Eyes on the Prize: Social Security

Yeah, tell me again Obama isn't a corporate-owned conservative. I need a laugh.

Digby cuts through bullshit from the Obama apologists:

Ezra sets forth what I would imagine is the thinking among Democratic insiders, namely that tax cuts for the rich are a form of stimulus and since we can't get any kind of real stimulus, they have to extend them. The problem here is that while tax cuts are often used for stimulus, it doesn't seem to have worked all that well in this recession, although it may have mitigated the worst of it at its depth. But tax cuts for the wealthy have been shown over and over again to be the least effective form of stimulus and coming as they are at a time when the wealthy have recovered very well and their investments are booming (while the rest of the country is still swimming in debt and suffering from lack of jobs, the housing slump and underemployment) they are likely to be even less stimulative than usual. I really don't think even they believe this rationale.

So why? I think it's a basic belief in "markets" as the savior of all economic problems and a broader fear of further angering the business community and the financial sector: they hear the threats loud and clear --- "unless you give us our tax cuts, the country gets it." The corporations and Wall Street are already sitting on a boatload of cash which they have no need to distribute as long as they are making big profits anyway. They simply do not believe they should have to pay higher taxes so they are holding a metaphorical gun to the head of the government and daring it to thwart them.

I'm not saying this to defend the administration. Indeed, I think capitulating to this is about as uncreative and lacking in seriousness as possible that I believe they are either clueless or cowardly for not doing the right thing on this. After all, if what really matters to the administration is that the economy recovers, then this is nothing more than a faith based premature capitulation to the business community. A business community which is not going to reward them even if they install a whole slew of Wall Street insiders like Roger Altman in the White House.

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This view about Social Security is backed up by Peter Orszag, recently departed from the administration (and reportedly headed to Citi), Dick Durbin, the president's proxy in the Senate, ex-labor leader Andy Stern along with numbers of Democratic Senators, signaling that Social Security really is on the menu.

And unbelievably, it's already being sold as a way to pay for these tax cuts:

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There you have it --- a disaster capitalist blueprint for destroying Social Security. (Gosh, I sure hope we don't have any of those "fiscal tremors" don't you?) As anyone who pays attention to this knows, Social Security is not included in the deficit figures, so even putting the best face on it makes this whole exercise a phony issue designed to "reassure" some bond traders (who aren't asking for reassurance) and convince David Broder that they are Very Serious People, which seems to be the extent of the Democratic economic bag of tricks.

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At this point the President, the Democratic moderates and the GOP are in agreement that tax cuts are the only way to stimulate the economy, that regulations are bad, that social security must be cut, and that the best way to fix the economy is to cater and pander to the wealthy, the corporations and Wall Street. I think we've finally achieved bipartisan heaven.

Since they are going to rip Barack Obama to shreds regardless, I hope for his sake that he really does believe this, because he's going to be Wall Street's living martyr for the cause. Too bad about all the people, who will have to suffer much harsher punishment.

Update: And by the way, Ezra and others continue to misunderstand what the Republicans were really after here. As I've said ad nauseum they want the tax cuts to be temporary because they want to have this fight over tax cuts to continue into the presidential campaign. If the President agreed to extend the tax cuts permanently, the issue would be off the table and that's not to their advantage. (Believe me, the business community is not really *uncertain* about anything at this point.)

Yes, it's better that they didn't extend them permanently, but are liberals looking forward to this argument two years from now? (And will there ever be any circumstances that will make it easier for them to expire than there were in the spring of 2009?) It's a missed opportunity, and one which I suspect was always planned to miss. The Bushies knew what they were doing when they rigged this one and it would have taken a Democratic party and a president much more brave and populist than the ones we have to undo it.

It's going to be a long, hard struggle to save Social Security, not to mention the rest of the social safety net that separates civilized nations from hellholes like Somalia.

And it's going to be up to us, because we can't count on President Obama, or most Congressional Democrats, or the national Democratic organizations to do it for us.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?