A letter to my Senators/Congressman regarding "shared sacrifice"

[markpkessinger]

Below is the text of a letter I sent today to Senator Gillibrand. A virtually identical letter was sent also to Senator Schumer and to Representative Nadler.

Dear Senator Gillibrand:

I write to you as a loyal Democrat, one who voted for President Obama, who has become utterly exasperated with this President's lukewarm commitment to core, progressive values. In the various news conferences and other public pronouncements in the course of the debt ceiling negotiations, President Obama has repeatedly called upon Democrats to embrace the concept of "shared sacrifice."

In even discussing cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as a possible "price" that must be paid in order to secure a deal on the debt ceiling, the President demonstrates how utterly and completely he has lost touch with the day to day, lived realities of lower income folks and seniors of modest means. To assert an equivalence of sacrifice between modest tax increases on our wealthiest citizens and delayed or scaled back retirement benefits (which are already rather modest) which will have an outrageously disproportionate impact upon lower and middle income folks is a sham, and a moral outrage of the first order. The proposed cuts could possibly cause certain folks to delay seeking needed healthcare, for example, or could force folks to choose whether to eat or pay an electric bill. To compare the relatively minor impact of a modest tax increase on our wealthiest citizens -- which will prevent that person from doing what, exactly: postponing the purchase of a Learjet, or delaying the purchase of a fourth or fifth home? -- to the very real impact on the health and well being of lower income folks and seniors, and then to call it "shared sacrifice," is perhaps one of the most profoundly offensive things I have ever heard from the lips of a President of EITHER party.

The voters elected a DEMOCRAT for a reason. They finally woke up and saw the GOP agenda for what it really is (and really always has been). Yet, here we have a Democratic President who, on issue after issue, capitulates to an opposition party currently dominated by one of the most extreme, radical agendas in the history of this country, and all the while patting himself on the back concerning his efforts at "bipartisanship."

Senator Gillibrand, it is imperative that you and other House and Senate Democrats stand firm against the moral bankruptcy of the President's position. In fact, it is even more imperative that you and your Democratic colleagues articulate a clearly MORAL framework for all of our discussions concerning the nation's spending priorities, even if that means going against a President of your own party. Spending cuts that disproportionately burden our most vulnerable citizens are not now, and never will be in any moral universe I know of, the moral and ethical equivalent of tax increases on the portion of our population that can well and easily afford to bear them. This understanding was once a given in this country's collective value system. The fact that any politician is asserting an equivalence is shocking enough; the fact that a Democratic President is asserting it is (or should be) unfathomable.

The President could win this fight on progressive terms if he really wanted to. (Apparently, his loyalties now lie with his corporate banking underwriters, so it clearly is not a priority for him.) He has the singular advantage of the bully pulpit. If he were to take the real moral argument to the American people directly, they would back him overwhelmingly, Tea Party or no Tea Party. But by sticking to his hobby-horse of trying to "compromise" with a radical, extremist agenda, and by asserting a false equivalence with phrases like "shared sacrifice," President Obama is doing as much or more to our party's long-standing commitment to social justice as any Congressional Republican is doing. (Hell, I probably could have done about this well voting for McCain. Sure, we wouldn't have healthcare reform, but given that the "reform" we got leaves intact the private, for-profit insurance system, I'm not at all convinced we got it in any case.)

I have not yet decided what I will do come the 2012 elections. The way I am feeling at the moment, if I were to see a third-party progressive candidate I thought stood even a remote chance of succeeding, I would be inclined to vote for such a candidate. I remain a loyal Democrat with respect to the other branches of government, however, but only insofar as Democrats in the other branches of government demonstrate a willingness to fight for the social and economic justice values that have historically given breath to the Democratic party. But should Democracts in these other branches begin to adopt the course the President has taken (of finding no agenda too extreme to compromise with), then I will re-evaluate those loyalties.

We have lived through a 30+ year period in which virtually every economic policy decision coming out of Washington, by presidents of both parties and by Congressional majorities of both parties, have inured to the overwhelming benefit of those who now apparently buy our elections, while the rest of us have seen our share of overall wealth diminish, our incomes flatline or even decrease, and our ability to significantly better ourselves radically curtailed. So for this President to speak of "shared sacrifice" in this context is an insult to every voter's intelligence, and a complete betrayal of the values Democrats are supposedly committed to.

Please, Senator Gillibrand, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to resist any deal which places the real burden on our most vulnerable citizens while imposing little more than nominal "sacrifice" of our most affluent. Voters are tired of Republican ideological intransigence; but we are also becoming increasingly disgusted with Democratic officials who seem to be pathologically unable or unwilling to take a firm stand on behalf of their traditional constituency.

Sincerely,
Mark P. Kessinger

[msongs]

1. the elected class is not sacrificing ANYTHING - they oughta give up their pensions/health care nt