Talking Union: Obama vs. the Democrats

[Omaha Steve]

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/obama-vs-the-democrats/

Posted on July 22, 2011 by dsalaborblogmoderator

Jack Rasmus is the author of EPIC RECESSION: PRELUDE TO GLOBAL DEPRESSION, Palgrave-Macmillan and Pluto Press, May 2010; and the forthcoming OBAMA’s ECONOMY: RECOVERY FOR THE FEW, same publishers, late 2011. His blog is jackrasmus.com and website: www.kyklosproductions.com.

By Jack Rasmus

Today, Friday July 22, Obama and House majority leader, Boehner, are reportedly about to agree to a $3 trillion spending cuts only deal. Their original agreement earlier this month, which blew up due to Teapublican radicals’ opposition, called for a $4 trillion combined package of $3 trillion in cuts with $1 trillion from tax loophole closing to raise revenues. Now Obama is about to drop raising tax revenues altogether to get an agreement with Boehner and the Teapublicans to raise the debt ceiling.

Last spring he caved in and gave the House radicals and Boehner $38 of the $39 billion in spending cuts in the 2011 budget they were demanding from a reopening of last year’s budget. Now it looks like Obama is about to give them exactly what they want yet again! Only now it’s 100 times as large.

This $3 trillion spending only proposal will likely be agreed to by the House radicals if Boehner takes it back for a vote. After all, it conforms to their central principle all along. Teapublicans and the House have consistently demanded spending only cuts and no tax revenues. Tax revenue discussions will be addressed after the $3 trillion in spending cuts and debt ceiling is riased, according to business press reports. That will require a major revision of the tax code to follow later this year.

But only the naïve can believe that when the tax code revisions are addressed that the House radicals won’t demand even further spending cuts. Already some of the most extreme right-wingers in the House, and Senate, among their ranks have introduced proposals to cut spending by $5 and even $9 trillion.

Future tax code revisions will begin with the ‘Gang of Six’ program that was raised earlier this week. The Gang’s deal, by the way, is essentially the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission’s recommendations on tax code revision published last November 2010. What are these Commission-Gang of Six tax proposals? They aren’t simply closing tax loopholes. The Simpson-Bowles, now ‘Gang of Six’, tax program calls for additional massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

FULL story at link.