Obama-McConnell Conservative Consensus Triumphs Over Working Families

Any Member of the outgoing 111th Congress wondering if they should apply for reelection help from Blue America for the 2012 midterms can consult this page from the House Clerk's official roll call on the Obama/McConnell job-killing/economy devastating tax giveaway to millionaires and billionaires. Any incumbent who voted YES-- and there were 139 Democrats who went along with this Conservative Consensus travesty-- should save themselves the trouble and the inevitable rejection of even asking for help. Get your payoffs from the millionaires and billionaires. The Democrats who voted for this bill-- which, as Louise Slaughter pointed out, also opens the door towards dismantling Social Security by dangerously disrupting its funding-- aren't only the regular cast of conservative characters we expect this kind of behavior from. Sure you have your right-of-center political hacks like Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH), Melissa Bean (IL), Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ), Tom Perriello (VA), Artur Davis (AL), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Jane Harman (Blue Dog-CA), Steve Israel (NY), the new head of the DCCC, Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Ike Skelton (MO), Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)... all the regular slime always eager to sell out working families on behalf of Big Business. But there are also many-- too many-- moderates and liberals who went along with the austerity shock doctrine.

It was very sad and disheartening to see progressive allies like Jan Schakowsky (IL), Melissa Schwartz (PA), Dennis Kucinich (OH), Chaka Fattah (PA), Dave Loebsack (IA), Niki Tsongas (MA), Paul Hodes (NH), Lois Capps (CA), Andre Carson (IN), John Sarbanes (MD) and others voting with Blue Dogs, ConservaDems and 138 right-wing Republicans to doom the American middle class.

As Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Chair of the Rules Committee, pointed out when she voted against the bill, it, "for the first time since Social Security was signed in 1935, interferes with the revenue stream that funds Social Security. The example being set by not allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire convinces me that this ‘temporary’ disruption will also not be allowed to expire in an election year. Secondly, the addition of $858 billion to the debt to provide tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans, and an estate tax that costs $25 billion to benefit 6,600 families, is an atrocious giveaway in a nation riddled with debt and unemployment."

Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy took to his twitter account to tell his constituents why he was voting NO: "We need more jobs, not more debt so that 20% of money in this bill can go to 1% of Americans. Tough call, but I can't support it."

And Jerry Nadler (D-NY) made it clear on the House floor that what Congress just did was make permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires permanent, assuring budgetary deficits that will eventually cripple the government.

...[I]f this bill passes, we will extend the upper income tax cuts, at the cost of an increase to the deficit of $700 billion, for an additional two years. $700 billion over 10 years. We are told that in two years it will expire. But, of course, we also know that our friends on the other side of the aisle will try to extend it in two years. And in two years we’ll have the same kind of coercion. We’ll be told that if we don’t extend the upper income tax cuts, the middle-class tax cuts will also expire. And I don’t see any reason to believe that we wouldn’t succumb to that coercion two years from now in an election year, much as we’re doing now on this bill.
 
“So, I believe that passing this bill would in effect make permanent the upper end tax cuts, which would generate a $700 billion increase in the deficit, which would make it almost impossible to fund housing, education, and everything else we need. It would be the culmination of the 30-year Republican effort to “starve the beast”-- to deliberately create huge deficits in order to provide the political cover for reducing expenditures in education, housing, social security, and Medicare.

...We are going, in this bill, to provide for a one-year reduction of 2% in the Social Security tax. That will cost us $120 billion in one year, which will be replenished from the general fund. But we know perfectly well that, politically, once you make that tax cut, it will be impossible to restore it. Which means, it will be $120 billion a year-- forever-- taken away from Social Security but replaced by the general fund.
 
“Now, the conservatives have always told us that we have to reduce Social Security, increase the retirement age, and reduce benefits because it contributes to the deficit. We’ve said, ‘NO, it doesn’t contribute to the deficit. Social Security is walled-off and has nothing to do with the deficit.’ But, now, it will be put right in the middle of the deficit debate and it will cost the general fund $120 billion a year-- $1.2 trillion over 10 years-- and we’ll be told that you’ve got to reduce Social Security benefits, increase the retirement age, because of the deficit. And it will be in the middle of the deficit debate; and we’ll be told a year, or two, or three from now, ‘by the way, we’ll only replace $100 of the $120 billion that we’re taking away from Social Security this year because we need the money for housing, education, or something else,’ and we should not want to be in that situation.
 
“FDR decided, in 1935, that Social Security would be supported by its own tax, by its own situation of people paying into it so people take it back when they retire. Now we’re going to take some of that money away and we’re going to say that the general fund will support it. FDR knew that, by setting up Social Security as self-financing, it would be difficult to abolish or to reduce. This undoes that genius by the New Deal and puts Social Security at great risk and, accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I must oppose this bill.”

Obama's no FDR; and he may actually be as terrible a mistake for America as George Bush and Herbert Hoover, the two worst presidents in contemporary times. Who would have imagined that in 2008?

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, issued a statement after the vote last night, celebrating, of course, an extension of emergency unemployment benefits to almost a million and a half people thrown out of their jobs by the misdeeds and mishandling of the economy by the very people who will most benefit by the tax giveaways. But, as he pointed out, the temporary extension comes at too high of a price for the country: "It rewards obstructionists with huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires."



To get their way, Senate Republicans terrorized millions of jobless workers-- making them live in fear for months as cold weather and the holidays approached. Some of our jobless brothers and sisters lost the ability to warm their homes or put food on the table and gas in the car. Some working families even lost their homes to the Big Banks that caused our economic meltdown-- all so Senate Republicans could get tax breaks for the rich. These tax cuts throw away precious resources needed for investments in jobs and will do very little to propel economic growth.

Senate Republicans have shown themselves to be morally bankrupt hypocrites. They capitalized on the hardships of our country’s most vulnerable people to extract tax cuts for their rich friends, like the top executives of Goldman Sachs. Just yesterday, they reported they’d be splitting $111 million in bonuses this January. They’ll save millions on their taxes-- money that should go toward fixing the mess they helped create.

And we know this is not the end. Soon, the same lawmakers who fought to get tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires will be coming after your Social Security and Medicare. Count on it. They’ll say we need to have “shared sacrifice”-- but they won’t ask Wall Street and moneyed interests to share in the sacrifice required to clean up the mess they created. Instead, they’ll come after working people.

How much longer will progressives like Trumka and Nadler feel unable to break with Obama-- clearly a conservative with a horrifying conservative agenda? Obama is as much an enemy of working families as the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon...These people serve the interests of the ruling elite at the expense of the whole country. We may have expected it from the Bushes and Reagan and McCain, but Obama deceived us. Yesterday my link to Matt Taibbi's comparison between working family hero Bernie Sanders and working family traitor Barack Obama was buried. Here's the Rolling Stone story again-- about how, "in an era of Democratic waffling and compromise, the Independent from Vermont actually stands up for what he believes in" and puts Obama to shame. Taibbi writes about how Sanders filibustered for "eight hours and 37 minutes to make a case that the hideous deal that Barack Obama cut with the Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts was an outrage to the very qualities that matter most to this politician, common decency and common sense."

While everyone else in Washington was debating the political efficacy of the deal-- the Hill actually published a piece talking cheerfully about how CEOs found a “new friend” in Obama, while the New York Times shamelessly ran a front-page “analysis” talking up the deal’s supposed benefits to the middle class and the political benefits from same that Obama would enjoy-- Sanders blew all of that off and just looked at the deal’s moral implications. Which are these: this tax deal, frankly and unequivocally, is the result of a relatively small group of already-filthy rich people successfully lobbying an even smaller group of morally spineless politicians to shift an ever-bigger share of society’s burdens to the lower and (what’s left of the) middle classes. This is people who already have lots of shit just demanding more shit, for the sheer rotten sake of it. Here’s how Bernie put it:

"How can I get by on one house? I need five houses, ten houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power, we've got the lobbyists here and on Wall Street. Tough luck. That's the world, get used to it. Rich get richer. Middle class shrinks."

I contrast this now to the behavior of Barack Obama. I can’t even count how many times I listened to Barack Obama on the campaign trail talk about how, as president, he would rescind the Bush tax cuts as soon as he had the chance. He stood up and he said over and over again-- I can still hear him saying “Let me be clear!” with that Great Statesman voice of his, before he went into this routine-- that the Bush tax cuts were wrong and immoral. He said more than once that they “offended his conscience." Then, just as he did with drug re-importation and Guantanamo and bulk Medicare negotiations for pharmaceuticals and the issue of whether or not he would bring registered lobbyists into his White House and a host of other promises, he tossed his campaign “convictions” in the toilet and changed his mind once he was more accountable to lobbyists than primary voters. He pulled an Orrin Hatch, in other words, only he did it serially.

I can live with the president fighting for something and failing; what I can’t stand is a politician who changes his mind for the sake of expediency and then pretends that was what he believed all along. You just can’t imagine someone like Sanders doing something like that; his MO instead would be to take his best shot for what he actually believes and let the chips fall where they may, budging a little maybe to get a worthwhile deal done but never turning his entire face inside out just to get through the day. This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. It’s just that most of our politicians-- our president included, apparently-- would rather not bother.

Blue America, on the other hand, will very much be supporting Bernie Sanders, presumably in his Senate reelection race. Unless he decides to run against the Conservative Consensus president and take Obama on in a primary. In either case, please consider helping Bernie keep working for ordinary Americans. Few enough Members of Congress do. And with the loss of Alan Grayson and Russ Feingold, losing Bernie from the public forum is something we just cannot afford.