clearing their books is by reneging on what they owe to the people who have paid into SS for most of their lives.
Reforming SS will not solve the real problem. Reforming the Fed, the Treasury and Congress’ constitutional responsibly to protect the money supply and the economy is the only appropriate way to address these issues.
This is not precisely true. That huge fund has nothing but government IOUs in it. The money is gone, spent. This is why the politicians of both parties are circling Social Security. In 2016 or earlier with the bad economy, outflows from SS will exceed inflows. That will mean the program will have to start asking the federal government to begin paying back some of that money it spent (with interest). That money will have to come out of general revenues or by raising taxes, crimping the ability of our elites to wage their imperial wars and endless systems of welfare for the rich and corporations. Rather than do this they want to cut benefits. Thus avoiding or reducing the pay back, or any “sacrifice” by the rich or corporations.
You don’t go to war when you don’t have to. SS is NOT in crisis and doesn’t need to be fixed for a while, and certainly not by the present clowns. If you have to go to war, at least create an army that believes in the mission and is willing to defend itself.
I believe we are at “war” in the sense that the entire efficacy of government is under assault by a determined, lawless group of nihilists, on the one hand, and unregulated corporate power, on the other, with each thinking they can use the other. The public interest is being crushed in this mix.
I don’t agree with that framing. I have money in a savings account, but it’s not really there either. It’s loaned out by the bank, but my deposit is guaranteed by FDIC, and I have zero worries about my ability to get it back. The SS trust fund has also been loaned out, but the Treasury notes are about the safest thing you can have. When they need the money, they’ll sell the Treasury notes — happens every day. It’s a debt we owe ourselves. If all that is at risk, then we have problems far worse than anything we’re discussing here.
Great idea to send pom poms. We should buy some and pick a day and deliver them to MSNBC to Rachel et al. This morning the lugubrious and now smarmy looking Bob Woodward on MSNBC that the ONLY way to create jobs was not through government but through the private sector. He quoted Warren Buffett about some nonsense about giving people like Buffett more money and incentives to hire people. Then the uni-eyebrow guy, Tim Kaine, who I thought was dead, agreed with Woodward.
At least the brunette gal brought up people with no jobs who are losing their homes and can’t buy anything, but the whole 5 minutes made me ill and I turned on Sirius Classic Rewind instead. Oh that we could rewind for a brief moment to the 1930s when the likes of FDR, Pecora, Eccles, and Frances Perkins ruled the land.
The coup happened in 2000 when Al Gore slinked off into the melting glaciers.
If the Treasury and the Fed had proper oversight and had a mandate to protect the economy at large without regard for individual corporations then I’d be more inclined to your position. I do think that the transfer of present taxpayer obligations into the multi-national TBTF institutions will create serious problems going forward. The interest on debt obligations for money borrowed from itself via loaning the money to the same instutions will continue to transfer “profits” to the primary dealers and market makers. This same pattern is being repeated through out the world economies. The US does not have the most debt but even with fiat currency economies, if the largest income transfers are made to the bankers and rentiers then the jobs derived from capital that would have gone to production must suffer. Even if only because of the disparity of wealth from the rentier class makes all other forms of employment second class by comparison.
If they want to punk somebody for debt, let them punk China, not the US citizens.
HuffPo was weird this morning first they had a main post on the deficit reduction thru starving Grandma and how “necessary it is to get spending under control”.
and then a wonderfully uplifting “stimulus worked… with 2.5 million jobs created” main post which, I guess meant “Happy Days are here again”.
Very odd.
NOW, we can gut SS was the way I took it.
Deficit reduction by Walmart
The cost of goods and services to the Defense Department shall be reduced by 5% per year without cutting labor costs.
Reward anyone in the Military that is able to reduce costs of operation, without sacrificing safety or effectiveness with .05% of the savings applied to pay when implemented.
Anyone in Government service that is able to eliminate his or her own job will be given a higher position in Government Service.
Require all Government Buildings to be Energy Positive or as efficient as possible.
r Temporally Reduce Senator and Representative pay to minimum wage plus expenses, with no benefits other than catastrophic insurance coverage and ER privileges.
Temporary reduce G12 pensions and above by 50%
Impose a fine of $1,000,000 per offense in lieu of trial for anyone in Government that desired and ordered torture.
A Suspended Sentence would be adequate for those that followed orders to torture.
Anyone not wishing to accept these terms can call for a trial.The penalty for torture is life imprisonment or death if a guilty verdict is reached.
Citizen Scarecrow:
“If all that is at risk then we really have problems far worse than what we are discussing here.”
BINGO!! And that’s the point, the plutocrats are gunna make a run at Social Security at a time when the people are most economically insecure but the fund is not…they wanna use deficit reduction to kill Social Security under the guise of payin off the debt so wishin’ it weren’t so ain’t gunna cut it. And actually, the proposal I suggested (to remove the cap, reduce FICA and extend it to everyone) would fix our economy almost over night in that the reserves in the trust would underwrite Medicare and all government social expenditures for a couple a centuries and kill the arguments for balancing the budget by killin’ gramma.
That may be a bit awkward. China recently openly told their banks to begin divesting themselves of US Treasuries.
* Japan is the top holder of US debt at $769 billion, a $143 billion increase from a year prior.
* Chinese holdings iended the year at $755 billion, and down from $801 billion.
* Foreign holdings were split 23% bills and 77% bonds
Kind of hard to hit China while missing Japan and other holders of T-Bills like the Saudis, Europe and the UK.
It’s a scam, a backdoor tax. Think about it. What if the “surpluses” had never existed, if inflows and outflows had matched between 1983 and the projected next 35 years. What if the government had just committed to make up the shortfalls after that when outflows began to exceed inflows.
The only thing that would have been different is that the two parties would not have had a few trillion in extra spending money over those decades. It was a tax, plain and simple.
When you have a con being run this big for this long, it is hard not to imagine them trying to dodge the payback. And I want to point out that the certificates that SS holds are not Treasuries but can be exchanged for them.
Nice link to dKos. Glad to see that they aren’t happy either about Obama’s lack of support in defending SS.
Ah ic, yeah I agree that’s dumb.
Since the Democrats refuse to defend themselves, (or possibly their defenses don’t make it through the corporate Gigunda Media Filter) then it falls on people like Olbermann and Maddow to defend them.
Of course, the Democrats are managed by the same owners as the Republicans, so defending Democrats is sort of like bartender Maddox pushing the Democratic-flavored hemlock over the acidic flavored Republican hemlock.
We are going down in either case – the main difference being the taste in our mouth.
Actually, Rachel has pretty much been doing Obama’s job for him, ever since he came in. I think he ought to give her a good chunk of his salary. That way, he won’t have to walk up to the pay window ass-first.
Oh: there’s this, too, about his climbing into bed with the repubs on building more nuclear power plants:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20100217/D9DTL1M81.html
Great post & good commentary. I, too, watch RM, KO, et al less & less these days bc I don’t really need to hear about the latest Republic stupidity whilst cheering on team Obummer. There is definitely a place for calling out Republics, esp some of their more nefarious scheming.
RM is to be resoundingly congratulated for her exposure of Doug Coe & the C Street “Family” gang, along with her expose of the Koch’s influence on the Town Hall tea party junk this summer. That kind of expose of Republic shenanigans is always worthwhile to learn about.
I’m really done with the “Sarah is so stupid” and lookat how piggy Rush is stuff. It’s good to call stuff out here & there, but the bashing of the usual Republic suspects on KO & RM has gotten old, boring, dreary, tired and utterly worthless. Frankly I don’t give a damn what Rush or Glenn or whoever is spewing out. They’re paid to spew out that junk, and that’s that.
Give me something substantive. And I agree, the rah-rah, hooray for the Dem teamism is really beyond the pale. If they started really calling out this Admin, then I’d be back on board. Both KO & RM have the chops to do it well and incisively. Hope that they can get the message and do it, but I won’t hold my breath.
Someone please explain to me why the recipients of:
The Bush tax cuts (except ones that affected the middle class),
the tax cuts for the richest 1%,
the tax cuts that are unpaid for,
and are part of the Deficit/National Debt.
The tax cuts in a time of WAR, whee, charge that too.
Voodoo supply both sides economics,
Fire, aim, ready war sold to the slickest bidder.
Again I ask why, that same 1%,
Why are they not totally responsible
for paying the interest on the part of the debt
that was incurred in their behalf?
Pay the Bill NOW
I should correct myself. From the SSA site:
So the Trust Funds, i.e. the surpluses are made up of these special obligation certificates which are directly cashed out with the government. But again these are not regular Treasuries.
Like a dog eating his own regurgitation?
Hey now, it’s OK for a cow!
Wouldn’t this be where we have a real free market in number of doctors? Also doesn’t the AMA control the number of medical degrees? And didn’t Mad as Hell Doctor Paul Hochfeld talk about this secretive AMA group who decides costs?
Here’s a quote from the diary I did on our interview with Dr. Paul:
So specialists are reimbursed a lot while family docs get squat. Totally rigged system that needs exposure.
Not disagreeing with anything you said.
The problem is that the debt is owed by the Treasury to SS recipients. Social Security taxes were intentionally created as a separate pool from normal taxes so that the fund would be protected. Deficit spending via Treasury commitments were put together to raid this pension in a way little different than the tricks most corporations used when they raided their own pension obligations. The only way for the Treasury to pay it’s debt back to SS is if it can also pay the trillions of recently acquired debt from the ongoing backdoor bank bailouts, the off-budget trillions for the “war” efforts and all of the Treasury open commitments to block holes like AIG, Fannie and Freddie. The Treasury is taking on enough commitments to make not paying SS back in full look like the path of least resistance.
It’s not debt we owe ourselves. It debt that the Treasury owes to SS that it can only pay via tax collection in a diminishing tax revenue environment. Debt that the Treasury cannot continue to pay so long as open ended spending on the military and wealth transfers to Wall Street continue to take precedence. Right now the Treasury’s problem is that if bank to bank interest rates start to climb beyond 5% then tending to the debt will preclude paying down the principle when previously issued short term bonds rollover.
This is about the Treasury committing enough debt in other areas to put SS commitments on the table. As the link I put up earlier from dKos talked about, Obama has openly said that he is a Social Security agonistic. People should not need a roadmap to understand what that implies.
And the liberal media are more focused on the GOP backing out on Obama on this commission than they are on the purpose of the commission! It is truly maddening!You wld think some news anchor wld call Obama out on this and say so you want to cut medicare and ssi but not military spending? But no, Rachel and Ed are pissed bcz the republicans declined to be a part of this cowardly hatchet act. What the commission is supposed to do and how Obama wanted to do it is more important and vile than who actually sits at the table. If Obama thinks that now is the time to cut SSI and Medicare benefits then he shld be man enough to come out and state it. And our media shld make sure he gets questioned about it, but, no, how dare those republicans tell OUR PRESIDENT that they dont want to meet with him is all we are going to get. His new commission idea has no jurisdiction and is not binding so it is another waste of time by a guy who wants to look busy while he gets nothing done.