The 'Repo-Demo' party's three-part austerity plan for America

[Enrique]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6792/the_repo-demo_partys_three_phase_austerity_plan_for_america/

The ‘Repo-Demo’ Party’s Three Phase Austerity Plan for America

(...)

But the Bush tax cut extension just passed by a political elite increasingly united on economic policy—a ‘Repo-Demo’ Party dominated by corporate interests—is only the first of three phases in a new policy offensive designed to protect the incomes of the wealthy and corporate America for another decade, to be paid for directly by middle- and working-class America. Together, the three phases represent the emerging U.S. variant of a general austerity strategy, similar in objective but different in content to other austerity programs now emerging as well in the Eurozone, Japan and elsewhere.

Phase two: draconian spending cuts

The second phase will likely be implemented in the next three months, before the ceiling on the federal debt has to be lifted. It will take the form of massive spending cuts in the U.S. budget, targeting Social Security and Medicare in particular. (A parallel draconian slash in spending will occur at the state level, targeting Medicaid and education).

Social Security has been a prime target since the Reagan years. Unable to cut it in the early 1980s, Reagan instead settled on a major increase in the payroll tax in 1984, creating a $2.5 trillion surplus over the last 25 years. However, that surplus was ‘borrowed’ every year by Congress to cover up in part U.S. budget deficits created annually since the 1980s to pay for war spending and tax cuts.

(...)

Phase three: revising tax code to help the wealthy

Following the imminent draconian cuts in spending and Social Security-Medicare-Medicaid-Education about to take place in 2011, which lie at the heart of the second phase, the third phase of the new austerity strategy will follow in the summer of 2012. It will take the form of a fundamental revision of the U.S. tax code.

(...)

[xchrom]

1. A single narrative governing principle.

A governing principle even Reagan could love.

[OHdem10]

2. Continuing Reagonomics brings us closer and closer to 3rd World

Status.

[ProSense]

3. Fiction for $500, Alex.

"Get ready for more of the same failed "job creation" policies, enacted by an increasingly unified political eilte"

Obama: Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich Won’t Create ‘One Single Job’

What the hell is the ‘Repo-Demo’ Party?

More there is no difference crap.

[great white snark]

6. Repo-Demo=words that manifested on the wall while I was sniffing glue.

This OP is out there.

[dionysus]

4. i praise the author of this piece for having a very active imagination.

[Ikonoklast]

5. I hear hitting the bong too hard can make one paranoid.

I think this was written while the author was wearing a nice tinfoil hat, and with all the windows covered with blankets.


Shows that the loony left is just as loony as the loony right, when it comes to conspiracy theories.


I just think they're angry that the economy did not collapse, ushering in The Glorious Revolution.

[Enrique]

7. the economy did collapse for millions of unemployed

and foreclosed and homeless and without health insurance.

[Ikonoklast]

8. And it could have been far, far worse.

As bad as things are currently, considering where we might have ended up gives me the shivers.


As you may note, I didn't state things were just peachy.