Just to get a grip on how tepid and worthless the Democrat Congress and Obama are, consider the following.
EXHIBIT A
Right now, state governments across the country are facing major budget crises as a result of the economic downturn caused, crudely speaking, by bankers. Working people are being hit the hardest.
California is the eye of the storm, where there is a $42 billion deficit that grew out of a convergence of decades of regressive taxation, crashing financial and construction industries, and the bursting of the housing bubble.
Across the US, all 50 states are facing a combined $180 billion budget gap . What that means is that if they don't get that amount of money, they won't be able to maintain their (already inadequate, as the result of three decades of attacks from Democrats and Republicans alike) public services.
Teachers are being laid off, schools are being closed, public transit is being massacred, tuition is being hiked, public workers are being fired, patients are being thrown out on the street, libraries are being boarded up, infrastructure is rotting. There is mass unemployment all over the country, but the jobless rates for people of color are heart-stopping.
EXHIBIT B
At present, the top marginal rate of taxation is 35%. President Reagan lowered it from 70% to 30% from 1980-83. George H.W. Bush raised it slightly, and Bill Clinton raised it a touch more so that it was 40% in 1993. And W. lowered it in 2001 to 35%.
The current holdings of wealth (not income) of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans adds up to $21.9 trillion.
Just for the sake of argument, ignore the $1 trillion in military spending alotted for 2010.
ENTER OBAMA
Obama campaigned on the "radical" program of reinstating the pre-Bush Jr. tax rates (top marginal rate of 40%) for the rich in order to pay for more extensive public spending on health care. People turned out in droves to vote for him.
Now, I'm told that a small windfall tax on corporate profits or a one-time 3% tax on the wealth of the wealthiest 1% would more than double the amount of money that state governments have on hand right now.
Moreover, we can do a little mental math and quickly see that a, shall we say, "solidarity tax" that increased the top marginal rate of taxation by 5% would raise the money to stave off all cuts to public services, infrastructure and employment. An increase of 10% could even expand and shore up already anemic services in a time when more and more people are falling back on public services.
This is not even a radical proposal. It's simple math: we could slice and dice public services (education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc.) or we could simply raise the marginal tax rate on the very very wealthiest of the wealthy.
Yet voters are not asked to weigh in on these issues (except in Oregon, where they supported it).
Instead, they are asked to support one of two pro-business parties, both of whom are happy to eviscerate public goods and bow down to the wealthy and powerful.
It is the heavily Democratic Congress who are cutting public transit, slicing the social safety net, busting teachers unions, laying off public workers, raising tuition and closing schools. And before the much-hyped and overblown "Scott Brown Incident", don't forget that the supermajority-wielding Democrats couldn't even put together a stimulus bill that covered the state budget shortfalls since they were so keen on including tax breaks in the bill. And don't forget: Obama has proposed a freeze on discretionary spending (except for, of course, military spending).
I ask you: what is the purpose of supporting the Democratic Party? This is what they do when they wield the largest Congressional majorities I've seen in my lifetime.
What progressive and left-leaning people need to do right now is, first of all, completely divest from the Democratic Party and organizations subservient to it. The next goal has to be to build on (and forge new) movements already under way against budget cuts. If we ever hope to see important reforms like single-payer or fully-funded public transit in our lifetimes, we're going to have to form independent social movements to place demands on the existing order. Asking nicely and sending money to Moveon.org isn't a case of "not doing enough"; on the contrary, this kind of "activism" is precisely what's preventing meaningful change.
Can there be any doubt, even among liberals, that the function of the Democrats, intentionally or not, is to keep existing political arrangements intact?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A Solidarity Tax?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Bullshit on stilts
said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. “I just believe in the disinfectant of the sunshine. The more we have got questions on both sides, gradually the American people are going to see more and more and more that we really do need health care reform.”Complete robotic balderdash. I could be a Democratic Senator, it's easy. Just keep repeating nonsense like this over and over: "both sides" "American people" "bipartisanship" "moderation", "good ideas" blah blah blah. And for that matter, I could get a job as a political analyst with the New York Times without changing my tune. Take a listen:
"Mr. Obama will face adversaries who are well prepared to joust with him on the finer points of health policy before a large audience that will be judging both sides and looking for signs of bipartisanship."Let's see what we have here. The NY Times is telling everyone that they're looking "for signs of bipartisanship". Are they? Do we have any basis whatever for this claim? If that's true, then why did so many people vote for Democrats in 2008 if they were first and foremost concerned about this nebulous idea of "reaching across the aisle"? If we don't have any determinate idea about what should be done and which party should do it, why do we even have elections?
[..]
"One way Mr. Obama could throw Republicans off stride would be to make a bold opening offer to embrace one of their health care priorities, like limiting medical malpractice lawsuits — an idea one Democrat close to the White House said had been under consideration."
What else is the NY Times pontificating about? Well, they've got a brilliant strategy that would enable Obama to "throw the Republicans off stride". Evidently what he should do is start off the negotiation by offering to embrace "tort reform". What a brilliant idea, indeed, one that has worked wonders for Obama throughout his presidency so far. In effect the advice is to focus on "bipartisanship" in itself, rather than the ostensible goal of whatever policy is in question.
Why doesn't he just ask the Republicans nicely and then claim that they're "mean" if they say no?
Suppose you're buying a car. In a capitalist society, buyers and sellers are pitted against one another in an agnostic relationship in which their interests fundamentally diverge. Buyers want to purchase low and sellers want to sell high.
Now, you don't walk up to the salesperson and begin by offering them some piece of "what they want" and expect them to then to reciprocate. Market transactions are not reciprocal (and this, in my view, is a knock against the market itself). What the salesperson will do in this case is simply continue their strategy of trying to get the highest price they can. That is their goal, not trying to arrive at some compromise because that has some intrinsic worth.
If you start off with a tepid demand, the effect of more compromise is an even more watered-down and tepid demand.
Health care isn't a "debate", it isn't a "compromise" and it isn't a "conversation". It is a power struggle. Whatever ends up in the final bill will be the result of the relative balance of power (broadly construed). And we forget this at our own peril.
The ideological fantasies pedalled by the NY Times under the guise of "analysis" obscures the basic facts about how politics functions in a society like ours. The Republicans (even less than the Democrats) don't care about health care reform: their goal is to derail it and forestall and serious change. Does anyone really doubt that this is true?
The Democrats realize something has to change, but their goal is to "change" it in such a way that nothing important really changes. This is, admittedly, less obvious to many people, but no less true. Of course, is the paper of record actually stuck to gathering the appropriate facts and scrutinizing the statements of politicians.... perhaps it would be more obvious than it is at present.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Far Left Obama in Action
(via SW.org):
The Obama administration is promising that it will regain momentum on the issue of health care by...giving up even more to the Republicans in the spirit of "bipartisanship." Asked if he was willing to start from square one, Obama told CBS's Katie Couric that he wants to sit down with members of both parties and "look at the Republican ideas that are out there."
Is Obama too far Left?
Yes, according to self-serving wanker Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana). I quote: "Whenever you have just the furthest-left elements of the Democratic Party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country, that's not going to work too well."
I don't have a TV, but I'd be curious to know whether he was able to tell that bold-faced lie with a straight face. Since it's his job to say shit like this with a straight face, I suppose I'm naive to think that he'd have any problem pulling it off.
"Furthest left elements"? Like who? Firebrands like Ben Nelson, Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman?
Or maybe Bayh is referring to all of the "radical Left" Goldman Sachs alums that staff the Obama cabinet?
First of all, it's news to me that there even is a Left in the Democratic Party. But to the extent that there's anyone remotely progressive in the party at all, they are a marginalized minority who rarely make any trouble for a party who's willing to concede to the Right on everything that matters. The House Progressive Caucus, for example, briefly toyed with the idea of refusing to vote for a bill that didn't have a public option... but of course they all caved on that "threat." And don't even get me started on how all of these "life long single-payer advocates" suddenly sat down and shut up when the "reform" discussions began (i.e. the ones in which "all options were supposed to be on the table").
The fact of the matter is that Democrat leadership has been talking about "moderation", "bipartisanship" and "caution" ever since 2008. Democrat apologists have been clamoring for "centrist" policy all along. Moreover, right-wing hacks like Bayh himself have been the ones with the most influence on policy.
Of course, in a way I'm wasting my time in taking Bayh at his word, when he knows full well that he's bullshitting. Bayh is simply trying to increase his leverage and individual power by weighing in against his own party. He's regurgitating Fox News talking points in order to try to piggy-back on whatever steam the GOP has picked up since Scott Brown. And what's more, like the majority of the complacent members of his party, he probably feels that there is very little at stake in taking this tack (i.e. I doubt very seriously that he's losing sleep over whether or not there are cuts to education, large numbers of uninsured and unemployed, and so on).
SW.org has an excellent editorial on this phenomenon, here. The analysis here is, in my view, right on.
If millions of people are furious with Obama, it can't be because his Administration and the Democratic supermajority are "too far Left" and are "imposing their agenda against their will".
People voted for Obama in droves because he said he was going to tax the rich and spend it on health care. Polls routinely show that people want the government to provide a national health insurance plan. Oregon recently passed a referendum designed specifically to tax the rich.
If people are furious with Obama, it's because he's not Left enough. That is, because he and his Congress are sitting back passively while education and transportation are cut, public employees are laid off, 50 million are uninsured, unions are busted and black unemployment reaches double digits.
What have the Democrats done since 2008 that Bush didn't already do? Aside from the stimulus bill, which was tepid (i.e. much smaller than the situation required) and conservative (i.e. loaded with tax breaks), what the fuck have they done? Escalate the war in Afghanistan, consider privatizing Social Security, propose spending freezes (exempting Pentagon spending of course), and spend months on a "health reform" bill that at the end of the day looked more attractive to health insurance corporations than to ordinary Americans.
Did we even need to elect Democrats in 2008 to get all of that? There's reason to think that even Bush would have been convinced to pass a modest stimulus bill like the one Obama put forward, if his last months in office are any indication.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Barack "Hoover" Obama Proposes Fiscal Austerity (exempting War spending)
Aren't you glad we have a Democratic president? Aren't you glad that we have massive Democratic majorities in Congress? You'd better be. Otherwise we might have had some jerk in the White House talking about freezing new spending initiatives for things other than war and occupation. Right?
Well, wake up and smell the coffee.
The long and short of it is this. For things like education, public transportation, and health.... its the tough medicine of austerity. But for the Pentagon budget and Homeland Security, these suffocating restrictions on spending simply need not apply.
For the things that matter, we get this strange fatalist claim that we can't but make punishing cuts.
For the things (e.g. foreign war and occupation) that some groups claim voting for Democrats aims to combat, there is evidently an endless treasure chest of goodies.
As Krugman points out, BHO's justification for the freeze is identical to GOP rationale for opposing spending altogether:
Wait, it gets worse. To justify the freeze, Mr. Obama used language that was almost identical to widely ridiculed remarks early last year by John Boehner, the House minority leader. Boehner then: “American families are tightening their belt, but they don’t see government tightening its belt.” Obama now: “Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.”It's obvious that the Democrats are a political dead-end for those on the Left. Even Krugman has, basically, the right line here:
The sad truth, however, is that our political system doesn’t seem capable of doing what’s necessary.I agree. The changes that are needed and the reforms that people want are being stone-walled by our electoral/legislative institutions. This is why we need to organize independently of the Democrat Party and create the conditions for demanding (rather than asking Democrats nicely and sending checks via moveon.org) the reforms we need.
asdf
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Pink Elephant in the Room
Mark my words, very soon we are going to be awash in commentary claiming that the Democrats have been "outmaneuvered", that the "populist Right" is on the rise, that America is a "center-Right nation".
Of course, if the Democrats are unpopular right now and anger toward Obama is on the rise, it's not because of the Republicans, the Tea-Baggers or Fox News Pundits. It's due entirely to the Democrats own actions.
Is it really that peculiar that working-class people in mining towns in West Virginia, who voted for Obama in droves, are now furious that his year in the White House has done nothing, literally nothing, to improve their condition?
Is it really that strange that Black Americans, who voted for Obama in record numbers, are disillusioned with a party and a President that escalates foreign wars while Black unemployment reaches the double digits?
Is it really surprising that a President whose entire message was "change we can believe in", having spent a year furiously trying to prevent things from changing, is now unpopular with a country that was uncharacteristcally excited to vote for him?
What we need to do right now is talk about means of organizing people independently of the Democratic Party.
Groups on the Democrat-friendly liberal left need to cut the umbilical cord and gear up for a fight. The disillusionment people are feeling is real, and should not be cast aside as cynicism. The political definition of cynicism right now is believing that progressives and leftists must perpetually subordinate themselves and their demands to the conservative Democratic Party apparatus. I, for one, staunchly refuse to forfeit my political energies to an institution that is hopelessly pro-Business, anti-Health Care reform, pro-war, and so on.
Monday, October 12, 2009
As if we needed more proof that he's a moderate
Next time one of my friends on the left tries to tell me Obama is a leftist hiding in center-left clothing for the sake of political pragmatism, I'll show them this quote from a White House official, which came out yesterday in an NBC report about the White House's response to critics of Obama's handling of LGBT issues (via Pam's House Blend):
Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the Internet left fringe.
This man is not our ally.For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
"White House appears ready to drop 'public option'"
From the Associated Press
That's fucking great. I had to create a new tag, because of this story: Obama Blows.
