Obama to Congress: Stop shooting down deficit proposals

[sasha031]

Source: USA Today

Good morning from The Oval, and happy Veterans Day -- President Obama is in Seoul, South Korea, where today he said lawmakers in the United States should hold off on comments about his fiscal commission's proposals to slash the federal budget deficit through spending cuts, ending tax breaks, and a revamping of the Social Security system."Before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts," Obama told reporters.

He added: "If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they're going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved, and we can't just engage in political rhetoric."Obama said he will await the commission's Dec. 1 formal report before commenting in detail. Members "are trying to round up 14 votes for certain aspects of the recommendations, and I want to make sure that they've got the room and the space to do so," he said.The commission proposals -- outlined here by USA TODAY's Richard Wolf -- drew fire from many of Obama's fellow Democrats, including outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She and other Democrats were particularly critical of proposals to change Social Security, including lower benefits for upper-income recipients and reduced cost-of-living increases."We're going to take it out on senior citizens?" said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., one of Pelosi's appointees to the deficit reduction panel. "I am virulently against that proposal."
At a news conference in Seoul, Obama said he opposes special spending projects known as earmarks, and wants to eliminate waste from the federal budget -- but those alone won't come close to cutting the national debt now pegged at $13.7 trillion."We're going to have to make some tough choices," Obama said. "The only way to make those tough choices historically has been if both parties are willing to move forward together."

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obama-to-congress-stop-shooting-down-deficit-proposals/1

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Obama refused to allow discussion of the biggest debt-saver of all

The switch to single-payer health care, which would save at least a half-trillion a year and give us better care. That would bring Medicare under control, and make our workers more competitive globally - and save many lives.

Some people who pushed to have that option considered were jailed.

[emulatorloo]

2. "Some people who pushed to have that option considered were jailed."

Link?

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Sure

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1_____enUS380US380&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=single+payer+option+jailed

[emulatorloo]

10. Ok, voluntary civil resistance. I've done that. However you made it sound as if Obama rounded them/

them up and arrested for their beliefs.

[pattmarty]

22. Oh, come on. You don't want to believe your lying eyes.

[emulatorloo]

36. They were arrested for trespassing at Wellmark, etc. Not because of their beliefs

[pattmarty]

41. Uh huh, okay.

[Lord Magus]

56. You've just given up on being honest, I see.

People who engage in civil disobedience do so because they'll be arrested for it, the idea being that getting arrested makes them harder to ignore.

[pattmarty]

58. Jeez, I never ever thought of that.

:sarcasm:

[Lord Magus]

62. So why do you continue to pretend they were arrested for their beliefs and not their actions?

When they deliberately got themselves arrested.

[daleanime]

3. Amen...

:fistbump:

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fruittree]

19. Well that's certainly an intelligent discussion of the facts and

adds much to a solution.

[fascisthunter]

24. get over the criticism

[Fruittree]

26. Read the actual report from the commission and see what it

says - I plan to. It's generally wiser to gather your facts first then make your conclusion.

[jberryhill]

39. Lol - it's IN the deficit commission draft report

Page 36

[indepat]

4. Have but one word for the cat-food commission's recommendations: male bovine

excrement. Pure de male bovine excrement. Oozing pure male bovine excrement. A word to the wise should suffice. :)

[dkf]

5. Pelosi is critical of lower benefits to upper income recipients?

Why?

[mikehiggins]

11. Because "means testing" will change the whole structure

of Sodial Security from a transfer program paid for ENTIRELY by private contributions (albeit involuntary) to a welfare system where the benefits are tied to the need of the participants. If the corporatists manage to do that then the acceptance of SocSec will be weakened since we all know no one wants to give money to "those people," i.e. boners "lazy" people

This is all, indeed, BS, and what makes me worry is what the actual endgame will turn out to be once the SocSec changes are beaten into the ground (as they should be).

[Beartracks]

18. Very astute, Mike.

Thanks for the explanation.

You're right -- even though "those people" would be like the 90% of Americans who are clearly lazy :eyes: , the foundation would be laid for such a stigma.

--------------------------------

[Fruittree]

21. Isn't the point though that through misfortune any one of us

can become "those people" and we contribute in order to have the security that we will be taken care of should the need arise? If we are so fortunate as to not need to use this retirement income then we don't collect just like we don't collect on house insurance if we never have a disaster that makes us need it.

[sendero]

57. If Americans were rational..

... you'd have a point. But they are not.

[crazylikafox]

34. You're correct. Once Social Security is turned into a welfare system vs. an insurance system,

It will loose popular support. Now, even wealthy people love to collect their Social Security & continue to support it. That support will evaporate if we means test it, & it will be the beginning of the end for this major retirement asset for the middle class.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

50. Since Reagan the battle plan was dubbed "Strave the Beast"....

(this article was from Feb.)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10054/1037783-109.stm

OK, the beast is starving. Now what? That's the question confronting Republicans. But they're refusing to answer, or even to engage in any serious discussion about what to do.

For readers who don't know what I'm talking about: Ever since Ronald Reagan, the GOP has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed "starving the beast" during the Reagan years. The idea -- propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol -- was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait-and-switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government's fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10054/1037783-109.stm#ixzz1516hA9c4

Paul didn't win that Noble Prize for nothing!

Just google "Leo Strauss" ..they are all his disciples...Reagan - Jr *

[dkf]

54. But it's already tiered so that you get more replacement of the

Lower amounts (90%!) than the higher amounts (15%).

Higher income workers already don't get the bang for their buck that lower earners do.

[South End Liberal]

6. Tough choices? How about ending the 2 fake wars!

I read yesterday that Obama is backing away from his withdrawl of troops deadlines.

We have military bases all over the world protecting countries that should be providing their own military protection.

These are the cash sucking cows creating the huge deficits.

Yet corporations are supposed to get lower taxes and seniors work until age 68? That's the best this (corporate owned) commission can come up with?

Really?

[boppers]

52. Base cuts are in the draft.

Did you read it?

[fasttense]

7. The 3 biggest causes of our huge deficit are:

The bushes tax give-aways to the uber wealthy, the 2 or 3 (I've lost count) useless wars and this 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression.

This commission barely touches any of these causes.

Note: Social Security is not one of the causes.

[neverforget]

9. How do you reduce the deficit when the Commission itself wants tax cuts?

Not to mention that most of the pain falls on the poor and middle class. As Krugman said "unserious people".

[Uncle Joe]

13. Why is The Little Friskies Commission even making proposals before the formal report due date?

:shrug:

Thanks for the thread, sasha.

[HereSince1628]

15. That's easy, You can develop a taste for bitters, but you really start small

and use them every night during happy hour.

[HereSince1628]

14. Hey you Lawmakers? The boss say's Keep the Powder DRY!

and in God's name don't load your muskets!

[Caretha]

16. Okay I was willing to wait

and give Obama another chance, him being out of the country & all. So mentally I postulated that the commission's pre-emptive news release was just a lot of political bloviating on the part of egotical republican dickheads, but now I'm really having even bigger doubts after Obama's comments. I'm finding no comfort in them at all.

[JJW]

17. Deficits caused by Bush/Cheney & GOP

There I said it, something the Dems are too spineless to say.

Here is what they did:

1) Two illegal wars ($4 to $6 trillion)
2) Cheney's no-bid contracts (hundreds of billions)
3) Created housing bubble (several trillion & counting in bailing out crooks)
4) Irresponsible tax cuts to rich & Wall St criminal (several trillion & counting)
5) Hundred of billions of subsides to Energy Industry and other corporate criminals
6) Homeland Security (hundreds of billions)
7) Patriot Act / cost of spying on US citizens
8) Doubled Military spending
9) Bush deregulated clean air causing more people to require health care.

And I'm just getting warmed up!

[SeattleGirl]

23. Haven't you heard, JJW? Everything that has happened since

the dawn of the universe is all Obama's fault! Any of us who say otherwise are just ignorant and kissing up to that corporatist sell-out posing as President! :sarcasm:

[ProudDad]

32. Anything he perpetuates, he owns...

That includes the "Permanent War Economy(tm)" and the "National Security State(tm)" and the phony "War on Drugs(tm)"

and the continued Dem/Pub war on the poor...

and the continued capitalist War on Nature...

He owns it all...

As he was trained by Harvard Law to do...

[SeattleGirl]

43. Blah de blah blah blah

Same shit, different day,

[lark]

46. There are none so blind

as she who buries her head in the sand. Keep blah blahing while we are being sold down the river. Just don't be surprised when you wake up and realize you've been had.

[Kolesar]

27. The bush recession started in 2007

IMHO, gasoline prices killed consumer spending and henceforth blew up the real-estate and bonds bubble.

[Poboy]

29. Why are you being so devisive and hatfeul?!

Let us put those 'old arguements' to rest and not refight them.
Let us reach across the isle and find common ground on how to FUCK THE CITIZENS OVER.

[Steerpike]

20. President

speaks with forked tongue...

[South End Liberal]

25. Billionaire hedge funder Peter Peterson is behind this?

I read over on a labor web site that billionaire Peter Peterson is pulling strings in the background on this commission report and he wants Social Security cut. In fact, they say he's started his own web site & "faux" group to fund going after SS.

Of course, he wants the Bush tax cuts extended as he will benefit greatly from them.

Buying the government, one piece at a time. Capitalism at it's "greatest."

[stray cat]

28. maybe he wants democrats to sound rationale and sane

and like they at least understand the deficit and will do something about it

[lark]

47. Fucking the working class to give all their money to the rich

is sane? WTF???????

They don't give a fuck about the deficit, look at their actions when Shrub was in power. All they want is a money transfer from the working class, which has been collected via SS, to the wealthiest few - including themselves. If you think that's sane - you are in the wrong place.

[ProudDad]

30. We are officially fucked...

"The only way to make those tough choices historically has been if both parties are willing to move forward together."

B. Obama, 2010


Indeed, the two right-wings of the Corporate War Party MUST agree on who's going to get screwed...

KY Jelly sales should skyrocket...

[Gin Blossom]

49. That was the killer line for me too.

Yes that's exactly how we confronted segregation in the South during the '60's. Johnson couldn't do anything about civil rights until "both parties were willing to move forward together".

[Hulk]

31. Patience!!

Give the man a chance to return to the USA, for Christ's sake.

Did you expect anything more from that weasel from WY, Senator Grump? These are simply EVERYTHING that can lower the deficits. NOTHING has been acted on. NOTHING has been supported...except maybe by the repukkke party platform. Just take a deep breath and give this administration a chance to at least SEE the damn recommendations.

Quit your moaning and bitching, as though we are continuing our flush down the toilet we've been experiencing for the past 30 years. It's time to give the Man a little support and encouragement. What a bunch of damned whiners this "progressive/liberal/Democratic crowd" are.

[ProudDad]

33. What an apologist crowd here at DU

The more the Democans and Republicrats piss in your face, the more often you say, "Quit your moaning an bitching", "Give the man some time!"

Face it, Obama's just the latest spokesmodel for the corporate capitalist masters...

Look at the makeup of that "commission" and you can see the same corporate influence...

We aren't "moaning and bitching", we're trying to get you to pull your heads out of the sand and realize that it's the "SYSTEM" -- the entire bloody shooting match that favors the few over the needs of the many (and Mother Earth) that your new boy is flacking for that's at fault...

And expecting anything different than more of the same misery from the cat food commission is delusional... :crazy:

[stranger81]

35. I'm with you. I'm done saying "please, sir, may I have another"

while the folks who are supposed to be fighting for us keep slapping us in the face.

[Iliyah]

40. agreed

something that the corporate media wants, misinformation. I'll wait to hear him speak about it.

[GOTV]

60. Terrible advice. If the debt commision speaks you are an idiot to stand there politely waiting ...

... your turn to speak.

[Hoyt]

37. I give him credit for taking up this issue. No other President has -- reason is obvious.

Folks go ballistic. People have criticized the DRAFT report without even looking at it.

There is not solution to this that will make everyone/anyone happy. As long as the poor are protected, put it all on the table. Let's see the options (what each might "save" or "cost"), what it might mean for the country's future, do something about it and move on to other things like improving HCR.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

38. Or what? nt

[Evasporque]

42. You can't reason with people in the throes of a political tantrum. (GOP)

[EFerrari]

44. No.

[lark]

45. EVeryone to Obama, quit acting like a Repug lackey

grow a spine and be a Dem. Surely, they can't have paid you so much that you are willing to doom your party to obliviion, much less seriously injure the working class??????

[grahamhgreen]

48. The Greatest Generation's tax rates WORKED! 70-90% on the ultra-rich. NOW.

[fascisthunter]

53. Proof the Theory of "less taxes=better economy" is pure bullshit

[grahamhgreen]

55. In fact it supports the opposite claim. More taxes on wealthy = better economy,

Because they either have to spend the money or the govt does!

[ShamelessHussy]

51. weTHEpeople to our President: Stop Siding with Corporate America and Start Standing up for US

please

[GOTV]

59. Obama, I don't know that we need YOUR advice on messaging ...

... You were unable to sell the Dems over the GOP which ruined the economy.

Silence would imply acquiescence.

[ljm2002]

61. So let me get this straight...

...the commission chairs "leak" their proposals (which by the way they were NOT supposed to do) to the press before the whole commission has a chance to work out their positions and make an ultimate proposal.

People, including members of Congress, react and state their opinions on the leaked proposals.

President Obama says everyone should just "hold off" on any comments.

So I ask you, President Obama: When are we allowed to comment? I mean if these guys are allowed to leak their preliminary proposals before the rest of the commission has had their say, then what rule disallows everyone else from commenting on the leaked proposal? And by the way, while you are busy giving the commission "space" to make their decisions, why has no one asked the commission chairs why they were UNwilling to give the commission space to make these decisions? Why do these guys get a pass for publicly floating their trial balloon?

It's like a pat on the head and "There, there, don't you worry your little selves about it, your betters will hash it out and you can comment when the deal is done."