EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- One American Who Isn't For Sale
- Transcript: Today's Live Q&A With NSA Leaker, Edward Snowden
- Remembering Satyajit Ray’s Hirok Rajar Deshe: On Edward Snowden, Resistance and Inverted Totalitarianism
- Obama Cans Regulator Who Crossed Wall Street
- Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Gang of 70
With too much fanfare, the contours of a “grand bargain” on the budget have emerged with a proposal offered by the Senate’s Gang of Six. It’s a deal that looks a helluva lot more like a Raw Deal than a New Deal or a Fair Deal.
I’s good to get a grip and some perspective at times like these. That’s why I appreciated Congressman Raúl Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), reminding us that a “Gang of Seventy” Democrats in the House has already vowed to oppose any deal which cuts benefits in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
“Our Gang of Seventy-plus has the Gang of Six completely outnumbered,” says Grijalva. “And with Republicans not voting for any package, period, because of their opposition to a functional economy, House Democrats hold the key to whatever plan can pass Congress.”
Grijalva and his allies point to the CPC People’s Budget as an alternative more in sync with what people want and the economy needs—a budget that calls for shared sacrifice. For example, 66 percent of Americans favor raising income tax rates on those making more than $250,000 and 67 percent support raising the wage cap for Social Security taxes. Both of these measures are included in the CPC budget. It’s a budget that also offers sensible cuts to military spending run amok, new tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, and an investment of $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy, broadband infrastructure, housing, and R&D. And it does all of this while achieving a lower debt-to-GDP ration in 2020 than the widely praised—praised by the elite, that is— budget proposal from Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.
In contrast, the Gang of Six proposal shafts those who have already borne so much of the burden of the financial crisis and its fallout—lost pensions, lost homes, lost wealth—while the very people who brought the economy to its knees through their recklessness make out like banksters and bandits. In fact, at a time of inequality akin to that of the Gilded Age, the top marginal tax rate would be lowered—lowered!—to 23 to 29 percent, while there would be massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), notes that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein would save approximately $2 million to $3 million on their tax bills. But in twenty years, a 90-year-old living on a Social Security income of $15,000 would lose more than $1,200 a year in benefits.
How’s that a “bargain” for this nation and who exactly finds it “grand”?
All along, the alternatives that reflect the popular idea of shared sacrifice have been marginalized—by the political establishment (and, tragically, the Democratic leadership) and the corporate media. That’s one reason we are where we are in terms of the shape of this budget deal, where a ludicrous moral equivalence is being drawn between an increase in capital gains or carried interest tax and cuts in the very programs that have brought security and dignity to millions of Americans when they need it the most.
This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong. And that’s something the political and media establishment just don’t seem to get.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
23 Comments so far
Show AllAs usual, poor Katrina is a day late and a dollar short. She always waits to see which way the political meme's are blowing in the wind prior to getting on someone else's bandwagon. Nevertheless, note how her exposition is void of the FACT that Obama embraced the Gang of 6 a mere two days ago. Oh, yes, Katrina will be back endorsing Obama even as he continues his assault on the Social Safety net.
Agreed - I used to love The Nation, and now it makes me want to puke.
Every solution is "Vote for the Democrats". Ralph Nader? No, that's too rich for The Nation. McKinney? No, too left wing. Kerry and Obama - that's who KVH supports.
Exacty -- not one direct mention of the Obama administration's betrayal of its constituency... or of its complicity in the attempt to gut the social safety net.
I often have to wonder if The Nation doesn't get funding from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the Heritage or Cato Institutes -- whether it isn't a "false flag" operation designed to confuse and demoralize the Left.
It plays well with the Whole Paycheck, Subaru crowd. It's like, uh, part of their fashionably 'cool' stuff.
The previous comments have nothing to do with what she says in the article. They just castigate the writer and the magazine for not being politically correct. Why do I think that Robespierre would not have satisfied some of those who follow CD?
But more to the point, the quote from Grijalva is a joke. Who cares if seventy Democrats in the House will oppose a deal they do not like. There are about 100 other Democrats who might vote with Boehner, regardless of whether Grijalva approves.
OK, I'll bite. Is Katrina really waking up from her numerous dippers of Obama's kool-aid? If so, great. Welcome aboard. But I'll still be wearing a life preserver/parachute in case her servo-mechanism suddenly veers back on course to homing in on voting for Obama or any other shill proposed by the D wing of the corporatist party.
You would never know it but how little recognition it gets, but the Progressive caucus is the majority. It was the Bluedogs who had their ranks decimated in 2010, but even then they were a minority, despite Obama's elevation of their status.
Wrong again S... Katrina attacks the right-ward shift which is dismanteling the social saftey net at the same time supporting the SOURCE of the dysfunction, i.e. Obama. If anyone is being politically correct in their ideology, it is you and Katrina. Not us.
I echo prior postings,ekobe, goinggreen and arkay. This piece has been carefully crafted to avoid thorough Democrat complicity by red herring "Democratic leadership". She doesn't even call out the names of those Vichy leaders; that's because the list would be too long, diluting her "talking point".
She should read Greenwald's column, but most likely the willful blindness will persist despite the ongoing catalog of evidence.
When did :Gang of" become part of polite discourse regarding U.S. politicians? I thought that language was reserved for Communist thugs like Mao.
Back in 1981 in the UK there was a so-called "Gang of 4" politicians who broke away from the Labour Party to found the SDP (Social Dem. Party). They didn't last long as SDP. Maybe some journalist remembered that event and used the term here?
Katrina,
I support the CPC and strongly agree with their agenda. But you must call out Obama on healthcare and financial reform as a supporter of the Republican agenda.
"House Democrats hold the key to whatever plan can pass Congress."
And if they behave true to form, they'll fold as soon as Obama and Pelosi tell them to fold, and support the "centrist" cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid ...
For me to believe the "Gang of 70" really have cojones they will have to filibuster the pending "compromise" bill until it is withdrawn. If not then their talk is extremely cheap.
This is a day late (and probably more than a dollar short) but the Gang of 70 is in the House, not the Senate, so they cannot filibuster anything.
Katrina,
Perhaps if you and your rag had pushed for Dennis Kucinich in 2004 instead of backing the yeehaw guy, things might be a bit different now.
“And with Republicans not voting for any package, period, because of their opposition to a functional economy..."
Funny shit
***
The Gang of 300 Million
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
***
Hi Posters,
It's great to read that less of us are willing to give any credence to KvH bullshit.
Sheepherder, I usually agree with your posts but this lady is the enemy.
maciek, that Neoliberal/Neoconservative stuff is some truely confusing mindfuck propaganda. Thanks for equating them.
I'n not as optomistic as Katrina. It's more likely that the progressive caucus will fold like they have so many other times, (healthcare, extension of tax cuts etc.) The gang of 70 out of 189 Democrats in the house defend the Big Three. That's less than half of the Dems in the house. I don't know the numbers in the Senate but seeing how enthralled they are with the formulation of the gang of 6 it must be that much less than half of the Dems in the Senate will defend the Big Three, And of course there is our President who wants to strengthen SS by cutting it. But 80% of the public doesn't want these "entitlements" to be touched. You can't find 80% of Americans who believe the earth is round--that's an amazing number and just as amazing is a a system of governance that feels it can go against that number without electoral consequence. If we had any sort of government that even approximately tried to represent the people this would create a crisis that would dissolve a parliamentary government in a vote of no confidence and a call for a new election. If we had anything like a democracy as viable as our system was in the 19th century a new party which would represent the will of the people who feel so disenfranchised by this present sell out would be forming. Even if the Democratic party were as alive and representative as it was 30 years ago there would at least be a primary challenge to Obama like the one that Kennedy made to Carter. Instead we have one party which wants to cut our SS 40% (Ryan plan) and and the other which only wants to cut it about 20% (gang of six and Obama) The difference is about 20% and with a solemn tone of inevitability all the pundits tell us that this is about the best we can do in giving Americans a choice.
Look at what passes for political analysis. After this betrayal Obama believes he can gain the center, the independent voter by saying he's not as bad as the Republican? That he will hold onto his base and gain the middle by telling us to eat our peas? I'd like to see the polling data which backs that up. My perception is of a public that is thourougly disgusted with the government it has. Until this latest crisis Congressional approval was at something like 25% but has recently been as low as 12%. In a recent barbershop conversation the main sentiment was, "they are all corrupt, all of them. None of them represent us." But when asked what we could do about, the closest anyone could come to an answer was, "throw the bums out." That was the strong feeling of anti incumbency we had in the last election and in 2008 and in 2006. Is this the sum of American Politics? Vote for Republicans till you can't stand them anymore, then vote Democratic till you can't stomach them either, then vote vote Republican again? What kind of Democracy is this?