That was the way one Democratic member of Congress, Emanuel Cleaver, described the debt ceiling bill which has just passed the US House of Representatives.
As I suggested the other day, the pivotal role in the tortuous process which produced the deal was played by the Tea Party aligned GOP members in the House:
The Tea Party Republicans have not got all they wanted but they have got a lot of it, and sacrificed almost nothing in return. They will vote against, maintaining ideological purity, insisting the cuts could be deeper.
George Monbiot writes of the consequences:
There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.
So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands. Somehow they must persuade the other 99% to vote against their own interests: to shrink the state, supporting spending cuts rather than tax rises. In the US they appear to be succeeding.
Partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003 and 2005 (shamefully extended by Barack Obama), taxation of the wealthy, in Obama’s words, “is at its lowest level in half a century”. The consequence of such regressive policies is a level of inequality unknown in other developed nations. As the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, in the past 10 years the income of the top 1% has risen by 18%, while that of blue-collar male workers has fallen by 12%.
The deal being thrashed out in Congress as this article goes to press seeks only to cut state spending. As the former Republican senator Alan Simpson says: “The little guy is going to be cremated.” That means more economic decline, which means a bigger deficit. It’s insane.
John Quiggin, describing the US as a society that is “massively unequal, and economically stagnant”, argues that the only serious way to improve outcomes in America is to focus on the wealth of the top 1% of the population. The reverse has been the case in the debt ceiling deal: the 1% have prevailed over the 99%.
This will accelerate US decline, but that’s an outcome its elite appear to be relaxed and comfortable with. If ever there’s an example of how plutocracy disconnects itself from national interest, we’ve just seen it.
NB: Previous post on the US debt ceiling crisis is here.
Here’s Paul Krugman’s take.
This “satan” sandwich is only predicted to stop running deficits by 2021. i.e., total debt will increase for another ten years.
This is lefties’ idea of cruel fiscal tyranny.
At least the Democrats compromised for the good of the country. Now the Republicans need only to hold a knife to the throat of the US and say “don’t make us harm America” and the Democrats will do the right thing.
Tony Abbott should take comfort from this and ramp up the rhetoric, it’s fast getting to the point where I believe that the only thing that will enable the government to do anything is just to let the Libs take over.
Funny, back in the old days wrecking techniques like “nice country you have there” would get you jailed for treason.
(Shorter version for the tl:dr crowd “waaaaaaaa, somebody call the waaambalance for the whinging leftie.)
Actual versus estimated wealth distribution in the US. From this article.
“This will accelerate US decline, but that’s an outcome its elite appear to be relaxed and comfortable with. If ever there’s an example of how plutocracy disconnects itself from national interest, we’ve just seen it. ”
Wasn’t there a Koch brothers led meeting in Sept last year that proposed doing basically this very thing, mainly with the aim of forcing the Federal US Govt to shrink significantly?
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/10/20/124642/beck-koch-chamber-meeting/
This is the program/agenda and list of speakers and attendees. It includes Glenn Beck, and various people. It has a panel debate/discussion called “Framing the debate on spending.”
http://images2.americanprogressaction.org/ThinkProgress/secretkochmeeting.pdf
About time Craig Mc got over his tired leftists are the source of all evil meme.
In this case it’s a particularly sad joke since there is absolutely nothing that any self respecting ‘lefty’ would find worth supporting in this package.
But by some strange contortion of logic, it’s all the fault of the dreaded ‘lefties’.
Look on the bright side. The rich can afford to hire more security guards.
What do we expect? These are the same people who would punish teachers, firefighters and police for asking for cost of living increases in wages and reward senior financial services workers with unbelievable rewards for demonstratably undermining the economy.
Sooner or later they will have to face those choices, and they may not like the results they get.
Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course
Does it? I used to work as a personal carer. Paid quite a bit of tax myself. I think that year Kerry Packer kicked and I helped pay for his funeral.
Where does the money come from? Who’s going to pay it? Some rich people? I guess the FBI’ll just crack open their vault and cart out the mountains of diamonds and pearls, rubies, sapphires, ermine and platinum bricks galore. And then they’ll skip gaily thru the streets of Compton throwing hundred dollar bills side to side like posies in Spring.
And then we’ll all join hands…. and then the alarm goes off.
These are the same people who would punish teachers, firefighters and police for asking for cost of living increases in wages and reward senior financial services workers with unbelievable rewards for demonstratably undermining the economy.
Pretty sick ‘ey. The rise of entrenched ruling class with a mammoth sense of unearned entitlement. I think we’ve been this way before.
But I’m sure the Ivy League technocrats and Good Ol’ Boys’ll all be reading The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and have a big change of heart.
Unearned??
Who paid for the best Congress money can buy? Political clout like that doesn’t come cheap.
The rich have worked smart and are now reaping their hard-earned rewards.
174 Republicans voted for the Bill as did 95 Democrats. Half of the Democrats voted against [95] While 66 Republicans ditto.
A big win for Republicans. A big loss for ordinary Americans.
Now watch for the spin to reverse this truth led no doubt by the ‘Dirty Digger’s’ media interests. And yes he is in that top 1%.
Informative breakdown of supporters and opponents of the provision by several criteria:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/112/house/1/votes/690/
Democrats divided 50/50.
Southern Tea Partiers strong opponents.
Non-Southern Tea Partiers more divided.
The South would appear to be the home of hardline Tea Partyism.
Well Obama did get his way of delaying the next decision over the next debt ceiling increase until after the presidential election. Which is a win for him and the Democrats.
read “http://michael-hudson.com/2011/07/the-euthanasia-of-industry/”
and Bill Mitchell There is no federal public debt problem in the US
There is no federal public debt problem in the US
My post on this in the other thread.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2011/07/31/so-does-that-make-obama-sauron/#comment-329217
Craig Mc said
You’re a troll right? The only other option is that you are spectacularly ignorant. In the last 40 years the US Federal Debt has only decreased under Democrat Presidents.
The Tea Party movement are the willing foot soldiers of the wealthy, conducting class warfare against the poor. This was the aim of the Tea Part II Express, whose launch proclaimed the end of “compassionate conservatism.”
There are many ways of cutting spending. Obama has signalled cuts to the military budget, but this does not suit the war profiteers within the Republicans. Instead, the poor are targeted because it plays into the ideology of the Southern Christian conservatives who regard the poor, especially the blacks and Hispanics, as deserving of their condition.
Many years ago I heard a New Age-Christian woman justify this selfish position using the verse “The poor you will always have with you.”
And was it Abbott being shrill about the carbon tax being some sort of wealth redistribution in disguise? Can someone explain to me what is wrong exactly with the idea of wealth redistribution. Ok well maybe I don’t want to hear.
It’s hard to believe the neocons or right wing nutjobs actually still have a leg to stand on. Hopefully now that Obama doesn’t have to pretend to be mister nice guy he can stick the boot into these people and explain to the American people what a small bunch of hopelessly greedy people these dipshits are.
Adrien. The simple answer to your question is that if the top 1% and indeed 10$ paid a fair share then casual carers would not have to pay tax.
Progressive taxation. It’s not rocket science.
That should read 10%. Hazards of commenting from a phone.
For what it’s worth, I’m a little bit more sanguine about this than others.
The real goal of the Tea Party is repealing Obamacare. They have failed in their goal to cripple it, this time around.
Silkworm. Those ‘Christians’ are correct. Jesus is reported to have said that. However it is open to interpretation. I’ve always read not as ‘so why give a shit’ but more likely that a good Christian never has any excuse for not helping out someone in need, as there is always the opportunity to do good works.
FFS. As a lapsed Catholic there is nothing I find more offensive than someone using quotes from the New Testament to either do the exact opposite as Christ would or to indulge in intellectual sloth.
Forget the left right battle in the US. It doesn’t really exist, the masters of both sides are the same.
One thing. Do people expect US rates to never go up? Even 0.5% rise on US debt creates additional problems…they will be chasing their tails for eternity and doing the same for debt limit raising until the USD becomes confetti or Europe busts first.
There is no way the MI.Complex will take much of a beating whilst they own their share of congressmen, likewise Banks. This ship is going to have to hit the iceberg before correct action will be taken.
Kurt Vonnegut had some interesting thoughts on that line “The poor you shall have with you always” in his book Palm Sunday. The context of the line is Jesus having his feet anointed with oil and Judas complaining that they should sell the oil and give the money to the poor. The full line is something like “The poor you shall have with you always, but you will not always have me.”
Vonnegut felt that an interpretation more in keeping with Jewish humour would be “Judas, relax. There will be plenty more poor people after I’m dead” with Jesus knowing full well the role the person he was addressing would play in that death, and skewering his hypocritical ‘concern’.
Or as I like to think of it, Jesus was attacking a concern troll 2000 odd years before the internet was invented.
Kim – Adrien. The simple answer to your question is that if the top 1% and indeed 10$ paid a fair share then casual carers would not have to pay tax.
I didn’t ask a question about why people on low wages have to pay tax. I made a query viz Monbiot’s claims about the sources of taxation revenue and the way the government spends it. I then asked where the money the United States government borrows to maintain its cash flow comes from.
To date the answer appears to be that the children will be burdened with it.
Here at LP however there is resentment of these Tea Party lackies of the wealthy. The wealthy appearing to me, from the commentary, to be regarded as an homogenous lump of cosmic selfishness who are responsible for this entire mess. And naturally the folks at Goldman Sach and Lehmann Brothers screwed up royal but still….
Where does the money come from?
Katz @6
That’s not a bright side. In keeping with the privatisation of chunks of the military, privatising personal security indicates that the use of violence is no longer solely the prerogative of the state or sanctioned by law. It effectively places violence by certain people or class beyond the reach of the laws of the land.
Sure you can argue criminals operate that way and your point would be what?
Dave, tell me that you are feigning a complete inability to detect gallows humour.
This ship is going to have to hit the iceberg before correct action will be taken.
Does that mean there will be heaps of American refugees?
Matt Taibbi is not impressed, but he blames institutional factors in the Democrat party:
It’s harsh to say it, but yes: there is a bright side. We don’t live there.
US voting statistics expert, Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia. has an interesting take on what may happen at the next election. He points out that the voter turnout is always much lower in the mid term elections compared with the presidential elections. He also pointed out that the Republicans did well in the mid term because the Democrat turnout dropped more than the Republican turnout. (Optional voting tends to favor the extremists.)
A few figures:
Nov 2008:
Obama 69.5 m
McCain 59.9 m
Total 131.3 m (Including others)
Nov 2010:
Dem 38.9 m
Repub 44.6 m
Total 86.8 m
The link goes on to discuss the reasons for these differences.
The message here is that the Democrats have a good chance of winning in 2012. By that time it will be starting to strike most Tea Party supporters that a party that wants to protect the rich at the expense of the poor is not in the interests of the Tea Party demographic. It will also have struck other voters that the Republicans cannot be trusted with power. I would imagine that someone like McCain would be horrified by what the Republicans have just done.
Or by that time the debt will have increased another three trillion or so, causing the electorate to see tea party policies as even more imperative.
Katz @27 ah yes humour…sorry I did detect that initially but then I thought I could make a far less funny observation. My laugh quotient was exhausted by watching Q&A and despite the restorative powers of Stutchbury’s idiotic attack on Quiggin I was distinctly lacking my normally jollyness.
This is interesting:
“What makes the deal such an unmitigated disaster is that it strips congress of its Constitutional authority to control the nation’s purse-strings. That authority will be handed over to a bipartisan committee that will decide how to slash $1.5 trillion from the budget in order to reduce the deficits. But, since the committee will be evenly comprised of Republicans and Democrats, there’s bound to be disagreement about what programs should be cut. This is all by design, because if the committee is unable to decide where the cutbacks should be, then the decision will be made for them via an “enforcement mechanism” that will require across-the-board spending cuts.
Pretty sinister, eh? It’s is a backdoor way of repealing Congress’s primary authority while making austerity the default position of the US Government. Whenever in doubt, “Cut spending”. Naturally, the GOP refused any agreement that would involve new taxes.”
The Worst Deal in American History? By MIKE WHITNEY at counterpunch.org
Then listen to this guy:
http://www.trendsresearch.com/SubscriberArea/gerald-celente-stefan-molyneux-of-freedomain-radio-19-july-2011
especially where he starts at 4.35: “the business of America used to be business… now the business of America is war … and now they take you to war”
He also answers Adrien’s question about where the money comes from ” … digital money not worth the money it’s not printed on”
Craig Mc
Sorry to ask Craig but you don’t work in the media by any chance? I knew a Craig Mc once upon a time…
There are two aspects to any budget, receipts and expenses. Taxing people is always unpopular but the US has been expanding its spending (wars don’t come cheap and there are all those contractors to keep in the manner to which they have become accustomed) while simultaneously reducing its tax take as a percentage of GDP. Even assuming the rationale for balancing the books holds water at this point in time, then it would seem reasonable to assume that both cutting expenses and raising taxes would be reasonable political compromise.
Craig Mc
Wouldn’t you like to read something written about this by someone who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan?
http://counterpunch.org/roberts07292011.html
Even though I think he’s right about the ideological big picture, I’m a little disappointed that Krugman has failed to chart the timeline of these budget cuts, that they’re mostly not due to kick in until 2013. His colleague Nate Silver of the NYT has, http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/the-fine-print-on-the-debt-deal/
The big immediate concern of Keynesians should be the payroll taxcut and unemployment extensions due next year, neither of which are even mentioned in the bill.
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein says that the Pentagon is set to get hit with half of all the discretionary spending cuts should the new congressional deficit committee not have amendments ready by Thanksgiving, his comments are in the final third of this interview, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#43980493
I take it for granted that the US government either won’t get its act together to amend the budget deficit reduction process, or that the MIC’s lobbyists won’t be able to save all that military spending, not if the Republicans want to prevent taxes from rising.
That is some pretty big news in US policy. This means no more land invasions on the continental Asian landmass for a very, very long time into the future. They can’t afford it. Shame about the fact the American economy can’t really afford any of that non-defence discretionary spending, or the further extension of the Bush taxcuts in 2013.
“This means no more land invasions on the continental Asian landmass for a very, very long time into the future.”
Watch out, Canada.
Fortunately for the media’s already shaky sake, no.
You mean by a 9/11 conspiracist? Reduced to writing for Counterpunch? I guess the older you get, the more likely you’ll end up like Ramsey Clark. Pete Townshend was probably right.
Oh goody, a public spending cut just as America is inching out of recession. That’s not going end well.
Didn’t Seinfeld teach us all the horrors of the Double-Dip?
You are a troll.
Craig Mc:
Fallacy of the excluded middle.
There is another way to reduce the debt. It’s called taxation [tækˈseɪʃən].
Perhaps the US electorate will come to perceive that there are some sectors of the US economy that are not paying their way.
This evolution of political opinion appears to me to be a more likely outcome for the 75 million or so baby boomers who are more likely to be voters and who are certainly reaching the age when the US welfare system (such as it is) begins to benefit their demographic in a big way. Why would these folk continue to throw their lot in with the Tea Party that wants to slash these benefits?
Except the 75M baby boomers (actually more likely Gen X/Y voters) will be the ones paying any increased tax. There’s no point looking to some “despised” narrow base to pay for this level of spending. There just isn’t enough despicable people to take from.
I agree. But that won’t stop them from trying. (Not that all rich folks and corporations are despicable. The nice ones might also be taxed.)
One important underlying problem causing the dire condition of the US political economy is the skewed nature of the benefits in favour of the old and the moribund. This employment of resources is irrational and infuriating in the eyes of people who pay the taxes to support the system.
Given the demographic realities of the US, this misallocation of resources is unlikely to change for some time.
The problem will get much worse really quickly from now on, thanks to all those randy returned servicemen in 1946 and thereafter.
Given that the top 1% in the US “earn” more than half of all US income (average income 12.5milllion), it wouldn’t take much of a tax adjustment to balance the books, reagrdless of how many of these folk were despicable. Bear also in mind that many large companies in the US pay virtually no tax at all.
Moreover, much of the large health system cost related to rent-seeking by big pharma and the private health lobby. Re-structuring of health could slash the cost per person, largely at the expense of that same class of those super wealthy Americans.
Fran, I believe the top 1% earn 25% of the income and own 40% of the wealth
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105
Still remarkable, and does not invalidate your point.
Mercurius @40 actually it was George
Democrats belong to the Democratic Party. If you’re going to insist on referring to the Democrat Party, please also reference the GOP as the Republic Party.