Not Even Many Bright Shiny Objects For The Base

The ruling elite didn't even have the decency to throw in an extension of unemployment benefits as a sweetener to cowed Democrats in Congress. I guess they figured they could use that as a backup if too many House Democrats decided to follow their consciences... instead of their Conservative Consensus president who already lost them their majority last year and is guaranteeing they won't win it back in 2012. That won't be necessary though, will it?

Yesterday MoveOn asked its members if the organization should support the sugarcoated Satan Sandwich or not.

As you've probably read, Republicans are holding our country's credit hostage and demanding major spending cuts to critical programs without ending tax breaks for the wealthy. If a deal isn't reached by tomorrow night-- or a short-term extension isn't passed by then-- the nation will default on its debts.

President Obama just announced an agreement with congressional leaders. We want to see what MoveOn members think of the deal. (For more information on the details of the deal, see below.) 

Supporting the deal means we would encourage Congress to vote for it and avert default. Opposing the deal means we would encourage members of Congress to vote no and demand that the deal be improved before it's passed.

Can you let us know what you think? Should MoveOn support the deal to raise the debt ceiling?

Progressive Members of Congress, led by Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Raul Grijalva in the House, have been adamantly opposed, although the Democratic Party's ultimate corporate shill and suckup, Steny Hoyer, immediately promised to provide however many Democrats Boehner needs to make up for GOP defections. As Steve Benen, normally a dependable voice for the White House point of view, raged in his column yesterday, the deal can't even be called a "compromise."

The debt-reduction framework isn’t a compromise; it’s a ransom. If one were to draw up two lists-- one with all the concessions Democrats made, the other with the concessions the GOP made-- the one-sided image would be striking. Of course, that’s what happens when one party has a gun to the head of its hostage-- in this case, the nation and its economy-- and the other party wants to prevent their rivals from pulling the trigger.

...[T]here’s nothing in this deal to promote economic growth and nothing to create jobs. We’re still stuck in the wrong conversation, focusing on a crisis that doesn’t exist, and ignoring the immediate crisis that confronts the nation. Indeed, all available evidence suggests the agreement will make the economy and job losses worse, not better. That Republicans wanted to take a huge step backwards, and Democrats negotiated to make it a more modest step backwards is cold comfort.

Two and a half hours later Benen was paraphrasing Neil Young: The ceiling and the damage done, and seemingly absolving Obama from all blame for this hideous deal he could have prevented.

The United States, thanks entirely to the right’s breathtaking stunt, is now seen as a less-safe bet and a less-attractive place for investment. The nation is now seen as more dysfunctional and less responsible. We’ve been made to look like fools on the global stage, and China has sought to exploit the Republican crisis, to the GOP’s indifference.

I’m reminded of something Felix Salmon wrote a few weeks ago: “The base-case scenario is, still, that the debt ceiling will be raised, somehow. But already an enormous amount of damage has been done: the US Congress has demonstrated clearly that it can’t be trusted to govern the country in a responsible manner. And the tail-risk implications for markets are huge.”

I don’t know if Republican lawmakers are aware of any of this. Worse, I also don’t know if they care. But American leadership on the global stage rests on certain pillars that took generations to build and strengthen-- credibility, reliability, stability, the integrity of our institutions, sound judgment. The Republican Party severely undermined these pillars in the Bush era, most notably in areas of foreign policy and the use of military force. The Republican Party is now severely undermining them again.

The world has been watching and thanks to GOP madness, the sanity of the world’s greatest superpower is very much in doubt.

The White House has been pushing back with a pathetic effort to make Democrats think the deal Boehner, Grover Norquist and Eric Erickson are pimping is great for ordinary working families. It's really sad. Time gave them a platform for their fumbling excuses:

Here’s why some liberals are actually happy with this deal:

The 2012 budget: At one point in the negotiations, the 2012 budget was to be slashed by $36 billion. The final number of cuts: just $7 billion. And just to ensure we don’t have another bruising government shutdown fight over cuts in September, the deal deems and passes the 2012 budget. Yes, that’s right, the old Gephardt Rule or Slaughter Solution, is back. What’s deem and pass? It’s a legislative trick that essentially means that Congress will consider the budget passed without ever actually having to vote on it.

The trigger: This is counterintuitive, but the trigger is actually pretty good for Democrats. For all that MoveOn thinks that it would force benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, it actually wouldn’t trigger benefit cuts to any entitlements. The only cuts it would force would be a 2% or more haircut for Medicare providers. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, along with most Democrats, has never opposed provider cuts. Not only that, most progressives actually want the Pentagon cuts. So if the committee deadlocks and the trigger is pulled, Democrats won’t be miserable.

The commission: Again, for all the liberal carping about a “Super Congress,” the commission of 12 members-- three from each party in each chamber-- set up to find the second phase of $1.5 trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving is actually rigged to force some revenue increases. Yes, the Bush tax cuts are off the table. But there are plenty of loopholes, subsidies and other corporate welfare programs that are on the table. And with such a strong trigger, it’s hard to imagine at least one Republican not voting to kill corporate jet subsidies over slashing $500 billion from the defense budget-- even if the revenues aren’t offset. The question is: who are Republicans more afraid of, Grover Norquist or the joint chiefs? Democrats’ money is on the joint chiefs.

The immediate cuts: It may seem like a lot, but the $917 billion in the first phase of cuts were carefully negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and his group. They include $350 billion in Pentagon cuts-- a win for liberals. They don’t touch entitlement benefits, another win. And they set top line numbers for the next decade of budgets that aren’t draconian. It still cuts where liberals might prefer to spend, but most of the savings are backloaded to avoid extreme austerity in next few years of fragile economic recovery. Just $7 billion would be cut in 2012, and only $3 billion in 2013. And of that combined $10 billion, half would come from the Pentagon. On top of that, the discretionary spending caps on budgets in future Congresses are subject to revision by those bodies.

The debt ceiling: Raising the debt ceiling through 2013 will not be contingent on the second round of cuts. There will merely be a vote of disapproval. This avoids another messy fight in January and another round of painful forced cuts.

Happy yet? No? Well, the White House is also promising to back same sex marriage to shut some people up and insisting that insurers must cover birth control with no copays. Nice... but nothing will ever change the fact that Barack Obama, whose most salient personality defect is his fear of losing a fight, which prevents him from ever getting into one-- has been an absolute catastrophe for ordinary working families in this country. Here are two typical statements from progressive activist organizations. First from the Center for Community Change:

This deal worsens the serious imbalance in this country between wealthy Americans who get to retain their huge tax breaks while lawmakers slash spending on the backs of working Americans.

“There is no attempt at shared sacrifice in the debt plan, nothing that addresses how to create more jobs in this country, and this plan offers only more insecurity to families already on the brink of financial catastrophe, rather than offering any type of assistance to them,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.

In thousands of house meetings held last month across the country, Americans fed up with waiting for elected lawmakers to help turn the economy around came together to talk about ways to create jobs to help rebuild the country.

“Washington is clearly broken and our elected officials are playing only petty political games,” Bhargava said. “Together we can succeed but it would be a lot easier if Congress would just listen to their constituents who want the rich to pay their fair share, pass serious legislation to create jobs and protect those most vulnerable from cuts to critical programs.”

And then, from Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn: “This is a bad deal for our fragile economic recovery, a bad deal for the middle class and a bad deal for tackling our real long-term budget problems. It forces deep cuts to important programs that protect the middle class, but asks nothing of big corporations and millionaires. And though it does not require cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid benefits, it opens the door for these down the road via an unaccountable Congressional committee. We surveyed our 5 million members and the vast majority oppose the deal because it unfairly asks seniors and the middle class to bear the burden of the debt deal. Congress should do what it should have done long ago and what it has done dozens of times before-- pass a clean debt ceiling bill.” And, in case you haven't heard, Blue America won't be endorsing or raising money for any incumbents who vote for the SatanSandwich. We haven't had an Olbermann Special Comment for quite a while; it's time: