There was one moment in last Thursday’s GOP presidential debate that seemed to sum things up.
The candidates were asked if they would agree to a long-term budget/deficit reduction deal that was tilted 10 to 1 in favor of spending cuts over tax increases. This would be an unbelievably favorable outcome for anti-tax Republicans.
Every candidate said they’d reject it.
This got plenty of attention in the Saturday New York Times.
Guest columnist and radio host Kurt Andersen wrote:
And the most surprising, depressing moment was when former Gov. Jon Huntsman, along with the seven others, raised his hand after being asked if, as president, he’d reject a hypothetical deal on debt reduction that increased tax revenue by $1 for every $10 of spending cuts.
Several paragraphs and topics later, he added:
I find ideologues creepy because they’re like robots, built to respond to the fluid, complicated world in simple, unchanging ways.
Of course, if it’s “ideologues” you find creepy, then corporate media’s rulebook requires that you find some counter-example from the “other side, in order to demonstrate that your own middle-of-the-road non-ideology is superior. Andersen does just that; after explaining that a “no spending cuts to social welfare programs” pledge signed by Democrats turned out to be a hoax, he writes:
However, there is the Social Security Protectors Pledge, whose signers vow to ‘oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including increasing the retirement age.’ A majority of House Democrats are signatories. And so the robotification of American politics proceeds.
So: the Republican presidential nominees refuse to entertain any tax increases in order to find a deficit-debt solution–which makes actually solving the debt problem almost impossible.
But Democrats are just as bad. Despite the program’s massive surplus, and the fact that it plays no role in the country’s deficit/debt problem, Democrats won’t cut benefits. What a bunch of robots!
I guess it’s as accurate a barometer as any of the lack of humanity in US politics that a pledge to not cut folks off the meager benefits that keep them from falling into the abyss (much less swearing to increase them) is a hoax, isn’t it?
The lesser of two evils grows greater by the day.
This is at least the second time this week that the New York Times has equated Republican intransigence on tax cuts with the Democratic stand on Social Security. Matt Bai wrote this, on August 12, referring to the same debate:
“If this were merely a Republican phenomenon, the party would be alone in suffering the wrath of the average American voter. But it isn’t. You could have put a lot of Washington Democrats up on that stage, and asked them if they would have accepted $10 in new taxes or new stimulus in exchange for $1 in cuts to Social Security, and you probably would have gotten much the same response: hell, no.”
Again, it’s accepted insider orthodoxy that cutting Social Security is eminently sensible–and necessary–just like tax increases. And it makes mainstream reporters sound reasonable when they support both positions–even though the former implies benefit cuts to low-income seniors and the latter means moderate rate increases for the wealthy.
Why has none of the story tellers concluded that Republicans today hate America? America, I suggest wants to protect the poor, innocent, sick and elderly. America is a great melting pot of creeds, ideas and ethnicity, with a place at the table for all. People, are at the heart of America’s body politic, Not wealth, status or especially greed.
The $WELL$’ TAXE$ are Too DEM LOW!
@ Jerry S.
Jerry that was a lovely short sermon, but apparently, obviously, Most Americans could give a shit less about “protecting the poor, the innocent ( the accused and convicted also rate “protection” in a sane society) the sick, and the elderly”…time and time again they elect vicious, mean spirited defenders of monopoly capitalism, and monopoly capitalism is the natural enemy of the poor, the sick., the elderlt ,et al..
“”People”” are NOT at the heart of Americas body politic…self serving greed is the heart, brain, renal functions, circulatory system and skeletal structure, and if you wish, soul of americas “body politic”…that is, when you, me, and your neighbors and relatives are framed up as “those other” not hard working-not deserving a break, taking a free ride, illegal alien welfare cheats…. when “the body politic” those not-thinking-it-through, lottery ticket buying, reality TV show watching americans at large realize that ITS FUCKING THEM…THEY ARE THE GREAT OTHER PEOPLE, not Raul the dishwasher, not Twanda the low level MVA clerk, but they themselves who are about to be raped, assaulted, massacred and mistreated in a bad bad bad way, by the oligarchal capitalist class who run all shows, and call all shots, and fix all elections, then maybe out of self interested greed,they will rise up in self defense and re- make a society wherein we at least get more basic equal protections from suffering, catastrophe, poverty and mayhem. As it stands. Suffering, catasrophe, poverty and mayhem are the big monopoly capitalist growth industries of the future.