The Democratic Budget That Will Kill the Democratic Party

While Beltway "Democrats" are chuckling like Bond villains about how the rethuglicans' plans to gut the budget and destroy a million jobs amounts to political suicide, the Obama administration's back-room negotiations to gut Social Security and destroy a million voters are achieving actual political suicide.

Digby:

I hope that Heilman is wrong and that the White House is not thinking along these lines. They may win re-election simply by default, considering the GOP field. But they will almost definitely lose the Senate as well as the House and American liberalism will be an empty shell going forward. But the if the Democrats can't keep Social Security off the chopping block in the middle of an economic crisis -- with 75% of the people behind them -- then I suppose that ship has already sailed.

Yes, there are voices in opposition, but they are not getting through:

Greg Sargent:

Senator Jeff Merkley opens fire on the House GOP plan for budget cuts in some of the harshest terms I've heard yet:

The GOP budget plan will destroy 700,000 jobs. The last thing our nation can afford right now is further job losses. We need to be creating jobs, not destroying jobs.

There are common-sense budget cuts that could reduce our deficits without wrecking the economy or attacking working families. We can start by cutting back on the bonus tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that Republican leaders insisted on just ten weeks ago. We could end tax subsidies for oil companies and save tens of billions of dollars in the process.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner summarized his perspective on the Republican budget as follows: if people might lose their jobs, "so be it." You might think the House Republican leaders would show some humility after their failed agenda turned record surpluses into massive deficits in 2001, or after their policies reduced the wages of working Americans during the modest expansion in the middle of the decade, or after they burned down the economy with unregulated derivatives and predatory mortgage securities in 2008.

Apparently not. Their proposals are exactly the same: give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, shred the safety net, and eliminate investments that would help restore American economic leadership.

Thank you Senator Merkley. That has such a ring of truth that like Sargent, I can imagine how powerful it would be if the Democratic Party would adopt this as their new rallying cry:

It's tempting to imagine what would happen if Dems were united behind a hard hitting message emphasizing the charges Merkley leveled here: GOP budget cuts will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs. Republicans are hacking away at programs that benefit working and middle-class Americans even as they preserve tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. And Republicans have no business lecturing America with pieties about the deficit, given that their policies played a major role in creating it.

But Dems are not united behind such a message.

No they aren't. But this shows that such a message is possible.

SNIP

So I'm frankly rooting for gridlock at this point. And if that's what we have, then it's necessary to use it wisely. Merkley's speech is a great starting point.

Unfortunately, it's not looking good. As Sargent concludes:

Merkley's strong stand reminds us that by and large Dems are not really united behind a powerful, coherent, and consistent critique of the GOP's fiscal policies. And Republicans are rubbing their hands together in glee about it.

Rethuglicans aren't really united either, as Steve Benen explains. But in that case, the principled determination of the rethuglicans' crazy wing actually helps the GOP destroy the Democrats.

It's likely Republican leaders can reach a budget deal with the White House, only to find they'd need significant Democratic support to get it through Congress.

Benen writes that like he thinks it's unlikely. He should know better.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?