D-Day in the Class War

[Joanne98]

After a decade of stagnant or declining real wages, "bipartisan" schemes are proliferating to shift the burden of Washington policymakers' own catastrophic mismanagement of the nation's fiscal policies right onto the shoulders of working people. The press commentary has been abysmal. All "serious" thinkers out there on television or in print are in full agreement that "entitlements" must take a big hit, along with education and health care.

President Obama's "bipartisan" deficit commission, co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, (sometimes referred to as the "Cat Food Commission" because of the likely dietary changes some senior citizens will have to make if its prescriptions are implemented), wants to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations. Another high-profile group, headed by Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin, (which might be called the "Kibble Commission"), wants to strip $650 billion out of the Social Security trust fund with a payroll tax holiday (to be paid back later!) that they believe will create economic growth. So the Cat Food Commission views Social Security in crisis and bordering on insolvency, while the Kibble Commission believes that Social Security can absorb a $650 billion hit. And these are the best and the brightest.

Both "bipartisan" bodies claim that "tough decisions" must be made. Yet their policies are only really tough if you happen to belong to America's struggling working middle class. They want to inflict the "pain" on the government programs that have traditionally given working people a slight leg up. In these "bipartisan" schemes the financial services crooks who wrecked the economy come away smelling like roses.

Are we forgetting that it was working- and middle-class taxpayers who bailed out Wall Street's biggest investment banks in what could be the greatest gesture of working-class benevolence toward the super-rich in American history? Working-class taxpayers also paid for the unemployment insurance and infrastructure projects that were needed following the pillaging of America's housing sector. Working-class taxpayers continue to foot the bill for the bloated military budget and two wars. (They've also sent their sons and daughters off to fight.) And about eight million of them who had jobs in 2005 didn't have them anymore by the middle of 2009.

And how are working taxpayers repaid for the assistance they've given to their fellow citizens of the investing class? They get "commissions" and "foundations" and elite "study groups" that are orchestrating the next giant rip-off of America's middle class.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/d-day-in-the-class-war_b_785192.html

[pscot]

1. I used to think Alice Rivlin was pretty smart

but hanging with Pete Domenici suggests otherwise. That man is deeply stupid.

[elleng]

3. She still is, and her concerns and suggestions are important.

Foolish to suggest she (or anyone) is wrong/bad/not smart because she works with or considers others' points of view. Doing such serves no one's interests, imo.

[pscot]

4. Stupid is contagious

[elleng]

5. It is not,and we are VERY wrong to suggest such. WE are ALL losers if we do so.

[midnight]

2. The entitlements for the ubber rich have spread far and wide like a virus.

Seems the only persons the elected officials can get to take the medicine,tough policies, are the middle-class taxpayers....

[MedicalAdmin]

6. This wasn't D Day.

D Day marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. It was a day where freedom started to return. It was a proud moment. And it was the sons and duaghters of the masses that made it happen.

When we take the battle to the ownership class, when we storm their beach front houses and their tax shelters and when we take their possessions and put them on trial for crimes against humanity, then I'll call it D-day.

Until then it's just one more unpunished crime.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. I like the way you think!

:hi:

[MedicalAdmin]

10. Thanks.

I was worried that I went off my meds on that reply.

But D-day was the beginning of the end for the evil that was Naziism, and not democracy.

We need a D-day and I am volunteering right now to be on the front lines if it will make a better world for my (god) children and nieces. They deserve better than the shit they are being served up and the only reason for it is that the crooks on wall street, K street, etc are being allowed to run amok when they should be put down like the rabid dogs that they are.

[soryang]

8. Domenici and Rivlin also want a national sales tax of six percent

That's gonna do a whole lot to stimulate the economy, right? Not!!!!!!

They are worse they brain dead. They are cynical opportunists. Anything to get corporations out of paying their share of FICA. Hey why stop at a Social Security tax holiday. Why don't they recommend slave labor and caloric rationing? After all wages and feeding workers is a burden on business.

Both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia got into these serial extremist ploys to solve the balance of payment deficit caused by their massive overcommitment to building war machines to dominate the earth. We could get 50 billion here and 50 billion there, who cares what happens to the general population. Hang on to your pigs and chickens people, it's coming!

[SteveM]

9. "deficit commission" will be enacted when GOP approves it. nt