The "Entitlement Reform" Trap

Congressional repugs may have gone down in flames over the economic stimulus bill, but that doesn't mean their agenda is dead.

The wingnut zombie currently stalking the capital is - you better sit down - gutting Social Security.

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.

These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud.

President Obama got an early lesson in the futility of one-sided bipartisanship, but his instinct for "centrist" compromise remains a clear and present danger to liberal policies.

But Obama is also playing footsie with the conservative advocates of "entitlement reform" (their euphemism for cutting benefits). The president wants the corporate establishment's support on many other important matters, and he recently promised to hold a "fiscal responsibility summit" to examine the long-term costs of entitlements. That forum could set the trap for a "bipartisan compromise" that may become difficult for Obama to resist, given the burgeoning deficit. If he resists, he will be denounced as an old-fashioned free-spending liberal. The advocates are urging both parties to hold hands and take the leap together, authorizing big benefits cuts in a circuitous way that allows them to dodge the public's blame. In my new book, Come Home, America, I make the point: "When official America talks of 'bipartisan compromise,' it usually means the people are about to get screwed."

It's not fair that having achieved the greatest liberal electoral victory in 76 years, we don't get half a minute to rest on our laurels, but must immediately don again our bloody, battered armour and wade back into the battle.

The Social Security fight could become a defining test for "new politics" in the Obama era. Will Americans at large step up and make themselves heard, not to attack Obama but to protect his presidency from the political forces aligned with Wall Street interests? This fight can be won if people everywhere raise a mighty din--hands off our Social Security money!--and do it now, before the deal gains momentum. Popular outrage can overwhelm the insiders and put members of Congress on notice: a vote to gut Social Security will kill your career. By organizing and agitating, people blocked Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security. Imagine if he had succeeded--their retirement money would have disappeared in the collapsing stock market.

It's hard to remember now, but after the 2004 election Social Security privatization was a lock. The Chimpinator was riding high and congressional dems were reeling. No national leader stood up to rally people against bush's plan. It was us, we the people, who saw in our own families how Social Security had saved the nation, who struggled with the payroll tax increase Reagan imposed, who cared more about our grandparents and our grandchildren than about our own pocketbooks, we the people said No More.

No victory in a democracy is ever complete. Whether you are 65 or 45 or 15, you will be defending our Liberal Democracy against the forces of the New Feudalism for the rest of your life.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....