Bullshit2

Bullshit. Squared. It's a charade to get you to think you just HAVE to accept cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Every bit of it is a lie. The "sequester" will be better than the "Grand Bargain" Obama's been trying to make for three years. (See my previous posts on  January's "fiscal cliff" dive and the theft of Social Security .)

From Counterpunch

Watch Your Wallet!
Much Ado About Nothing in Budget Debate

by DAVE LINDORFF

"The Republicans are pretending that if we don’t have budget cuts this year, the whole US economy will collapse because of the nation’s enormous indebtedness.

"The Democrats are pretending that if no deal is reached, and automatic across-the-board cuts of 8% for the Pentagon and 5% for other programs will not only put the nation’s defense at risk and cause widespread suffering, but that it will derail the nation’s fragile economic 'recovery.'

"Both claims are, to put it gently, bullshit.
....

"As for the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress, what they secretly want is cover to start cutting Social Security and especially Medicare. Since those two programs were exempted from sequestration cuts, their strategy is to cry “wolf” about the impact of sequestration in order to bully Republicans into some kind of budget-cutting deal that would have Republicans agree to a rise in taxes in some truly minor way on the rich, while in return Democrats would 'grudgingly agree' to cuts in Medicare and maybe even Social Security. They will then be able to claim, to their progressive Democratic base, that the Republicans 'made us do it.'"

Read the full article 

Obama's Cliff Dive

The New Year's "fiscal cliff" deal represents another Obama "victory." For whom? As pointed out in Holland's article below, the Bush tax cuts had already expired when this deal was done. This means that, after allowing the FICA tax cut to expire for all working people, Obama made a deal to give new, permanent tax cuts to the wealthy, and paved the way for Social Security and Medicare to be put on the chopping block.  As I've said a number of times before (here, here, here), "the next Obama administration, claiming to be standing on the high ground of principle, will be, and will be proud to be, the first administration to cut Social Security.  Guaranteed.  And they’ll sell it as a 'save.' Obama and the Democratic Party really think it’s the right thing to do."  

Anyone who's waiting to see whether Obama and the Democrats will finally take a stand when the Republicans hold the country hostage to the debt ceiling is showing a truly delirious capacity to ignore what has been said, done, and established before their eyes repeatedly. Obama and the Democrats will make sure this gets done. With very few, if any, principled exceptions from the left, all Democrats who need to -- including Pelosi, Reid, and, yes, Bernie Sanders, all of whom voted for this mess --  will vote to save reform undermine Social Security and Medicare, because, well, they just have to.

Can it be said, with a straight face, that there is anything left of Democratic-party welfare-state American liberalism than an ever more vacuous nostalgia?

President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act in 1935
Gone, baby, gone.

Some recent articles worth reading:

Right-Wingers Who Think They Got 'Rolled' by Obama In Cliff Deal Are Totally Crazy

Either they get everything they want, or they scream bloody murder.

By Joshua Holland

I thought that by this point, I was beyond the capacity to be shocked by the delusions held by the American Right. But my jaw dropped when I read that a number of high-profile conservatives are outraged  about the fiscal slope deal, and believe they have been “rolled” by Obama. The very notion is wildly delusional....{Read on}

The Long Con: Social Security and Medicare in the “Grand Bargain”

Update below.

“Social Security and Medicare have absolutely nothing to do with the short-term U.S. fiscal problem.”

And, no, not “long-term,” either, in any way that requires what’s being proposed.   Please, read the article by William Lind, which contains the chart and quote linked above.  It’s a clear, short analysis that I hope will put an end for you to the mendacious tropes constantly peddled throughout the media that suggest the opposite.  Let it sink in, once and for all: absolutely nothing.  (You might also want to take a look to my previous post on Social Security, to see that this program is one of the United States government’s biggest creditors.) 

As I was saying...

Update on previous post, "Social Security in the Great Jambalaya,":  Dean Baker, in The Guardian, "Cutting back benefits could mean delays in repaying the government bonds held by the Trust Fund. The money to repay these bonds would come primarily from a relatively progressive income tax revenue. ,,,,Politicians, especially Democrats, who speak up for cuts to social security can count on lavish praise from the media."