The Plunge Into Feudalism Has Begun

One day. That's how long it took Senate rethuglicans to destroy the few vestiges of economic sanity in the Only Rich People Are Truly Human Tax Cut Bill.

Long story short: By reneging on the deal to support the Omnibus Spending Bill that funds the federal government for the next year, Senate rethuglicans snatched funding decisions away from President Obama and the Democrats and handed it to the teabagger anarchists who will take over the House on January 5.

So all those pathetic scraps of pseudo stimulus in the tax cut bill - unemployment extension, health care reform funding, etc. - that Obama insisted were so valuable that it was worth exploding the deficit to give $700 billion to the richest of the rich?

Yeah, they're already gone. First thing on the rethuglican House agenda: strip out of the budget every penny of federal funding that goes to prevent 98 percent of Americans from becoming serfs laboring for our Wall Street owners.

Thank goodness those horrible liberals didn't stop Obama from making this economy-destroying deal.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

The public believes that the President is sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit because he is, in fact, sincere in wanting to reduce the budget deficit. He talks about it being in the medium term, but his opponents in the GOP want that to happen immediately, to cancel out the stimulative effects of this bill. John Boehner said today that he would like to cut spending to 2008 levels “as soon as possible.” Congress will have to fund the government early next year, if a short-term continuing resolution passes as expected.

The fact that health care implementation money and money funding the war in Afghanistan was part of the omnibus spending bill which crashed and burned offers even more hostage-taking opportunities for the GOP. And then there’s this rumor, which I’ve heard as well:

Now the Republicans have identified their next hostage: They’re going to threaten to destroy the international financial stability of the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. What are they demanding for ransom? They want President Obama to slash Social Security and Medicare before this next hostage crisis comes to a head in March or April.

As Digby explained:

So they passed the tax cut compromise. And the fundamental unfairness of it sticks in the craw: the nation is under a great deal of economic stress, yet the Republicans just stuck a gun to the heads of people in distress and said "give us our tax cuts or the country gets it." It's unjust and infuriating. And ultimately depressing because it's clear that Democrats were either complicit in the goal or too strategically clueless to address it before the clock had almost run out.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?