Democrats say they want to "meet the Republicans in the middle" on budget cuts and austerity--but the "middle" keeps moving further and further to the right.
February 16, 2011
AMPUTATE AT the knee. Amputate at the hip. Or just stick a knife in the patient's heart. That's the scale of the alternatives being discussed by lawmakers at all levels of government when it comes to budget cuts and austerity measures.
Only the patient shouldn't be in surgery at all.
The politicians of both parties are agreed on making cuts, if not always on how deep to go. Their actions will increase the suffering of millions of people. And yet no voice in mainstream politics is proposing an alternative based on increasing taxes on corporations and the rich or ending U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No mainstream politician will speak up for measures that would make the catastrophic cuts being considered today unnecessary--and, equally important, bring a measure of justice in a society where the rich and powerful have become so much richer and more powerful.
Instead, as an anonymous Obama administration official told the New York Times, "The debate in Washington is not whether to cut or to spend. We both agree we should cut. The question is how we cut and what we cut."
http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/16/obama-and-budget-cutting
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