"make him do it" . (I'm not sure I agree with this?)

[kentuck]

http://wwwwsonneteighteencom.blogspot.com/2011/07/obamas-big-deal-wallowing-with-pigs-in.html

<snip>
Barack Obama is salivating at the prospect of concluding his Big Deal with the Republicans, the one that will move the center robustly – even transformatively – to the Right, where this president really lives. The debt-limit deadline is Obama’s big chance to panic a significant part of the Democratic Party into joining in the rape of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “When the debt-limit showdown arrives, pray for gridlock, which would at least mean there is still resistance to Republican extortion."

President Obama says he’s determined to make the “big deal” with the Republicans – not like the little, piddling deals he has been cutting all along to benefit the corporate classes, but the BIG deal, the grand consensus he believes he was born to forge with the GOP. Although it’s true that it will take a whopper of a deal to outclass the bipartisan joint venture that transferred $14 trillion to Wall Street, the vast bulk of it on Obama’s watch, the First Black President is nothing if not ambitious. Obama’s Big Deal is actually the coup de grace for Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society – relics, like Black activism, standing in the way of a post-everything world.

Obama has been savoring the big moment since last November, when the Republicans seized control of the House and sidelined the president’s main opposition: the left wing of his own party. Delusional Obamites, especially Blacks, are fond of saying their guy really wants Democrats and activists to force him to take a more progressive path – to “make him do it.” It’s actually the other way around. Obama depends strategically on Republicans to “make him do it” – to push him inexorably rightward with their brinksmanship and constant threats of gridlock. It is an intricate and intimate dance, with Obama and the GOP moving and grooving to the same music. Obama often gets so caught up, he mouths the Republicans’ lyrics.

“The reason to do Social Security” – by “do,” Obama means “cut” – “is to strengthen Social Security to make sure that those benefits are there for seniors in the out-years,” says Obama, an exact echo of the apocalypse-soon Social Security scare propaganda perfected over the years by the GOP. Obama has been promising to “do” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since just before he was sworn into office in January, 2009, when he announced that these entitlements would be “on the table” in his administration. His deficit reduction commission last year did indeed put the programs on the operating table, with Obama’s corporate surgeons tracing dotted lines around the organs to be excised under the irresistible imperatives of austerity – the Republicans’ copyrighted anthem.

....more

[county worker]

1. The debt limit and the deficit are short term problems.

In my opinion you do not fix short term problems with long term solutions.

The fix to the deficit is to raise taxes in the short term and do not have unfunded wars or unfunded programs not covered by current revenue.

The changes to Social Security and Medicare are long term, long lasting changes which will be in effect when ever the repugs get into power again and create another debt crisis.

The repubs are using the debt crisis which they created to get rid of social programs. It has been their plan for over 30 years.

Obama, by being willing to cut Social Security and Medicare are playing right into the hands of the right. Once the right gets what they want, they will go after more with the same tactics.


What Obama is doing is not in our interest. Social Security did not cause the debt crisis and it should not be used to solve it. Social Security is self funded and should not even be considered in these negotiations.

I really despise Obama and will vote in the next election but not for Obama but against the repug who ever runs.

[elleng]

2. :Pure B.S.

:thumbsdown:

[kentuck]

5. I think I would prefer the Senate to get more involved.

The shit is rolling downhill and it is gaining speed...

[elleng]

6. Senate is getting involved, somewhat; House is totally out of line,

but won't get the idea, unfortunately, until next elections.

POTUS announced Gang of 7 (formerly 6) back working. Repugs have to get their 'little' brothers a**** properly in gear.

[RKP5637]

3. Makes me wonder what will be next down the road with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid even

if the "big deal" is done ... because one can be sure this will all be trotted out again by the republicans, maybe not for some years, but I'm sure it will come back again. This is one of the chopping blocks they chop on 7x24x365.

The republicans will never rest until most of the population is living on the streets and begging. And the piss-poor dumb republicans that vote them in will go down too and then wonder WTF. The ones that amaze me are the piss-poor republicans that think uber-wealthy republicans are their buddies.

When I was a kid some of my friends piss-pour republican fathers voted a straight republican ticket all the time, because they knew how to make money. I used to always think, so WTF happened to your piss-poor republican fathers, it was clear they never showered any wealth on them, they just got pissed on by them.

[JoePhilly]

4. Nonsense.

[Autumn]

7. Recommended

:kick: