Now that the people’s blinders are off and the Machiavellian extremism of Republican fascist corporatism are plain to see, common beltway wisdom prefers to ignore it. Instead they say it’s time co compromise, to make a deal with the Republicans. The Republicans will make no deal that does not leave Main Street screaming for Vaseline, so I say, No! Before Obama was elected I said that true bipartisanship with today’s Republicans is impossible. History has proven me right.
This editorial from the Times sets the landscape:
Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun. If it was not clear before, it is obvious now that the party is fully engaged in a project to dismantle the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to liberate business and the rich from the inconveniences of oversight and taxes.
At first it seemed that only a few freshmen and noisy followers of the Tea Party would support the new extremism. But on Friday, nearly unanimous House Republicans showed just how far their mainstream has been dragged to the right. They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
Mr. Ryan called the vote “our generation’s defining moment,” and indeed, nothing could more clearly define the choice that will face voters next year.
His bill would end the guarantee provided by Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and the poor, which has been provided by the federal government with society’s clear assent since 1965. The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift by Mr. Ryan. People now under 55 would be required to pay at least $6,400 more for health care when they qualified for Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Fully two-thirds of his $4.3 trillion in budget cuts would come from low-income programs.
In addition to making “entitlement” a dirty word, the Ryan bulldozer would go much further in knocking down government programs to achieve its goals. It would cut food stamps by $127 billion, or 20 percent, over the next 10 years, almost certainly increasing hunger among the poor. It would cut Pell grants for all 9.4 million student recipients next year, removing as many as one million of them from the program altogether. It would remove more than 100,000 low-income children from Head Start, and slash job-training programs for the unemployed desperate to learn new skills.
And it would do all that while preserving the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and even expanding them. Regulation of business and the environment would be sharply reduced.
The mania for blindly cutting has also spread to statehouses, many with new Republican governors and legislatures. Several states have cut their unemployment benefits below the standard 26 weeks. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has proposed removing 138,000 people from Medicaid. Many recession-battered states, including some led by Democrats, have been forced to cut other services because Republicans have made it so politically difficult to raise taxes. Education, mental health and juvenile justice funds have been particular targets.
In Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Maine and Florida, Republican governors have used the smokescreen of a poor economy to pursue a long-held conservative goal of destroying public and private unions… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
How can we compromise with that? Who do we throw under the bus to reach a deal to give billionaires a matching set of mansions? The old? The poor? The sick? The hungry? None of the above!
Paul Krugman says it’s time to take a stand.
Now, Republicans claim that last year’s midterms gave them a mandate for the vision embodied in their budget. But last year the G.O.P. ran against what it called the “massive Medicare cuts” contained in the health reform law. How, then, can the election have provided a mandate for a plan that not only would preserve all of those cuts, but would go on, over time, to dismantle Medicare completely?
For what it’s worth, polls suggest that the public’s priorities are nothing like those embodied in the Republican budget. Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy. Large majorities — including a majority of Republicans — also oppose major changes to Medicare. Of course, the poll that matters is the one on Election Day. But that’s all the more reason to make the 2012 election a clear choice between visions.
Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
If Democrats, who currently begin negotiations slightly right of center, keep giving in to meet Republicans, who currently begin negotiations slightly right of Hitler, the voting public will have no reason to choose Democrats in the polls. Instead they will chose the more accomplished liars, the Republicans. The Republican president will appoint another goose-stepper to the Supreme Court and America will have given way to a permanent one-party state of corporate fascism, of, by, and for the super rich and criminal corporations. The Democratic Party has a choice to make.
If little or nothing gets done for the next year and a half, that will be hard, but if they give in, they will have no case to take to the voters.
16 Responses to “America or Fascist Corporatism?”
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The New York Times Editorial and Krugman are spot on!
I wonder if the recent replacement of Axelrod with Plouffe as Senior Advisor is the reason we’re seeing more spine in Obama. But whatever it is, I want MORE of it!
I hope so. I think Obama is entering campaign mode and is trying to fire up his base. I feel he wants to be a people pleaser and he tries hard to compromise on everything to give a little bit of everything to everyone, but enough is enough. When will he realize that the GOP will stop at nothing to destroy America all in the name of business and the rich? Ignore the extremists Republicans and listen to those who got him elected!
If he hasn’t learned, will he ever?
It could be, Nameless. He had some great progressive advisers during his 2008 campaign, all of whom saw the bottom of the bus in January, 2009, so I want more than talk.
The choice to make is to vote out all DINOs, especially DINO Obama, in next year’s Democratic Primaries.
Vote only for Progressive Democrats.
Kevin, I share most of your disappointments with Obama, but I seriously doubt that he will be challenged by a realistic candidate. Kucinich is not a realistic candidate, because he endorsed Ron Paul as his running mate in 2008. If Obama gets the nomination, what then?
“Liberals” placing hope in Obama, aka Barack Bush??? Fools get what they deserve. It’s Springtime now– getting warmer, easier to survive: this “compromise” budget, which now slashes LIHEAP, food stamps, Medicade, and etc., won’t begin to sink into the public mind until well-after the Butcher’s Bill makes itself fully present, perhaps sometime after the onset of the next winter as the “less fortunate” begin to fall ill and die off from need and illness, their reliance upon others or other entities. It’s a foreseeable condition imposed as a direct result of these cuts: death en-masse. Obama is no different: it’s every animal for itself and he’s looking out for his own. Barack, the Banker’s Boy.
Jason, from what I know about his compromise budget, the cuts he envisions cuts the overhead, without cutting benefits. See my comment to Kevin.
Man, if his visions are anything like the run-up to the last elections, this dude should be medicated!
With regards to the “compromise budget,” I was unaware there was much overhead that could be cut without slashing into benefits: so for my benefit, at least (and not meaning to challenge you or put you on the spot on this, because we might be on the same side over here), can you point me in the right direction and perhaps cite a few sources so I can read up on how “cutting overhead” without touching benefits is possible?
Jason, the problem is that it’s still speculative, based on what he has said. Your list is based on the deficit (cat food) commission. Obama said debt commission recommendations might be on the table if all other means fail. On cutting overhead, just changing Medicare and Medicaid to allow the federal government to negotiate prescription prices instead of paying full retail would save billions.
Republicans have taken off the sheeps clothing of patriotism, conservatism, family and religion and gone for the throat of the country. So fervent is their mad rush for the last blood left in the dying body that they don’t realize they have revealed their unlimited greedy nature and intent. I only hope it is not too late for those who were duped into voting them in, to vote them right back OUT! No one I speak to, and I speak to a lot of people from all walks of life, wants to cut benefits to the elderly, the disabled, the sick and infirm, the mentally ill, the addicts and especially not to THEIR CHILDREN WHO WILL BE DIRECTLY AND NEGATIVELY IMPACTED! Yet we continue to hear media “surveys” quoting the fear mongers as saying that AMERICA wants all of that. Whose America? The line has been drawn, very clearly and divisively, in the sand by the Republicans, either you are with us, (already wealthy) or you are DEAD! Let the might sword of justice, equality, freedom and the TRUE American way be raised in her defense. We can do no less. If you sit back in your armchair with your mouth full of cheese puffs, watching everyone else hit the streets, you will ultimately hear the march of boots ourside your door as they drag your neighbors off into the darkness as “terrorists”. Just research what recently happened in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina with thousands upon thousands killed in the name of national security and the good of the nation. It all started like this, it always does. He who does not learn from history, is destined to repeat it!
Welcome, LB. 🙂
An interesting rant and even accurate in parts, but do you have a suggestion?
The Fascists whom are the sworn enemy to the United States of America, as we fought World Wars and many died to eliminate them…must be completely eliminated from the face of the earth. That is OUR responsibility.
The tyrannical Government they have subverted and infiltrated must be DISSOLVED immediately. They are to irrelevant and considered NULL and VOID. High Treason charges must enforced upon them and a sane government RE established if we are to go on, along with the globe. HEED THIS!
Welcome, Art. 🙂
What specifically, do you suggest?
The Publicans got a 20% bigger cut than they demanded. You can call that “compromise” if you want. I call it caving, and I’m being kind. It could be a sellout.
Whatever happened to the guy who ran for President? The one now in the White House is not the same. Is he a “Manchurian candidate”?
Welcome, Thomas. 🙂
In an earlier article, I blasted him for that cave in.
The one running said that he would govern from the center. That is what he has tried to do wothout success. He should have learned learned not to make concessions to terrorists. But Manchurian Candidate is a step too far. Compare Sotomayor and Kagan to Roberts and Alito.