( – promoted by odum)
Here is something we all can agree on: Federal deficits are a serious problem.
Here is something no one seriously disputes: Today’s big deficits were caused mainly by big tax cuts for the wealthy, two unpaid-for wars, a horrible recession caused by Wall Street greed, and an expensive prescription drug program rigged to favor pharmaceutical companies.
Here is something we should not agree to do: Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
There is surprisingly broad consensus among Americans (except inside the corporate-dominated D.C. beltway) on what to do about deficits. In poll after poll, strong majorities favor making the wealthiest Americans, who, in many cases, have never had it so good, share the sacrifice and pay a little more in taxes. Increasing taxes on the wealthy is overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and independents. A majority of Republicans and people in the Tea Party movement also support taxing millionaires to help bring down deficits. Even many millionaires say they should be paying higher taxes. At a time when many profitable corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes, there also is widespread support for closing corporate tax loopholes. Taking a hard look at mushrooming defense spending also enjoys widespread support.
For far too long, the Washington agenda has been set by powerful corporate interests and a right wing that do not represent the needs and aspirations of most Americans. For too long, the Democrats have gone along with Republican demands and caved in to these powerful special interests. The American people are frustrated and disgusted. They want Democrats to fight back.
As a Thanksgiving deadline nears for action by the powerful Super Committee on deficit reduction, I hope (but doubt) that Republicans will listen to the American people and support deficit reduction in a fair and responsible way. I hope (but doubt) that Democrats will not once again capitulate just for the sake of an agreement – but that’s been the pattern.
In December – when Democrats controlled the Senate, the House and the White House – Congress and President Obama not only extended Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy but also gave new breaks to heirs of the super-rich.
In April – with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats still in the majority in the Senate – Republicans threatened to shut down the government and delay the processing of new Social Security benefits for senior citizens unless their demands were met. Democrats went along with $78 billion in cuts from the president’s budget request.
In August, in an outrageous display of unprincipled gamesmanship, Republicans put the United States on the brink of bankruptcy. Instead of invoking clear 14th Amendment powers to honor our nation’s debts, the president and most Democrats agreed to a $2.5 trillion deficit-reduction package.
That’s how we got to where we are today.
Incredibly, throughout all of these negotiations – in December, in April, in August and again today –the wealthiest Americans and the country’s major corporations have not yet been asked to contribute one penny toward deficit reduction. That is despite huge cuts in life-and-death programs for working families.
The American people have had it. The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing. A virtual popular uprising forced Bank of America to drop an unpopular $5 monthly debit card fee. On Election Day 2011, in Ohio and many other states the American people said NO to right-wing extremism and corporate greed.
The American people are very clear. They do not want Democrats to reach another ‘grand bargain’ with representatives of the rich and powerful that eviscerates the most successful and popular social programs in the history of this country. They want Democrats to stand up for the 99 percent, not the 1 percent.
If the president and Democrats on the Super Committee go along with cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the three pillars of the New Deal and the Great Society, and permanently extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent, the American people will shake their heads in disbelief. They will arrive at the reasonably valid conclusion that there are no significant differences between the two parties controlled by corporate interests.
This is a pivotal moment in American history. The rich and large corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. Now is the time to answer the question that the Woody Guthrie song poignantly asked, “Which side are you on?” The Democrats must answer boldly that they are on the side of working families and the middle class and that they will fight to protect their interests.
What if the super committee ends in stalemate? Across-the-board, automatic cuts are set to kick in. That so-called sequestration wouldn’t start, however, until 2013. That would make 2012 one of the most important election years in modern American history.
If Democrats stand with ordinary Americans and make it clear that they are prepared to take on the wealthy and the powerful, they could win both houses of Congress. They could give Obama a fresh infusion of boldness as he enters a second term in the White House.
Somehow I recall a few years ago millions of Americans chanting, “Yes, We Can.” Now is the time to hear their voices.
because the battle we are fighting is not the real battle. We already lost the battle of NAFTA, bank deregulation, corporate taxation and individual responsibility for that matter. We can’t buy an American TV (cost has gone down) or washing machine (cost has gone up by a factor of 4) and we have no power to say what our kids eat or what is in our cows and milk due to the power of K street and the loss of reason in our court system-all the way to the highest office. We keep electing Democrats who are really not even moderate republicans by old standards, but compared to the Newt and Rick crowd, look like palatable choices-then the KY comes out. Really, can you make a straight face statement that Montpelier is any different??? Are our workers, schools and individual liberties being championed??? Shoot me if you want, but the ghost of Jim Douglas and his policies are not gone from floor 5. Chairs have been rearranged, but the iceberg is still looming ahead.
Bernie and a scant few others are like beacons from afar, but they too will be brought down by moves for term limits or rampant Koch Brothers infusions of cash. We can’t even hear Brunch with Bernie in this state outside a corner of Washington County, but ESPN is rampant.
Thanks for the pep talk Bernie. Your heart and actions are in the right place. With one house in the hands of the enemy, and the other house always short of 60 votes…. and another dang gum lawyer running the overall show…. working folk are still going to be rooting around on the floor for scraps….
I really wish YOU would declare yourself a D and mount the primary challenge.
It seems the Democratic Party is doing another re-make of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. A more ghoulish one.
You tell your colleague there that, if this Robber Baron shit continues, some of us folks might be taking to the streets with more than signs and candles. What will we have to lose anyway? Better a quick death, than a slow and painful one. It’s so nice to have choices.
Please don’t ever give up the struggle.
So long as there is one voice in Congress speaking all the aspirations of social justice we long to hear, that most endangered species, the American middle-class, can believe in its power to elect more.
Thank you Senator Sanders.
Democrats- stay outta the cave for once.
Why not surprise your friends and amaze your opponents?
But that’s what the Democrats have only ever done since they publicly announced that they wouldn’t dare prosecute Saint Reagan for brazenly violating the US Constitution for selling missiles to the Iranians to raise money for his private war against the people of Nicaragua.
In order to be elected to high office as a Democrat you have to swear to cave in at every opportunity.
It’s not that the GOP controls the Democratic Leadership, even though that is how it appears to be, it’s that both the GOP and the Dems serve the same masters.
Just witness Welch and Leahy!
For standing up and speaking out, time and again. I wish I were less cynical about the likely outcome of the catfood commission, but since the commission was specifically crafted to provide political cover to both the republicans and the democrats, I expect nothing less then to be sold down the river to the criminals of K-street.
The consistent pattern of “kabuki, then cave” has turned my cynicism up to “11.” I’m beginning to think the current democratic party needs to have a renaming ceremony – the “Potemkin Party” would at least provide fair warning that it’s all a facade.
Bernie, I love ya man, but stating “Democrats, Stop Caving In”, is like screaming “WE LOVE YOU JOE PATERNO.” I’m sure there is an emotional element there. Some Democrats have done some great things, but that was before… at least…maybe…one of our times. (I’m trying to think more good than bad.) Of course this is coming from someone who feels that going after Wall Street is like holding the fox accountable for the hens. None of these companies would have been able to govern themselves without some reaching across the isle. You’re preaching to the choir, only your slurring, “Yeah… What he said”,dressed in a wife beater, from the back of the room. You’re screaming, “tax, tax, tax” when you should be screaming, “convict, convict, convict.” The whole tax thing worked with Al Capone, but the idea is older than the cigarette slogan “You’ve come a long way baby.”
Sometimes our government uses public funds, like the money from the New York New Jersey Port Authority to build an enormous building (instead of a park) to honor all that lost their lives during 9-11. Six floors of the building is then leased for 20 years to Vantone Industrial Co. for US companies that wish to conduct business with China. Most of the time the government uses tax dollars to pay corporations to promote soldiers to kill people for profit (in Xe case they kill the people themselves). Sometimes these corporations produce other things like junk bonds and junk food. (the later, I forgot, can also kill you, look up Jack in The Box, it’s another 20 yr. old to big to fail story).
We watch our brave Senators and Congress men and woman unrelentingly question the guilty on CSPAN (the ESPN of people who watch CNN), These Con/Sens come back to us and say, “Hey you saw how harshly I questioned that CEO. I’m not a total coward, only when it comes to recounting votes. Sorry for the whole war vote I got a little emotional. If you vote for me again I will never ever let anything bad happen again. I can do that believe it or not. That’s actually the platform I am running on.” Our government has become the longest running, most elaborate, most expensive, reality show, the networks ever put together. There are reality shows about the reality show. There are people who watch this show for 4 years, and then vote on it
Americans would be wise to take Egypt lead and throw the baby out with bath water, bring home all the troops, deport all our publicly elected officials, judges, and CEOs to the Hague, (sorry Bernie I hope they don’t find you to be a co-conspiritor) install the UCMJ as a temporary government, go pick up the baby, and nurse it back to health. Just like the little girl said in the second alien movie before they nuked the parasitic alien planet. “It’s the only way to be sure.”
Yeah, I agree that we have to get rid of the entire system and put a great many of our public officials and their corporate employers, down in camp gizmo and let them rot there where they can do no one any harm. The system is no good. Completely get rid of it. This will be a long revolution.
…that Democrats don’t necessarily ‘cave-in’ as much as we think? They just are ‘in-on-it’ and the cave-in shit is supposed to make it look like they need help, when, in actuality, they are just the same old Bush/Cheney Corporate chosen ones with this wimpy, I am put upon, I surrender veneer.