… SURPRISE! It turns out The People would rather cut spending on the military than Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid.
I mention this by way of the President’s SOTU address this evening. Digby has more on other polling that’s been done regarding the cuts that will be required by Our National Wringing Of The Hands Over Our Excessive Spending On ‘Other People’ At All Levels Of Government. What’s comical about this is that Our National… is really only happening in DC, not out in the country at large. Oh, sure, you have the PaulTards and some Tea Party members moaning about spending, but it’s all about the spending on Those Other People. Funny how Those Other People keep sucking us dry, but only in the abstract.
Still, only a VERY few people really care about the deficits especially when you start talking about cutting THEIR benes. And talking about cutting SS just kills D’s in polls. So if you hear something tonight about dealing with entitlements, we’re in deep doodoo. From all the telegraphing he’s been doing lately, it would be extremely surprising not to hear something about it.
If the President talks about ‘entitlement reform’ he is either willfully lying about entitlements or is listening to bad advice. Just as he did with the stimulus package, he’s proving himself to be quite stupid and easily manipulated by halfwits like Larry Summers, who is only thought brilliant by reporters and politicians who know just slightly less than Larry Summers. He’s also willing to abandon the generational social contract that has been one of the great stabilizing features of the US and the bare minimum social safety net we need to keep civilization from flying apart. Not standing fully by that American tradition is inexcusable and would completely destabilize the coalition that elected him. Especially since the actuarial problems have been dramatized like a telenovella.
It will be the end of the Democratic Party as we know it. It will also drive some of us to do whatever we can to sabotage the re-election campaign, first by supporting any candidate brave enough to mount a primary challenge and next by supporting a third party candidacy.
Neither will win. But at least one stands an excellent chance of denying him another four years. At the end of the day, I’d rather have a Republican screw up the country for four years and replace them with a real leader than have four more years of what we have now.
Yeah, I’m that pissed. And I’m not the only one. I’m sick to death of a President who moves to the right while constantly calling it the center, without even the barest acknowledgment that there is no real center and that three decades of right wing propaganda have pulled even Democrats to the right.
In case you missed it, there is a fierce debate going on. One side, which now controls the House and effectively can block legislation in the Senate, disparages science, wants America to be close to a theocracy, craves a return to Wild West gun-slinging, would gut social insurance, and repeal most of the affirmative gains of social investment and public-interest regulation since the New Deal.
The other side recognizes the value of public spending in a deep recession and beyond, wants a progressive tax code, defends Social Security, Medicare and the new health reform, wants the financial economy to be servant of the real economy, supports regulation that benefits workers and consumers, and accepts evidence-based science when it comes to climate change and other issues.
Unfortunately, this other side describes only about half the Democratic Party
Seriously, what’s the point of re-electing President Obama if he’s just going to continue down the same path, taking the country off a cliff?