Medicaid

The 1 Percent Indifferent to Their Indebtedness

Leo Gerard — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:56:21 -0500

Most Americans, the 99 percent, feel the pressure of indebtedness. When they owe a friend a buck, their conscience bothers them until they’re square. They pay their bills, working second jobs if necessary. They meet mortgage obligations even when underwater.

That’s why there was a deficit Super Committee. Americans don’t like debt, including bills owed by their government. It weighs on them, even when it’s borrowing by Washington to create jobs and speed recovery.

But for the majority of millionaires – the 1 percent -- incurring debt does not evoke anxiety. They’re numb to the feeling of responsibility that indebtedness induces in the 99 percent. They believe they owe nothing to their country or society despite all they’ve gained. They feel no duty to repay America for creating the environment that enabled them to amass all that wealth.

Thus the Super Committee failed.

The committee was searching for $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted the rich, cost $2.8 trillion over the past decade. But the 1 percent obstructed a return to the pre-Bush-balanced-budget-era tax rates and would sneer at the mere suggestion that they pay the much higher marginal rates the wealthy accepted after World War II to settle those government debts. In fact, Republicans on the Super Committee actually proposed additional tax cuts for the rich.

More breaks for the wealthy would require slashing social safety net programs for the 99 percent -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, child nutrition. It would mean no funds to create jobs and boost the economy. The result would be less money to build highways, refurbish bridges and renovate schools.

That’s okay with the 1 percent because they feel no obligation for those social responsibilities.

Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law Professor and Special Advisor for the U. S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tried to explain debt to the super-rich:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!

But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

In addition to paying forward, the 1 percent also is obliged to pay back. That’s because the tax break Bush handed them contributed significantly to the national debt that the Super Committee failed to resolve.

The rich didn’t create the entire federal deficit. And the 99 percent are ready to pay their part, just like they feel compelled to meet their personal debts.

The behavior of the 99 percent during the mortgage crisis best illustrates their morality on the issue of repayment generally.

In the midst of the recession near the end of 2009, as home values relentlessly declined, more than third of all mortgage holders found themselves underwater – meaning that they owed more on their houses than they were worth.

Although financial advisors told mortgage holders who were underwater by hundreds of thousands of dollars that they should walk away from their houses in their own economic self-interest, only a tiny number, estimated at less than 5 percent, chose to deliberately default and dump the loss on the bank.

University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White, writing about this phenomena, said the high moral standard of the average American mortgage holder is key to this. In a law review article, he cited a study that found more than 80 percent of homeowners regard the act of strategically walking away from a mortgage contract as unprincipled. White contrasted the values of individual homeowners with those of the big banks:

“Unlike lenders who seek to maximize profits irrespective of concerns about morality or social responsibility, individual homeowners are encouraged to behave in accordance with social and moral norms that require individuals keep promises and honor financial obligations.”

Political, social, media and financial institutions all convey a clear message to home owners, White said, that it is a borrower’s moral responsibility to pay his debts.

That message is not, however, as clearly directed to the 1 percent. Some of them have gotten it. The 200 who signed on as Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and who asked Congress and the Super Committee to increase their taxes understand they have a debt to America and seek to honor it.

The debt-shirking remainder, though, and the purchased politicians who support them, are as unseemly, unethical and dishonorable as deadbeat parents.

Giving Thanks for the Occupation, Election, Demonstrations

Leo Gerard — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:29:51 -0500

I want to thank you, thank you
Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you. ~ Natalie Merchant, “Kind and Generous”

This week’s holiday mandates giving thanks. For many Americans, that is complicated by the harsh years since 2008.

There’s the bitterness of lost jobs, foreclosed homes and diminished opportunity. There’s the resentment over bailing out Wall Street, then watching banksters grant themselves sensational bonuses while denying Main Street loans to save businesses. There’s the fear generated by county club conservatives demanding draconian cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s hard to muster gratitude while suffering, to feel appreciative while dreading a meaner future.

The past two months, though, produced glimmers of hope -- the occupation, the election and the mid-November demonstrations. These events suggest empowerment of the 99 percent and emergence of change. They’re reason for thanks giving, especially by those formerly in the middle class who will for the first time experience this holiday without the traditional feast.

Change began in September with the launch of Occupy Wall Street. Previously, the disaffected had rallied and protested. The newly-homeless had held signs. The jobless had marched on Wall Street, the epicenter of the economy’s crash. But this was different. These rabble-rousers didn’t protest and go home. They dug in. They offered no end date for their cries for justice. Like the sit-down strikers who inhabited the General Motors plant in Flint, Mich. for 44 days in 1936 and 1937, these protesters are determined to stay as long as necessary.

The New York occupiers’ gumption and message – “we are the 99 percent” -- inspired a movement worldwide. Activists encamped in more than a 1,000 cities. And when police tried to rout them, the occupiers defied the official oppression, just as the sit-down strikers did. Emblematic is the 84-year-old Oakland, Calif. protester who said after police pepper sprayed her in the face that the experience energized her.

Before this movement began, country club conservatives had confined political discussion and concern to government deficits. No one acknowledged the unemployed, the impoverished or the foreclosed on – except to condemn them. The occupations changed this. Suddenly, the media talked of the problem of sharply higher income inequality and wrote about highly profitable corporations dodging taxes. Abruptly, politicians recalled the agony of joblessness and homelessness. Amazingly, there was new emphasis on polls showing massive majorities opposing austerity for the 99 percent and supporting higher taxes on the 1 percent.

For those of us in warm homes, Natalie Merchant’s words send a perfect message to those encamped:

“For your kindness, I’m in debt to you,
And I could never have gone this far without you,
For everything you’ve done,
You know I’m bound – I’m bound to thank you for it.”

On Election Day, the majority put the 1 percent and their purchased politicians on notice. The problem for the 1 percent in a one-person-one-vote democracy is that they’re outnumbered. In referendums on Nov. 8, the majority rebuffed attempts to restrict the ability of citizens to vote and to collectively bargain.

Mainers reversed a Republican attempt to limit balloting. The majority there restored Election Day voter registration – a right they’d exercised without problem for 38 years before the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and GOP governor passed a law eliminating it. The 60 percent vote for reinstatement served as public censure to Republican lawmakers nationwide who have worked to suppress voting.

In Ohio, citizens reversed a Republican attempt to sharply constrict the right of public employees to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Ohio citizens affirmed their belief in unionization as a way to move workers into the middle class. The vote was 61 percent in favor of union rights, a margin that chastened country club conservatives, including Ohio’s GOP Gov. John Kasich, who said afterwards that he would “pause” to reflect because: "The people have spoken clearly. You don't ignore the public.”

To the voters in Ohio and Maine:

“Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts. . .
I want to thank you for your generosity . . .
I want to thank you, show my gratitude. . .” ~Natalie Merchant

The following week, two demonstrations reinforced the election’s message of hope for the 99 percent. On Nov. 16, two dozen millionaires climbed up Capitol Hill and told Congress they wanted their taxes increased. Really. The following day, on the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street’s birth, activists and unionists took to bridges nationwide in demonstrations for jobs.

The rich guys, the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, told Congress to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the rich to help balance the budget. This group of 200 members of the 1 percent offered a solution very different from the Republican austerity demand that had dominated discourse for months.

Similarly, the protesters who occupied bridges across America sought federal investment in infrastructure to create jobs, which would help relieve the recession. Jobs, not cuts.

To the Patriotic Millionaires and the protesters,

“Oh, I want to thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you. . .” ~Natalie Merchant

Because of them, because of wise voters in Ohio and Maine, because of the Occupiers, there’s reason for gratitude this Thanksgiving.

Senator Sanders, Ordinary Americans #OccupytheSuperCommittee

Daniel Marans — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:13:02 -0500

Days after the tents were ripped out of Zucotti Park in New York, hundreds of Americans brought the fight for the 99% to the nation’s capital on Thursday with a “Wake-Up Congress” rally calling for the Super Committee to support “Jobs, Not Cuts” to key social programs. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) fittingly called it “#OccupyThe SuperCommittee.”

Thursday’s town hall-style event, organized by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign and other advocacy groups, was aimed at influencing the Super Committee, and the lawmakers who will vote on their proposal, against cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The lawmakers on hand shared the stage with ordinary Americans who came to explain the importance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in their lives, and the harm that cuts would cause them.

If the goal of the rally was to “Wake Up Congress,” the message to which attendees wanted Congress to wake up was that “No deal is better than a bad deal.” Those on hand sough to push back against the conventional wisdom that the failure of the Super Committee to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction and the subsequent sequestration would be worse for the economy than a deal agreed to by the Super Committee members.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) spoke, as well as Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). But the hero, organizer and unofficial emcee of the event was Senator Sanders, who is far and away the most stalwart defender of social insurance programs in the United States Congress. The retirees, community members and activists who assembled there treated Sanders like a celebrity. Sanders’ entrance and exit were greeted with chants of “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie,” the likes of which are usually reserved for popular sports players.

Sanders gave plainspoken arguments against cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the country’s deficit. “Here’s the issue: The issue is that in fact, this country does have a serious deficit problem,” Sanders said. “But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars not paid for, huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, and a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit and the national debt I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

The speakers focused their criticism on two proposals that the Super Committee is rumored to be considering: the chained CPI (Consumer Price Index), which would reduce the Social Security COLA (cost-of-living adjustment); and an increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

Senator Mikulski summed up the policy argument against the chained CPI. Mikulski effectively pointed out that the chained CPI’s logic of “price substitution” does not apply to seniors for whom health care costs make up the vast majority of expenses. “Sure, maybe you can switch to Dunkin Donuts from a latte if you’re young, but what are seniors going to do as drug prices go up?” Mikulski asked incredulously. “Will they substitute an expensive drug with water?”

(Another of Senator Mikulski’s memorable lines: “So here we are on the brink of Thanks giving…We are so mired in partisanship that we can’t seem to find a path forward. They think we [members of Congress] are the turkeys. Wherever I go in my state, they’re telling Congress to stuff it.”)

Senator Sanders spoke out strongly against raising the Medicare eligibility age, citing the cases of 65- and 66-year-olds who would have trouble getting private health insurance to cover their care. “If a 66-year-old gets cancer, what private health insurance is going to cover his treatment?” Sanders asked, before answering his own question. “The answer is none.”

It was the stories of some half dozen average Americans who spoke, however, that brought the hard numbers of the benefit cuts a human face. The people who testified included retirees on modest incomes, adults living with cerebral palsy and other disabilities, and people who lost parents and spouses upon whom they were financially dependent.

Marilyn Dixon-Hill from Camden, NJ, 58 years old, worked as a nurse for thirty years. A year ago to the day of the rally, Marilyn suffered from a disease that left her paralyzed. She has since regained the ability to walk, which she calls “a miracle,” but remains seriously physically impaired. As a result, she is unable to work and has begun collecting Social Security disability benefits.

Currently Marilyn has no medical insurance. Like other disability beneficiaries, Marilyn must wait two years to begin receiving Medicare benefits. “I need Medicare. I need Medicaid. No Cuts to Social Security,” Marilyn cried, tearing up as she said it. “These are safety nets for vulnerable people like myself.” Marilyn shared the concerns of many of the other speakers that benefit cuts would jeopardize their independence. “My fear is that with any cuts, I will not be able to care for myself and be a burden on my adult children, who have their own burdens in this economic system.”

The speaker who received perhaps the greatest applause was a retired Virginia man named Kenyon Peas. Peas, a retired union worker and veteran of the US military, paid into Social Security since 1958, when, at age 15, he worked as an amusement park ride operator. Peas’ Social Security check paid the out-of-pocket costs from serious medical problems, including a heart attack, and the removal of one-third of his lung, as well as Type 2 Diabetes, from which he continues to suffer. “Is this the way the United States honors its commitments?” Peas asked of plans to cut the programs. “The debt we owe China and others will most assuredly be repaid… Bank of America, among others, is too big to fail. We bailed them out. If you’re a working man or woman, we’ll cut your benefits, freeze or eliminate your COLA, and ask for your vote.”

Thursday’s rally in the Senate was the culmination in a series of actions by activists across the country protesting potential cuts to the three key programs. It started two weeks ago, when several thousand nurses and other union workers from around the country rallied in front of the White House and Treasury Department. They came from places as far away as Bemidji, Minnesota, to tell Congress to tax Wall Street—not cut the programs Americans need now more than ever.

Then more than 1,000 seniors from the Jane Addams Senior Caucus joined forces with #OccupyChicago to protest cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in Chicago, on November 7. The intergenerational solidarity against the tyranny of the 1% was a fitting refutation of conservative attempts to pit young against old.

Most recently, 3,200 seniors and union workers gathered in Wang Theatre in Boston to demonstrate against cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, on November 9.

The momentum of popular movements to prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid shows no signs of abating. The American people are finally making their voices heard. Now it is up to Congress to listen.

Crash Tax: Wall Street Reparations

Leo Gerard — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:35:59 -0500

Wall Street waged war on the American economy and middle class with its reckless gambling.

It wasn’t Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that crashed the economy. It wasn’t the federal government. It wasn’t hapless homeowners who were sold mortgages they couldn’t afford. It was Wall Street financiers that aggressively sought and bought mortgages to package and sell as derivatives, which the banks could wager on.

Americans bailed out Wall Street, handing it a Marshall Plan for reconstruction after its bad bets blew up the world economy. Now, three years later, happy days are here again for the Wall Street banksters. They’re hauling in big profits and paying outrageous bonuses. But the American middle class continues to suffer high unemployment, record foreclosures and rising poverty.

So it’s time for Wall Street to pay reparations. It’s time for a crash tax, a tiny sales tax on Wall Street transactions, the revenues from which would pay for Main Street restoration. It’s time for the 1 percent to repay the 99 percent, for Wall Street to share in the sacrifices necessitated by its rogue behavior.

The levy, sometimes called a Tobin Tax after the American economist and Nobel Laureate James Tobin, who endorsed it in the 1970s, is far from shocking or novel. A financial transaction tax is advocated by a huge range of groups and individuals, from billionaires to conservative heads of state. Thirty nations, including Great Britain and Switzerland, already tax some financial transactions. The United States imposed a similar tax from 1914 to 1966. In addition to raising revenue in a time of government deficits worldwide, the tax would suppress the very kind of risky speculation that got the global economy into this mess.

Supporters of the tax include the expected -- the AFL-CIO, Democratic benefactor George Soros, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and economist Dean Baker, one of the few who saw the housing bubble and predicted its bursting. The unexpected include billionaires Bill Gates and Peter G. Peterson; former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead, and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker. Conservative political leaders behind it include German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Experts promoting it include Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. Moral leaders advocating for it include Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Here’s what Archbishop Williams wrote in support of imposing the levy:

“There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to “business as usual” represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.”

The European Commission recommended in September that the 27 European Union member countries adopt a .1 percent tax on financial transactions beginning in 2014. It estimated that the tax would raise $78 billion a year. Europe hesitates to institute the tax without a similar levy in the United States.

Earlier this month, two U.S. lawmakers who have long supported the levy introduced legislation to impose a smaller tax -- .03 percent or 3 cents on $100 in transactions. The tax proposed by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, would raise about $350 billion over a decade.

Here’s what Sen. Harkin said about it:

“I think it’s fair. I think it’s just. I think it’s a reasonable way of raising revenue.”

That’s the gist of it. It’s fair. Wall Street caused the crash. It caused devastating unemployment. It exacerbated deficit problems in the United States, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. If the market hadn’t crashed, sustained higher tax revenues would have prevented these difficulties from intensifying.

Now, in countries worldwide, including the United States, conservatives are demanding austerity to deal with deficits. They refuse to ask financial speculators to help pay for the trouble they caused. Instead, these conservatives demand that the middle class and the poor foot the bill. American conservatives insist the middle class lose Social Security benefits, accept Medicare and Medicaid cuts, subsist with fewer teachers, firefighters and police officers.

The 99 percent have sent a pretty clear message, however, that they’re fed up and they’re not going to take unshared sacrifice anymore.

They told Bank of America where it could put its proposed monthly fee on debit cards. They told Ohio governor John Kasich where he and fellow conservatives could put their law denying public workers the right to collectively bargain for a better life. And in parks across America and around the world, the 99 percent are telling the 1 percent where they can put their demand that sacrifice be suffered only by the 99 percent.

The crash tax is, essentially, a sales tax on financial transactions. The middle class pays sales tax on all the stuff it purchases. There should be no special exceptions. The 1 percent should be paying sales tax on the purchase of risky derivatives and on bets that derivatives will fail. This is equity. This is simple fairness.

Some call this levy a Robin Hood tax. But that’s not right. This is not robbing the rich to give to the poor. This is charging the 1 percent a just share.

This is holding speculators accountable. This is individual responsibility, the concept the GOP claims to love. Wall Street bombed the world economy. Now it’s obligated to participate in financing recovery, to pay reparations to Main Street.

If the Super Committee Doesn't Cut Your Medicare, Santa Claus Will Die!

Richard Eskow — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:12:40 -0500

This holiday season, let's spare a kind thought for the decent people who toil inside Washington's legislative machinery. These good folk must live and work inside the dreamlike bubble that is today's policy and media world. Each day they strain to see reality through the reflected light of the false but colorful narratives projected against the bubble's surface.

Or would it be a better metaphor to say they're prisoners in some cold underground cell? No matter how many polls are conducted, no matter how many economic analyses are performed, no matter how many bitter lessons are taught and re-taught, there are those who hope to deny them even a glimpse of reality.

Instead these good people are forced to stare into the harsh glare of synthetic reality, hour after hour, as if were a naked lightbulb in windowless room. Only a few precious slivers of genuine sunlight penetrate the dank basement of illusion that imprisons them.

Well-intentioned staffers in Washington need good information to do their jobs well. Instead they're being inundated with confusing pseudo-facts and empty fear-mongering. This week's case in point? The Congressional "Super Committee." Did you know that unless they come up with their cuts there will be no Christmas this year? You didn't? Then you haven't been reading the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately, that kind of distortion isn't the exception. It's the rule. 

The War (on Christmas) Comes Home

As we reported the other day, Democrats on the Committee are on the verge of offering a disastrous and unjust "compromise" that would punish millions of innocent people for the excesses of a few - and probably doom their own party's electoral chances.

As the Committee approaches its final days, the pressure is building ... and so is the media misinformation. The most darkly comical example of this comes from the Wall Street Journal, where a headline tells us that "Supercommittee Failure Could Throttle Holiday Spending."

Imagine: No gifts will glitter under the tree. The elves will join the ranks of the unemployed. The North Pole will fall into darkness as its failing economy threatens the Eurozone, if not the world. Rudolph will shrug off his harness and slink into the forest as the other reindeer look on mournfully.

Listen up, Congress: Give us those cuts or the fat guy in the red suit gets it!

But, absurd as it sounds, it's not far from what the Journal is saying: "Consumers are starting to feel a bit more confident about the economy," writes Josh Mitchell, citing the most recent index of consumer sentiment from Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan. "But," adds Mitchell, "a cloud forming over Washington threatens to darken the mood."

A securities analyst is quoted as saying this: “Although investors have found it easy to ignore the US deficit problem against the backdrop of the European crisis, the calm before the storm is about to end and with it risks of a further downgrade by at least one rating agency ..."

Adds Mitchell: "Such a scenario can’t be good for consumer confidence heading into the holiday shopping season."

This would be nothing more than comic relief if it weren't so typical of the entire media narrative around the Committee, and if this narrative weren't taken so seriously inside the Beltway.

Confidence Game

We've already explained why a Super Committee failure will not necessarily lead to another downgrade of US debt - and that, contrary to another media myth, the last downgrade didn't affect the stock market at all. It was the last austerity deal, the debt-ceiling agreement between Barack Obama and John Boehner, that tanked the market this summer.

But that's only addressing the world's markets. What about American consumers? They're the engine of economic growth. Will their confidence in the economy really be shattered if a Congressional committee doesn't recommend cutting their entitlements and raising their taxes? (It sounds silly, but that's the proposition being put forward.) A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground poll gives us the answer:

No.

At least half of those people weren't even familiar with the Super Committee or its mission. Once it was described, nearly 70% said they expect it to fail and only 21% expect it to succeed. If they've either never heard of it or expect it to fail, how could its failure undermine their confidence in the economy? It could certainly undermine their confidence in the parties making the deal, however. The people who were polled made it clear that they're adamantly opposed to the very kind of deal the Democrats are now proposing as a "compromise."

Lumps of Coal in the Christmas Stocking

The centerpiece of the Democratic proposal was a series of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. What's the number one item people did not want to see cut? Medicare and Medicaid. The second most unpopular target was Social Security. Between Medicare and Social Security, 56% of people polled felt that these entitlements were (in the poll's words) "the worst possible thing to cut." By contrast, only 20% of people polled felt that way about defense spending.

When asked whether they supported "hundreds of millions of dollars in spending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid through increasing beneficiary costs" (the Democratic offer includes $100 billion of such costs for Medicare and an additional amount for Medicaid), 76% were opposed -- and 52% were "opposed strongly."

Overall, 21% of people polled thought "the economy" was our most urgent problem, and 21% thought it was our second-most urgent problem. 18% thought that jobs are our most urgent problem, with 15% rating jobs at second place. That's 40% who think that jobs and the economy are our most urgent problem and 33% who place them second. Deficits and government spending, the focus of this committee, is rated at 19% and 13% respectively.

In other words: There's a committee which people have either never heard of or expect to fail. It's prepared to do things they hate to solve a problem they don't consider very important. And yet Washington's gripped with a fear that this committee will fail. It should be terrified that it will succeed.

(To ask Sen. Reid and Minority Leader Pelosi to protect Medicare and Medicaid, click here)

Super Collusion: Will Obama & Capitol Dems Betray the Middle Class, Seniors, and the Poor?

Richard Eskow — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:53:44 -0500

Two new reports suggest that the President and Congressional Democrats are about to betray everything Democrats once stood for. Under pressure from Barack Obama, Democrats on the "Super Committee" have sketched out an appalling "compromise" proposal that would almost certainly doom both their 2012 electoral chances and his own.

They'd have it coming. Their draft plan that literally takes crutches away from poor people to protect tax breaks for the wealthy.

Unfortunately, middle class and impoverished Americans would suffer much more than they would. Career politicians can always look forward to comfortable sinecures from the wealthy interests who will benefit from their proposal. But the rest of us would once again be punished for the excesses of the rich, then left to the untender mercies of our new Republican leaders.

That, and not the fate of a President or a party, would be the real tragedy.

Pain Threshold

The President's actively pressuring Super Committee members from both parties to come up with a budget-slashing deal, according to a report in today's Washington Post. In addition, Obama is also urging them not to cancel the automatic $1.2 trillion in cuts that would be triggered under current law if they fail to make an agreement.

Another story, from the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, gave details on the Democrats' latest proposed "compromise." These two stories paint the picture of a President and a party who are willing to keep taxes low for the wealthy, and who would pay for it by proposing cuts that punish seniors, doctors, and the poor.

Why? So they can say they "successfully governed" with extremist Republicans? To please international markets that, in reality, couldn't care less? So the President can campaign as "above left and right," as if differences in principle are a bad thing? Because they've been spiritually suffocated by the cultural norms of Washington's insular culture?

There are more questions than answers. Here's one more: With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

Low rates for the wealthy

Stein reports that the Democratic proposal would keep tax rates for the wealthiest Americans at the historically low Bush-cut rate of 35% to please the GOP. (That rate was 91% under Eisenhower, 50% at the start of Reagan's term, and 39% under Clinton.) The very wealthiest among us would continue to savor these unusually low tax rates to sweeten the fruits of ever-increasing wealth inequity.

The Dems would also accept the principle of "corporate tax reform to enhance competitiveness," which sounds a lot like a bid for lower tax rates for corporations. That would be offset by reductions in overly indulgent tax breaks, such as those that apply to corporate jets. But corporations would still retain expensive accountants and even more expensive lobbyists. I'll bet you a big chunk of your future Medicare benefits how that would turn out.

Oh, wait. These Democrats are already placing that bet. We'll get to that shortly.

Those are the breaks

The party's internal discussion document includes "triggers" that would take effect if Congress can't cut these deductions itself. One of those triggers is described as "a Feldstein-type limitation on itemized deductions for higher income taxpayers." They're referring to Martin S. Feldstein, the former Reagan advisor who wants to eliminate tax breaks for solar panels or electric cars. More significantly, Feldstein also wants to cap tax deductions at 2 percent of income - for everyone.

Feldstein's op-ed in the New York Times explained that " Taxpayers with incomes of $25,000 to $50,000 would pay about $1,000 more in taxes; those with incomes of more than $500,000 might pay $40,000 more." In other words, the poor must pay part of the bill for the excesses of the rich.

To be sure, the Democratic proposal says it would target "higher income taxpayers," which is not Feldstein's plan. But who'll have better lobbyists when those tax exemptions are being defined - the rich and the corporations, or the middle class? And we learned what conservatives mean by "higher income" when the Concord Coalition suggested that anyone earning over $20,000 per year should be targeted for Social Security means testing when they retire.

That's the kind of person the Dems would be dealing with in their detailed tax negotiations.

Here's more thing these Democrats should understand and explain: Tax breaks for items like solar power or electric cars are a good thing. They serve the public interest, which is what public policy is supposed to do. They reduce our dependence on foreign oil, protect our environment, and improve public health. That saves us money, too.

The unkindest cuts of all

The Democratic proposal also includes cuts of $250 billion to providers under Medicare. Unless they're very well designed (they won't be), that will mean problems with access to doctors and adequacy of care.

There's also a cut of $100 billion in benefits for seniors. That would affect every single person in the United States who reaches retirement age, along with those who become disabled.

Depending on how those "Feldstein tax increases" were structured, many retired Americans could see their Medicare benefits reduced - and lose a tax deduction for paying those costs out of their own pockets.

There would also be cuts to Medicaid's prevention and public health trust fund, one of the most "Democratic" aspects of last year's health care bill. So the proposal would subvert one of the provisions in the law they just passed. This cut doesn't just target the vulnerable. It's also economically foolish, since it cuts programs that can prevent costlier illnesses later on. And the Democrats would also cut $5 billion for Medicaid's "DME," which presumably means "durable medical equipment" like crutches and wheelchairs.

It looks like Democrats will literally propose taking wheelchairs away from poor people so we can keep tax rates low for the wealthy.

Tone Deaf

The White House issued a stunningly inappropriate statement about the Committee, saying the automatic "trigger" cuts the President's defending were "agreed to by both parties to ensure there was a meaningful enforcement mechanism to force a result from the Committee." The statement went on to say:

“Congress must not shirk its responsibilities. The American people deserve to have their leaders come together and make the tough choices necessary to live within our means, just as American families do every day in these tough economic times.”

That's not merely an economically silly statement, although it's certainly that. The analogy between the US budget and that of a family is fatuous (how many families print their own currency, which is the world's standard?), misleading (even families will invest in their future sometimes), and ruthless (few families would argue that a balanced budget is more important than a wheelchair or crutches for Grandma).

This statement revives the troubling question of whether this White House and this President have lost their moral compass along with their understanding of economics.

It's true that President and Congress should not "shirk their responsibilities" - to provide jobs for the unemployed and reduce the swelling ranks of the impoverished. It's devastating that the President chose to apply those words to a lopsided, premature, and misguided exercise in austerity economics instead.

The Bottom Line

There comes a time when ethical people have to take a stand, and this is one of them. Democrats must reject the premise behind these negotiations. If they don't it raises serious questions about their party's values, future, and social worth.

Today's deficits were caused by wild and reckless tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, along with the cost of two unnecessary wars and the consequences of bank greed and recklessness. It's a terrible mistake to ask the Americans who were wounded most by deficit-causing behavior to carry so much of the cost of fixing it. And to propose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid simply to preserve low tax rates for the wealthy is nothing less than a moral obscenity.

In these dark times, here are the President's and Congress's real and unshirkable responsibilities: To help 25 million un- or under-employed Americans get back on their feet. To stop Wall Street looters from making off with our nation's riches. To restore tax fairness and economic justice. To invest in our crumbling infrastructure. To create economic growth that will fix deficits in the long term. To ensure retirement security for all Americans. To ensure genuine access to health care for all. And to stem the growing tide of poverty.

Maybe these professional politicians are constitutionally hardwired to compromise and deal, and are therefore incapable of recognizing when doing so is to reinforce great wrongs. But if they can't see it, we'll have to show them - with phone calls, emails, and a very clear message about the consequences they'll face next November if they go through with this plan.

This proposal, along with the whole Super Committee process, is a dying gasp from the failed "bipartisan" economic consensus that brought us deregulation, the financial crisis, rampant banker criminality, and inequitable distribution of wealth. It must be discarded with all the other refuse of that cynical, tragical, failed experiment.

Politicians who don't understand that may wind up being discarded too.

Take Action

Sign the petition urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to keep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid out of any "grand bargain" with Republicans.

Traditional Voting Fails; Alternative Works

Leo Gerard — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:16:45 -0500

Voting doesn’t work anymore. If it did, Americans would get what they want -- or at least some of it -- from Washington.

But they don’t.

Instead of the people’s priority, which is jobs, country club conservatives in Congress stubbornly fixate on deficits. Instead of ensuring millionaires and corporations pay their fair share, House Republicans passed a budget that would destroy Medicare and Medicaid.

Corporate and clandestine campaign contributions have undermined the power of traditional voting, the kind done at polls on election day. Rather than voters, politicians now serve donors -- billionaires and banksters -- who invest untold millions and demand returns in the form of self-serving policy.

This is demoralizing to those who cherish democracy and the sanctity of one person, one vote.

Hope, however, arrived with the debit card fee victory. The 99 percent forced Bank of America to back off its proposed fee. Average Americans accomplished this by voting differently, not at the ballot box but at the twitter account, the Occupy march and the teller window, where 1 million depositors went to move $4.5 billion from the big Wall Street banks to community banks and credit unions. They found another way to exercise their franchise and force the powerful to respond.

The 99 percent must exploit the method of this triumph to get what they need. Because politicians sure as hell aren’t giving them what they want.

The numbers don’t lie. Coin-operated conservatives in Congress have rejected President Obama’s jobs plan, parts of the jobs plan and Obama’s pitch to raise taxes on the rich to pay for it.

And yet, the electorate strongly supports both surtaxing millionaires and the elements of the jobs plan. In a CNN poll in October, 75 percent favored sending federal money to the states to hire teachers and first responders and 72 percent favored infrastructure investments.

A whopping 76 percent wanted millionaires to pay higher taxes.

In that same CNN poll, there’s another compelling statistic. Sixty-one percent said reducing unemployment was the most important issue. Reducing the deficit didn’t even come close at 35 percent.

The numbers aren’t flukes. Another survey, taken a week later by CBS found the same thing.

At a time when companies are hoarding $2 trillion in reserves, failing to create jobs and demanding tax cuts, the CBS poll provided a snapshot of public opinion on corporate responsibility. It found 67 percent opposed shrinking big business tax obligations.

That is a result of the public knowing intuitively what a report released last week proved: corporations aren’t paying their fair share. Citizens for Tax Justice conducted a comprehensive study that showed 280 of the nation’s largest publically-traded corporations paid only 18.5 percent of their profits in taxes over the past three years. That is little more than half the official rate of 35 percent, and it is lower than the rate paid by their competitors in other industrialized nations.

Thirty of the companies paid nothing. For three years.

Numerous polls over time found Americans, including Tea Partiers by a two-to-one margin, strongly oppose cutting Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits. Yet, what is the Congressional super-committee talking about? Cutting Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

If only the public could get their elected representatives to listen. If only they could walk into those plush Congressional offices -- the way corporate lobbyists do -- grab those lawmakers and get them to understand the sentiment of all those polls, the feeling of the vast majority of the electorate: Tax the rich; don’t cut the social safety net; create jobs now; worry about the deficit when the economy improves.

Traditional balloting has failed to get country club conservatives to listen to the public. To the majority. To the people who a democratically-elected government is supposed to serve.

The Bank of America debit card fee reversal suggests, however, that the majority can win with non-traditional balloting. In this case, a big bank that had been bailed out by the public after it engaged in excessively-risky betting, a bank that gave its CEO a $9 million bonus after he lost billions, announced that it had “the right to make a profit” off the backs of poor people by charging them a new $5-a-month fee to use their own money with their debit cards.

Other Wall Street banks indicated they would do the same.

Fed up, depositors said they wouldn’t take it anymore. They began transferring their money out of the Wall Street banks, participating in the “Move Your Money” campaign that urged citizens to deposit their savings in community banks and credit unions. YouTube began featuring outrageous videos of Wall Street bank branches denying depositors access to their accounts when they tried to withdraw their money to move it.

The effort was tweeted and blogged. It was cheered by Occupy Wall Street protesters who marched to bank headquarters buildings in New York City carrying thousands of letters of complaint.

Wall Street banks began backing off their new fee plans. One by one they abandoned Bank of America. Finally, it too cancelled the fee, meanwhile refusing to disclose just how much businesses it lost.

Last Saturday was the big, official “move your money” day. Of course, the Wall Street banks won’t tell how many more customers they lost. But depositors, more than 78,000 of whom pledged to make the move, made their point.

They voted differently. They voted with their feet and their wallets. And they won. They cast ballots in the only way coin-operated politicians and big banks respond to.

Disabled Kids And The Dow Jones: Their Common "Super Committee" Threat

Richard Eskow — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:33:31 -0400

Bad economics makes strange bedfellows. Thanks to our nation's misguided obsession with budget cuts, disabled children and the stock market face a common threat: an undemocratically-selected "Super Committee" which was formed during a national jobs emergency in order to ... reduce deficits instead.

The Super Committee: It's like Congress, except they don't let all the democratically-elected riffraff in. Think of it as our nation's "Platinum Legislature," a members-only private club where you have to know somebody important to get past the velvet rope. And it's like Fight Club, too: The first rule of Super Committee is that you don't talk about Super Committee.

There's compelling evidence that the cuts the Committee is considering will deal a harsh blow to the stock market. But before we see it, there's someone you really ought to meet.

Christina

This is Christina Taranto.

I can't tell you how much I admire Christina. As her parents explained to Social Security Works (with whom I am affiliated), she was born with severe disabilities. Today she lives in a residence for the blind in Massachusetts, where she performs volunteer work at an animal shelter and a community garden.

I admire Christina's parents, too. "My daughter can't speak for herself," her mother told reporters on a press call this morning. "So we want to speak for her. She's is now thirty years old, and she faces her life's challenges with courage and dignity. But that's only possible because of Social Security and Medicare."

Her mother added, "I'd like to know that she'll be taken care of after we die."

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security helped them provide for her care during her childhood. Her life today is made possible through her monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check and a Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) check. Seventy-five percent of that income goes for her for room and board. The medications that control her grand mal seizures and other conditions cost several thousand dollars a year, almost all of which is covered by Medicaid. (There's a small additional cost, which is covered by her SSI and DI checks.)

As her parents noted, Christina "would have no housing, day activities, medical, dental or prescription coverage without Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security."

There are lots of disabled kids out there - kids like Christina, who have been born with daunting challenges to overcome. What kind of future do those kids and their parents face? What kind of future does Christina face? The idea of sacrificing them to improve the economy is grotesque.

But at least it will help the economy, right? The stock market's will love it when they cut the deficit, won't it?

Lose-Lose

Wrong.

We've been told over and over that those of us who depend on government assistance must be sacrificed for the greater economic good. And we've been told that the economy will suffer if the Super Committee fails to come up with steep cuts. This sentence from a recent (and otherwise informative) article in The Hill is typical:

"Failure to strike a deal could rattle confidence in Washington and depress stock prices well into 2012, analysts say ... Banks are monitoring the supercommittee for fear of a Washington-driven market shock like the one that hit in August, when Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. bonds. That decision sent stocks spiraling and preceded a month of heavy losses for investors."

The only problem with statements like these, which were fed to journalists after being spun from carefully-wrought talking points, is that they're completely wrong. And we can prove it.

Here's a chart showing two important events that occurred this summer:

The first line notes July 31st and August 1st, the last time a "bipartisan" budget-cutting deal was announced. In response, the stock market - which we've been told love these cuts - tanked. The second line notes the inexplicable downgrade of US debt on August 5. (The line shows the first day of market activity after the announcement.) What happened? The market didn't care.

Budgets cuts hurt the stock market because investors know where they lead: to stagnating economy where people don't have money to spend. That means the economy won't get moving again. Investors, and the rest of us, have seen the results of this "austerity" in the United Kingdom - a collapsing economy and riots in the streets. We're seeing it in Europe. And we've been seeing it at home, too.

They're telling us that "the markets" want budget cuts, and that they're afraid that US debt will be downgraded again by one of the discredited and corrupt ratings "agencies." It's a hoax. Budget cuts hurt the market this year. But it shrugged off the last downgrade and went on about its business.

Nobody really gains by cutting Christina's benefits - nobody, that is, but some right-wing ideologues and the rich people and corporations that finance our broken political system. Who would serve such a cynical agenda?

The Twelve

Meet the Super Committee.

Christina's fate is in the hands of a secretive group with extraordinary powers over the lawmaking process. Its twelve legislators have been empowered to meet in secret, behind closed doors, to draft a deficit-cutting plan that will be voted up or down by the entire Congress - with very limited debate and without any amendments. Unlike other laws, their plan can be passed with a simple majority in the Senate. The Committee's members can cut their deals in private, away from the open debate that is so central to the democratic process.

The mild remnants of democratic process that cling to the Committee may only be theater, for all we know. Today, for example, the Democrats on the Committee announced their "plan" for deficit reduction. It's not very good -- more budget cuts than tax increases on the wealthy, though they pretend otherwise - and Draconian reductions in Medicare and Medicaid. They're calling for $400 billion in cuts, half of which will come from benefit cuts to recipients like Christina, our older relatives, and - someday, if not today - most of us. Flawed as it is, however, it's far better than what's likely to come out of the entire Committee. It includes a little stimulus spending, for example, and it doesn't raise the eligibility age for Medicare.

But who's to say they'll even propose this plan, much less fight for it? How do we know they won't just wink and nod to their Republican pals - "Gotta give the base a little red meat!" - then cut Social Security and Medicare and repair to the nearest bar for a round? How do we know they haven't finalized their basic deal already?

Members Only

We don't. The proceedings are secret, remember? What we can know, based on back channel talk and past experience, is that the final product is still likely to include the "chained CPI." That's a harsh cut in Social Security payments that affects recipients like Christina, as well as other disabled people and seniors receiving benefits today.

Here's what else we know about the "Super Committee" members: We know that a lot of special interest lobbyists have been whispering in their ears. We know that the execrable "Gang of Six," a right-leaning group of Senators puffed up with conservative think-tank money and misguided Beltway cliches, recently "briefed" the Committee. And we know right-wingers and Social Security/Medicare haters from both parties, such the Co-Chairs of the President's Commission on Deficits (Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles), were invited to testify too.

You know who wasn't invited? Christina's parents.

Other people who speak for ordinary Americans have been turned away, rejected by the Committee without explanation. Advocates and experts in the field including members of the Greenspan Commission that modified Social Security in the 1980s, asked to address the Committee and were refused. It's Members Only: Apparently you can't get in without a pass from the billionaires and special interests that finance today's Washington.

Action

If you don't like the way this Super Committee deal is shaping up -- and who would? -- there are some steps you can take. First, you can add your name to this message for the President, which tells him not to cut benefits for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as he makes his deal with the Club - I mean, the Committee. You can also let the individual Committee members know how you feel - especially if one of them represents you, but even if they don't. And you can follow the action, here and elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure that Christina's family would appreciate it. Funny thing is, the stock market would too.

3 Simple Things to Do Today Instead of Saying "Eff You Washington!"

Richard Eskow — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:09:23 -0400

People in the capital were thrilled by Twitter's role in 2009's Iranian uprisings. They probably weren't as excited this weekend when a new "hashtag" (topic) suddenly climbed toward the top of Twitter's trend list. It's not printable here, but the first word began with a "F." After that came the words "you" and "Washington."

The frustration's understandable, given Washington's bizarre monomania with applying the wrong solutions to the wrong problems. But there are more constructive ways to spend your day than tweeting four-letter words in the general direction of the Potomac River.

Tweet Dreams

The Twitter trend was started by the seemingly mild-manner media analyst Jeff Jarvis, who explains (warning: not work safe): "I listened to the latest from Washington about negotiations over the debt ceiling ...After dinner, I tweeted: "Hey, Washington *****, it's our country, our economy, our money. Stop f**ing with it."

Somebody responded by tweeting, "Hashtag it: #F***YOUWASHINGTON." Says Jarvis: "So I did ... And then it exploded as I never could have predicted."

It's easy to make too much out of this sort of thing. Twitter users aren't a cross-section of America. Too much can be made of its top trends -- which as of this writing include #Dear Taylor Swift, #Fantasy Football, and #Russell Brand. If hashtags alone can predict our political future, comedians will rule a nation of make-believe athletes who write love letters to teenaged country singers. (Somebody's probably muttering, 'You mean, like right now?')

The revolution will not be twitterized.

Genuine and Widespread Discontent

But there may be a larger phenomenon here, once that can be seen in polling numbers too. People are in despair for their future. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe we're still in a recession (which, for many people, we are). Consumer confidence has plunged. Almost 40 percent of Americans believe we've entered a state of permanent decline, while nearly half expect another major recession in the next year.

And they don't believe anything's being done to stop it, since unemployment is still high and the views of the American Majority aren't being represented in this week's deficit discussions. More than 60 percent now say that the country's on the wrong track and unfavorable opinions of both parties are nearing record highs.

In other words, "F**k you, Washington."

Deal or No Deal?

Harry Reid's "grand bargain" won't include cuts to Medicare and Social Security. If he's successful (the president now supports him) that will mean that public outcries have once again thwarted attempts to cut these programs.

But Reid's proposal has problems, too. Like Boehner's plan, it would create a "supercommission" empowered to recommend drastic cuts, which would be submitted for an up-or-down vote with no modifications. (It's not clear if entitlements would be excluded from Reid's version.) There would be no tax increases under the Reid plan, either, which means the wealthy would continue their easy ride while other Americans bear the brunt of spending cuts. You can't fix our economic problems without increasing taxes, as this chart from economist Menzie Chinn shows:

It's all there. Spending rose sharply and tax revenues declined dramatically when George W. Bush took office. Both trends spiked again after the Great Recession. Why? First came the cost of two major wars, along with the Bush tax cuts. Then came the cost of (partially) repairing the damage left by a deregulated and unsupervised Wall Street, along with lost tax revenue as millions of people lost their jobs.

In the face of all this, here's Washington's plan: Continue the wars, preserve tax cuts for the wealthy, and fight Wall Street regulations. Hey, what was that hashtag called again?

Into Action

But despair not, ye infuriated Americans. As promised, here are three things you can do today (unless it's not Tuesday, July 26, in which case you can only do two of them):

1. Use this link to tell your Senators and Representatives that you oppose any deal that would cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, and ask them to raise the debt limit without any conditions attached.

2. Call your Senators and/or Members of Congress to tell them the same thing. (The link above should give you their contact information when you're done. It will ask you for a donation, too -- which, if you decide to give, would make four things you can do today.) If the phone numbers don't appear, they're publicly available.

3. If it's before noon on Tuesday, you still have time to find your Representative's local office and go there for a noon demonstration sponsored by a number of groups, including MoveOn and the Campaign for America's Future. You can find the nearest office here and then, as MoveOn says, "tell your Representative that they need to protect the programs working families rely on, and make the richest few pay their share."

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee summarizes the goals of these actions as 1) thanking the 81 Democrats in Congress who signed the Progressive Caucus letter opposing cuts to Social Secial, Medicare, and Medicaid, 2) urging other Democrats to oppose any plans that includes these cuts, and 3) telling Republicans to stop pushing for cuts to these programs. (They could add a few Democrats to that list, too.)

These actions could make a difference. And if these actions continue and grow, we may someday live in a country where the biggest trending hashtag on Twitter is "#thankyouWashington."

Taylor Swift might be disappointed, but the rest of us would be pretty happy.

(Abbreviated from an earlier version that was published in The Huffington Post)

Obama Wants To Attack The Middle Class? Take Congress Hostage!

fake consultant — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:35:39 -0400

By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.

And it looks like the President doesn’t really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it’s to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be “the adult in the room” in the runup to the ’12 election.

So we’re going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy – and I think I’ve got a plan to force this President to listen.

And it works like this: if this President ain’t gonna be moved by our message…we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.

"You've got to put the points on the board. Good effort and style aren't enough. Everyone loves the Chicago Cubs, but no one expects them to win. Be more like the New York Yankees."

--Greg Swienton, COO of Ryder Systems, advising Army NCOs at a leadership seminar, July 2009.

First things first: let me tell you how the hustle is potentially going to go down.

Republicans are going to try to force Obama to offer up 100% cuts in spending, with no new money coming in to Government at all, or they’ll let the whole “debt default” thing come crashing down, which looks like The Best Thing To The Tea Party Ever – and based on past history, this is a deal that Obama, around 11:56 PM on August 1st, will be willing to take.

The two most likely ways to cut spending and get results in the trillions of dollars are to change the connection between increases in your future Social Security benefits and the cost of living (which guarantees that you and I will forever be behind the inflation eight-ball), or to cut the payments coming out of Medicare or Medicaid, which is going to stick it, immediately, to medical service providers, the poorest of the poor, your Grandma and Grandpa (or, maybe, you), and the disabled.

It is rumored that both of these approaches have been put out as options by the President. It is also rumored that, in return, he wants some amount of revenue increases – but it’s also rumored that he went from seeking a dollar in cuts for each dollar in new revenue to something that looks more like $6 in cuts for every $1 in new revenues – with lots more time available for Republicans to play chicken and get even more.

So if the President is not going to put a stop to all this, I think we, ourselves, are going to have to step up and get it done.

What I’m going to propose is brutal, unfair to many of our friends, and vindictive to the point of risking an even worse situation than we have now…but these are desperate times, and I suspect it’s now time for desperate measures.

So here’s what I think we have to do:

Now, today, before this gets any farther, we have to call every single Democratic Member of Congress, House and Senate, friend and foe, and deliver this message:

“I don’t care what you ever did for us before, we are not going to let you do this to us now. We cannot stop Barack Obama directly – but we can do this.

We can target Congressional Democrats.

Each and every one of you, as a group.

And with that in mind, you are now on notice: if you allow this President to make a deal that includes any cuts, adjustments, alterations, or anything else, to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and you don’t get at least a dollar of new revenue for every dollar of cuts…then you are done.

We will immediately stop giving any Democratic incumbent even one dollar of donations, we will not help you win elections by volunteering – and we will vote for any candidate that’s running against you in the next primary.

Even if it’s not your fault.

That’s how serious we are, and that means you better figure out, right now, how to stop Obama from caving…because now, it’s all on you.

If Obama slips on the stairs and his pen accidentally signs the bill…it’s now your fault.

If Obama puts his pen back in the desk set upside down, and there’s an open window in the Oval Office, and an errant breeze drags the bill across the upside-down pen… it’s now your fault.

So what you better do is you better go make sure there aren’t any roller skates on the stairs at the White House, and go close the windows, and do whatever you have to do, because now, you, and every other Congressional Democrat…all of you, together…are going to be held responsible for what happens.”

And then we gotta stick to it – even if it costs us Jim McDermott and Raul Grijalva and Barney Frank, all on the same day.

We have to show that we will bring even more wrath and destruction than the Tea Party – and we have to be ready to support new Democrats who rise up to oppose the current ones.

And consider this: Labor is already making the effort to recruit and train Progressive candidates, and there are lots of opportunities to partner with unions who would presumably love to have some new partners of their own.

The next negotiating session between the President and Congressional leadership is Sunday, and that means we need to move fast if we want this to work – but Sunday is unlikely to be the last day of negotiations, and after that is when we can really crank up the pressure on Democrats.

Is this unfair to our friends?

Yup.

But that’s too bad, because we have been unfairly taking hits from our friends and Republican bullies alike for three years now - and the only thing that’s going to make it stop is if our friends fear us more a whole lot more than they fear Republicans.

And if you don’t think this can work…well, guess what? The LBGT community got “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal passed when Republicans said they would never let it get through Congress – and then the LBGT community told Democrats that if repeal didn’t pass…the gAyTM was gonna be forever closed.

And then, mirabile dictu, repeal passed, in a lame-duck Congress, even when virtually all observers had said it had no chance.

That is the power of The Fear, and if we want to win this fight, we need to be the ones putting The Fear on our Democratic friends, not the other way around.

So get up, grab the phone, and start reminding the nearest Democrat that unemployment, in this economy, really, really, sucks – and there’s no reason in the world why they can’t be just as unemployed as anyone else.

It’s time for hardball, folks – and in this fight, we need to be the ones with the hardest balls.

Because if we’re not…the terrorists win.