Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Joe Jetson: 'Ted Kennedy and The Chappaquiddick Tragedy- 7/18/1969'

Source:Joe Jetson- This is the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite. Sorry, I always wanted to say that in public.
Source:The Daily Journal

“An inebriated Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy drove a 1967 Olds 88 into the frigid waters of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts after leaving a party on the night of July 18, 1969. Also in the car with the married Senator Kennedy was Mary Jo Kopechne, a young, single woman, and former employee of the Kennedy’s family. While Kennedy (known to his fellow Democrats as “The Soul Of The Democratic Party”) somehow managed to escape the submerged vehicle, his passenger was not so fortunate. She was left for dead by Teddy, The “Hero of Chappaquiddick”. Kennedy fled the scene on foot and did not report the accident to police until TEN HOURS LATER. Kopechne’s dead body was discovered trapped inside the car the next morning. Somehow, Kennedy managed to avoid murder (or at least manslaughter) charges. He used the corrupt Kennedy political machine to somehow escape full responsibility for this tragedy with only minor Traffic Charges. History records that Kennedy went on to become the Spiritual Leader and an Icon of the Democratic Party. He even had the nerve to try a failed bid for President in 1980, but his this scandalous incident caught up with him, and he was forced to withdraw from the race in disgrace. But that didn’t stop him from doing his best to destroy the USA for thirty more years with failed Liberal Programs which are now finally leading to the moral and financial bankruptcy of our once great nation.” 

From Joe Jetson 

Despite this horrible tragedy, Ted Kennedy made a very successful and productive life for himself afterwords. Ted Kennedy, was basically still a frat boy in 1969 even at 37. He was married and already had kids, but wasn’t very serious about his marriage and liked other women. He was still dealing with the assassination of his brother Bobby and perhaps Jack as well. He simply wasn’t ready for the national spotlight and people to be looking at him as the future leader of the country. Because he was still trying to grow up, something that he didn’t really accomplish at all until the mid or late 1990s when he was already in his sixties with grandchildren. Up till then he was still trying to balance his personal life which could be chaotic and his professional life as a U.S. Senator.

If you watched the 2009 HBO documentary about Ted Kennedy which really was Senator Kennedy in his own words I really think you see how responsible and hurt he was from his own childish and immature actions that cost the life of a young woman Mary Joe Kopechne:

First of all, he’s driving this woman home instead of his wife from this party, which I believe is a big clue there. And driving her home when he’s had too much to drink. Ted, was still dealing with alcoholism in his early sixties. He drives the car into a lake and the first thing that comes to his mind is his personal survival. And the second thing his is professional survival. Not the woman who was in the car with him. That came after it looked like he might be held personally responsible for her life.

Of the three Kennedy brothers that served in Congress and had successful careers in politics, Ted Kennedy had the best and longest career. Even though he was never president. But compare his Congressional record with his brothers and most people who have ever served in Congress in either the Senate or House and Senator Kennedy is in the first class, whatever you think of his politics. And all of this despite his lack of maturity and personal responsibility.

Ted was never built to be President of the United States. By the time he was personally ready for that and to even make a strong run at that, he was in his early sixties. And Bill Clinton was already president and the Democratic Party was moving away from Senator Kennedy’s more social democratic politics. But Senator Kennedy, once he finally grew up became a great man and a great senator. 

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Russia Today: Thom Hartmann: 'Will President Obama Get Citizenship Pathway For Immigrants?'

Source:Russia Today host Thom Hartmann from back in the day.

"Jim Javinsky in for Thom Hartmann here – on the news…
You need to know this. A rare word is coming out of the Senate today: “compromise.” With President Obama set to tackle immigration reform on Tuesday, a bipartisan group of Senators came out today with their own compromised deal. The team of four Democrats and four Republicans introduced a plan that will put the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants, currently in the United States, on a path to citizenship. But first, they will have to register with the government, pass background checks, pay back taxes and penalties, and then move to the back of the line for full citizenship status. The proposal also puts in place new border security measures – and young people – or “DREAMers” who were brought to the country illegally when they were a child, but have gone to school here and kept their nose clean, will be put on a faster track toward citizenship. This is a good sign that a deal on comprehensive immigration reform can be struck this year. Stay tuned.

In screwed news..the banking sector is ruled by monopolies. New data from the Dallas Federal Reserve shows that a small group of “mega banks” control upwards of 70% of all banking assets. Just twelve banks, out of the total 56-hundred commercial banks in operation across the nation – have assets between $250 billion and $2.3 trillion dollars. They represent only point- 2% of all banks in operation, yet they account for 69% of the industry’s total assets. This is the definition of “Too Big to Fail.” In fact, as Senator Sherrod Brown has pointed out, these banks aren’t just too big to fail, “they’re too big to manage.”

As state senators in Virginia contemplate taking up legislation, to rig the Electoral College for the benefit of Republicans, lawmakers in Michigan are considering doing the same exact thing. Last Friday, Michigan’s Republican House Speaker, Jase Bolger, was quoted as saying, “I hear more and more from our citizens in various parts of the state of Michigan, that they don’t feel like their vote for president counts because another area of the state may dominate that, or could sway their vote…They feel closer to voting for their congressman or their congresswoman, and if that vote coincided with their vote for president they would feel better about that.” Michigan is one of the bluer states taken over by Republicans in 2010 – and if Republicans succeed in rigging the Electoral College there, then that would seriously hurt Democrats’ chances of taking the White House in the future. In fact, if all states took up this election rigging scheme last year – then Mitt Romney would be our president today.

Last Friday, the so-called pro-life movement marched in Washington, DC, to take away a woman’s right to make a choice about her body. And while they got all the media attention, a different kind of pro-life movement arrived in Washington, DC over the weekend. Thousands of protestors flocked to the nation’s capital, calling for national gun control legislation. The march was organized after the Newtown massacre – and more than 100 residents of the Connecticut town joined in, to demand a ban on military style assault weapons and high capacity ammo magazines. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who introduced an assault weapons ban last week, appeared on CNN on Sunday claiming that she does have the support for such a ban – and that she’s been promised by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that it will receive an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.

The NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy may have recently been ruled unconstitutional, but that doesn’t bother New York police, who are set to unveil a new type of technology that makes stop-and-frisk unnecessary. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced over the weekend, that within the year, his police force will begin using what are called Tera-Hertz scanners – or T-Ray machines – that can see through people’s clothing, to determine if they are carrying any weapons. As Raw Story reports, “The new device utilizes T-rays, which pass through fabric and paper, but cannot pass through metals.” The NYPD plans to deploy the machines in police cruisers at first, but eventually hope they can get the technology into a small enough machine, that it can fit on an officer’s belt. Privacy activists cheered the decision by the TSA, to get rid of the porno scanners in our airports, but now the fight for privacy continues on the streets of the Big Apple.

Don’t touch our libraries! That’s what the American people are saying amid the age of austerity and privatization, as they watch their community libraries lose funding, and close their doors. A new survey by the Pew Research center, found that 91% of Americans felt that libraries are important to their community. Another 76% said that libraries are important to them personally – and to their family. Unfortunately, public libraries are often the victim of budget cuts on a local, state, and federal level. In fact, the coming sequestration included a $19 million cut to a federal program that provides extra funding for public libraries around the nation.

And finally…Sarah Palin is out at Fox so-called News. Last Friday, Real Clear Politics reported that Fox News has decided to part ways with the gubernatorial quitter turned political celebrity. Over the last three years, she was a paid contributor, earning roughly a million bucks a year. A study out of the University of Minnesota analyzed Palin’s appearances on the network, and concluded that between 2010 and 2012 – Palin spoke nearly 190,000 words on the network – meaning she was paid roughly $15.85 per word. And that includes some of the words that none of us have ever heard before, and don’t even appear in any English language dictionary." 

From TruthOut

FORA-TV: 'Debate: Are The Rich Taxed Enough in the United States?'

Source:FORA-TV- showing a debate about taxes to a convention of insomniacs.

"Intelligence Squared U.S. hosts a debate on whether the rich are taxed enough in the United States. How do we fix the economy? The U.S. government's budget deficit is nearing a trillion dollars for the fourth straight year and unemployment remains high. With the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2012, what is the best move for continued economic recovery? President Obama says we should raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 to reduce the deficit. Others say that the richest 1% already pay more than a quarter of all federal taxes and higher taxes for job creators would slow economic growth. Are the nation's wealthiest not paying their "fair share," or should tax breaks be extended for everyone in the name of job creation? For the Motion: Glenn Hubbard and Arthur Laffer. Against the Motion: Robert Reich and Mark Zandi." 

From FORA-TV

Are the rich taxed enough? This is an interesting question because answering is like trying to prove a negative. Everything is relative, perhaps especially with tax policy. It's about what type of government you have, what type of population you, where the people are ideologically, what the people want the government, especially the nationally government to try to do for them. All these factors answer the question are the rich, or anyone else in the country, taxed enough, too much, or not enough.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Real News: 'Breaking Up The Big Banks is Not a Solution'


Source:The Real News Network with a look at the American private banking industry.

"Leo Panitch: Global capitalism needs massive banks, but big private banks have the power to prevent regulation and threaten more crisis; the solution is not breaking them up but making them public." 

From The Real News Network

Paul Jay and Leo Paitich are literally talking about nationalizing the American banking industry. They're arguing that the only way to save the banking industry, is to make them part of the U.S. Government, owned by the U.S. Government. 

You think private big banks are too big to fail now, make them part of the U.S. Government. Right now every Federal agency that Americans have to have for their lives to be as good and as secure are possible, whether it's defense or the regulatory state, is too big to fail. 

The Socialist answer to every problem not just in America, but the rest of the world, is always a bigger government, especially a bigger national government.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Young Turks: 'Soda Ban - Kills Minority Businesses?'

Source:The Young Turks with a look at soba prohibition in Michael Bloomberg's Nanny City.

"New York City's attempt to keep people from fattening up on sugary soft drinks, by banning some of them, would disproportionately hurt small, minority-owned businesses, according to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation.

The two groups have filed a joint brief supporting a lawsuit by the American Beverage Association in which they say New York's unelected Board of Health overstepped its power in approving the ban the sale of sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces in certain city venues."*

The NYC soda ban was designed to improve public health, but now minority business groups say they'll be the ones losing on the plan. John Iadarola (TYT University), Desi Doyen (The Green News Report) and Lissette Padilla (TheLip.TV) discuss. " 


Imagine if soda bans, junk food bans, and somehow the radical hippie-left in America, literally took over America as part of some type of Communist revolution or something (I'm having fun with this) and big government banned meat as well. Think about all the people who would be in jail, for drinking a soda, eating a bag of potato chips, (but hopefully not the bag as well) or a cheeseburger, fried chicken, whatever it might be, could you imagine how much fun political cartoonists would have with that? 

I could see the videos and cartoons with captions now of law enforcement officers telling soda, junk food, and meat suspects with their guns pointed at them: "Put the soda down now! Don't take another sip. I'm warning you, buddy. Don't eat another chip or take another bite, or we'll stuff vegetables and pour water down your throat." 

If this would ever become national policy, (and Seattle ever ran out of coffee on the same day) we would create millions of prions inmates, out of soda drinkers and junk food eaters.

Jack Hammond: 'Students For a Democratic Society- To Change The World'


Source:Jack Hammond- welcome back to black & white America.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Here is a video I made for a Vietnam project in my history class.” 

From Jack Hammond

I actually believe as a current affairs blogger that todays Occupy Wall Street movement was born in the 1960s as part of what was called the New-Left. Because if you look at where Students For a Democratic Society were for back then and what they are trying to accomplish then and today, the end of war and that basically means all war, this movement is exactly what a person whose called a dove looks like and is.

A dove is someone who tends to take a soft approach when it comes to areas like national security and foreign policy, law enforcement, areas where government sometimes involves itself in the personal lives of individuals.

Doves were around pre-1965, but they really came alive in the 1960s with the Baby Boom Generation. And some of their kids today that is part of the New-Left who actually grew up, are part of the Occupy Wall Street movement today that’s again anti-war period. But also believes in things that Social Democrats call social justice: creating an economic system that of course is government based that would work to see that there’s economic equality throughout the country. That no one has too much and no one has too little.

The reason why the Democratic Party even has a left-wing today (or what others call Far-Left) is because of the New-Left (Socialists and Communists of the 1960s and 70s) because pre-1965 or so, the Democratic Party was made up of Center-Left Progressives, as well as Center-Right Conservatives, and even Far-Left Neo-Confederates in the South. But there weren’t Socialists in the Democratic Party for the most part back then. The New-Left changed that in the late 1960s and going into the 1970s. 

Monday, January 21, 2013

Mr. Holt History: Martin Luther King Jr.- 'On Love and Nonviolence'

Source:Mr. Holt History- Dr. Martin L. King talking about nonviolence, probably in the 1960s.

Source:The Daily Journal 

“In this clip, Dr. King describes the inter-relationship between love and nonviolence in his theology and practices.”


I can’t tell you where this interview is from and exactly when it did happen, but only because the person who uploaded this video from where this photo is from didn’t bother to lay that out. But Dr. King was talking about Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, so I’m thinking it was from the 1960s.

Source:Mr. Holt History- Dr. Martin L. King talking about nonviolence, probably in the 1960s.
There were at least two reasons for Dr. King’s message of non-violence:

One, that he actually believed in it. And I’m not trying to suggest that he didn’t, but the other had a political component to it. He knew that for him and his movement to accomplish what it wanted which was equality and civil rights for all Americans, that he needed more than just African-Americans behind him, that he needed Americans of other races because he was facing a simple numbers game.

African-Americans at least to this point were a relatively small minority. And that they couldn’t go up against even just Anglo-Saxon Southerners who had most of the power down South, on their own. And that he also need positive media attention and not look like violent radicals, or anarchists. But serious intelligent people who had a message for the entire country and that they needed their support. Which is how he was able to bring in so many non-African Americans to his movement.

I’m not trying to say that Dr. King was a true pacifist and that if America was under attack from another country, that it shouldn’t fight back and that would be just one example. But he did have a pacifist approach when it came to the civil rights movement. He directed his people and marchers to simply just take it (for lack of a better phrase) put up with the violence which help get out the message of what his movement was facing from the Anglo-Saxon racist establishment in America. Especially from the South. That way to fight back was to show the opposition for what they really were. Which were radical violent racists and win legal and policy battles. 

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Salon: John P. Rollert: What Barack Obama Should Say in His Second Inaugural

Source:Salon Magazine- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) 44th President of the United States.

"An inaugural address finds presidents at their most philosophical. Policy prescriptions are neither expected nor desired, and the solemnity of the occasion lends itself to reflection.

But a second inaugural address differs from the first in one important way, for it must respond to recent history. A newly installed president, without any real responsibility for the larger events that saw his election, can indulge in hopeful prophecy, but a re-elected president owns the immediate past. It, and not his address, is prologue to a second term, and so, especially in troubled times, his speech must take shape around present challenges.

The financial crisis cast a long shadow over President Obama’s first term.  Yet in his battle to deliver the economy from a steep financial downturn, he stumbled into a war of sorts over how capitalism works. This is a conflict the president would no doubt have rather avoided—the presidency is challenging enough without having to convince a substantial portion of the electorate that your aim is not to subvert capitalism but to save it from itself. However, the deep disagreement over how the crisis came about, much less how it might be resolved, made an ideological debate over the very nature of capitalism all but unavoidable.

What exactly is the nub of the disagreement? During the election, everything Republicans believed to be wrong with the president’s approach to economic policy was epitomized by the “You didn’t build that” remark. The remark came amid off-the-cuff comments President Obama made at a campaign rally in July. A first-time listener might be forgiven for mistaking the endlessly disputed that, but a review of the transcript clearly shows it refers to public infrastructure—roads, bridges, educational institutions, and the like—that is necessary, if not sufficient, for a private enterprise to thrive.

At the time, some Republicans tried to twist the remark to suggest that Obama believed that business owners don’t actually have a hand in building their own businesses, a contention that was not implausible so much as incoherent. However, shrewder observers insisted that the significance of the remark lay beyond its plain meaning. “It’s an explanation,” Paul Ryan declared in a campaign stop at the site of the remark. “It tells us why our economy is not growing like it should. It tells us the mindset that he’s using to lead our government. It tells us that he believes in a government-centered society and a government-driven economy.” For Ryan and others, it suggested that President Obama rejected the “job creators” vision of economic development favored by Republicans, or what one might call the Visible Hand theory of capitalism.

This theory finds its first and most formidable expression in the work of Joseph Schumpeter, the mid-20th century Austrian economist who cast the entrepreneur as the action hero of economic growth. As far back as Adam Smith, economists had regarded the serene stasis of perfect competition as a kind of endpoint for capitalism. But Schumpeter believed this ideal blinded them not only to the chaotic reality of capitalism but to the revolutionary power of instability to pull or, more accurately, yank an economy ahead.

“Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil,” he declared in his classic work Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. The system “is incessantly being revolutionized from within by new enterprise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure.” The people who fomented such destabilizing changes were Schumpeter’s entrepreneurs. Their efforts constituted a “distinct economic function,” one that gave rise to new possibilities in the capitalist order even as they foreclosed old ones.

Especially in Schumpeter’s early writings, the entrepreneurial class embodies the Visible Hand of capitalism. In his first book, The Theory of Economic Development, Schumpeter celebrates the entrepreneur as a “man of action,” a larger than life individual whose keen intellect, swashbuckling spirit, and stubborn irreverence toward the commercial status quo made his activity “the greatest and most splendid element that economic life offers to the observer.”

But though he never yielded pride of place in Schumpeter’s system, the entrepreneur evolved from a class of superman, distinct and identifiable, to a spirit of sorts that animated capitalism. That evolution is captured by the very way in which Schumpeter emphasized the impact of the entrepreneur. Early on he terms it “creative construction” before changing to the always-capitalized “Creative Destruction,” a subtle revision that prized the secondary consequences of entrepreneurial endeavors over their self-conscious aims.

The shift in emphasis coincided with a greater awareness by Schumpeter of what he called the “cultural performance” of capitalism, its tendency to subvert traditional ways of life and undermine social cohesion. “[O]ne may care less for the efficiency of the capitalist process in producing economic and cultural values,” he candidly admitted, “than for the kind of human beings that it turns out and then leaves to their own devices, free to a make a mess of their lives.”

Ayn Rand’s radical individualism made her the natural person to adopt Schumpeter’s vision and relieve it of its social qualms. Though she never acknowledged her debt to Schumpeter, Rand also locates the engine of capitalism in an “exceptional minority who lift the whole of a free society to the level of their own achievements.”

This passage comes from What Is Capitalism?, an essay published in 1965, 15 years after Schumpeter’s death. In it, Rand provides an eye-opening description of the just deserts implied by her vision of capitalism:

The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains.

In other words, to the victors can’t go spoils enough.

Rand’s ethics of achievement, together with Schumpeter’s opinion of the essential place of the entrepreneur, provide the Visible Hand its moral license and theoretical integrity. In the 2012 campaign, it found an impassioned spokesman in Paul Ryan, whose speech at the Republican National Convention was a celebration of this vision. “With tax fairness and regulatory reform,” he pledged, “we'll put government back on the side of the men and women who create jobs, and the men and women who need jobs.”

Yet even among those sympathetic to the Republican ticket, the unavoidable elitism of the Visible Hand left some feeling cold. “In Ryan’s intellectual bubble, there are job creators and entrepreneurs on one side and parasites on the other,” wrote Scott Galupo of The American Conservative the morning after Ryan’s speech. “There is no account of the vast gray expanse of janitors, waitresses, hotel front-desk clerks, nurses, highway maintenance workers, airport baggage handlers and taxi-drivers. They work hard, but at the end of the day, what can they be said to have ‘built’?”

The answer, of course, is nothing—at least nothing essential to economic development. What so struck Adam Smith about the commercial system he described, “the assistance and co-operation of many thousands,” is entirely taken for granted. The daily labors of a nation are a mere fait accompli to the executive decisions of a few.

Such a vision sits uncomfortably amid democratic values of equality, empathy, and the inherent dignity of the individual, but it becomes intolerable when the theory underpinning it becomes a pretense for naked privilege. Whatever the merits of Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship, his “job creators” were a class defined by spirit, not tax status. To the degree that Republicans conflate the two, they make a travesty of Visible Hand.

An aristocracy of talents is no doubt preferable to the politics of plutocracy, but neither one is commensurate with a vision of capitalism that takes as its point of departure, and its final destination, a concern for the common good. President Obama recognizes this. “Ever since” the financial crisis began, he said in his most powerful speech of the 2012 campaign, “there has been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity; balance and fairness.” This isn’t “just another political debate,” he continued. “This is the defining issue of our time.”

And it will only continue to be, what with the upcoming battles over the sequester and the debt ceiling in addition to ongoing debates over entitlement reform, budget deficits, and tax rates. President Obama’s second inaugural address provides him a unique opportunity to describe the challenges of a common capitalism and to put forward a vision of economic development that doesn’t see us waiting on the deliverance of an enlightened few, but one in which there is dignity and place for everyone to lend a hand. 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Thom Hartmann: 'Caller: Ronald Reagan Exponentially Increased Revenue'

Source:Thom Hartmann with a look at Reaganomics.

"A right wing caller tells Thom that President Ronald Reagan's economic policies actually increased revenues to the Federal Government." 


You can get these numbers from the Federal Reserve, Congressional Budget Office, or Office of Management and Budget, all agencies that keep track of the United Sates Federal budget, as well as its deficit and national debt. 

When Ronald Reagan came to office as President in 1981, he inherited a 60 billion-dollar deficit. Which was actually fairly small compared with gross national product, even in 1981. When he left office in 1989, his Vice President George H.W. Bush, inherited a 155 billion-dollar budget deficit as as the new President of the United States.

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, the total Federal budget was 562 billion-dollars and that's in 1981 money. When he left office in January, 1989, the Federal budget was 991 billion-dollars. 

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he inherited a 991 billion-dollar national debt. When he left office in 1989, we had a 3 trillion-dollar national debt. 

So Thom Hratmann is right about this. President Reagan borrowed 3 trillion-dollars as President of the United States, even though he ran as a fiscal conservative for President, both in 1976 and 80. 

Al Jazeera: Islamic Republic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Blames Sanctions For Iran's Economic Crisis


Source:Al Jazeera- Islamic Republic of Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Iran's president has denied claims that his government has caused the country's economic crisis. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the country's parliament that international sanctions are partly to blame. Al Jazeera's Soraya Lennie reports from Tehran." 


"Al Jazeera English (AJE; Arabic: الجزيرة‎, romanized: al-jazīrah, lit. 'the Peninsula', pronounced [æl (d)ʒæˈziːrɐ]) is a 24-hour English-language news channel. It operates under the ownership of the Al Jazeera Media Network, which, in turn, is funded by the government of Qatar. It is the first English-language news channel to be headquartered in Western Asia.[3] Al Jazeera broadcasts in over 150 countries and territories, and has a large global audience of over 430 million people.[4]

Al Jazeera is known for its in-depth and frontline reporting, particularly in conflict zones.[5][6] It has been praised for its in-depth coverage of events such as the Arab Spring, the Gaza–Israel conflict and others.[7][8][6][9] Al Jazeera's coverage of the Arab Spring won the network numerous awards, including the Peabody Award."

From Wikipedia

Its President Ahmadinejad's and the rest of his administration's fault that the Iranian economy is in the shape that they are in. Because they are Theocratic Socialists and like most politicians authoritarian and otherwise, don't know how to run an entire national economy. 

Iran is a country of 75M people and physically the size of Saudi Arabia and Libya with first world people and resources and yet they are still a third world country because of their government. And the Iranian people need to wake up to that fact and do something about it.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

M.D. Jones: The Progressive Era

Source:M.D. Jones- Perhaps a kid growing up during the Great Depression.
"A "Just the Facts" documentary about the Progressive Era."

From M.D. Jones

I might be the wrong person as a Liberal who is a true believer in limited government and someone who has what I would call at least a healthy skepticism of what government can do for the people with the people's money. Which is why I believe government should really only being doing what we need it to do for us and the people should have the rest of the power to live their own lives. And for the people who don't have the freedom to be self-sufficient, they should be given that power as well. Thats basically what I believe the role of government should be. And I also distinguish between liberalism and socialism, as well as progressivism.

And believe as a Liberal that liberalism is about the people and protecting freedom for the people. And expanding freedom to people who don't have, but deserve it and need it. And socialism to me is about what government can do for the people with their money, rather than what government can do for the people so they can take care of themselves and make their own decisions.

And with Socialists you tend to get we need government to do these things for the people as well as new things and that capitalism needs to be scaled back. So government can have that power to take care of the people. So thats why I call myself a Liberal rather than a Libertarian or Socialist.

I was in a debate in the summer of 2011 (on Facebook of all places) about what progressivism is. And I was making or trying to make the case for why I'm a Progressive. Not in the sense that I see that as my ideology. But that I see it as someone who believes in advancing the ball down the field and moving forward. That progressive comes from the word progress.

And that you could be on the left where I am, or on the right, but you are a Progressive. Even if thats not your political philosophy if you believe in progress. I agree that my definition of Progressive is not the popular definition that progressivism is not just about progress.

But that progressivism is a real political philosophy based on what government can do for the people with their money. And that government needs to be big enough to deal with the issues that so-called Progressives don't trust the private sector to deal with. In summary, things that would be considered social services. Education, health care, health insurance, retirement, to use as examples.

Again I might not be the right person to label and define Progressivism in America. And actual Progressives should try to figure out this for themselves and how to define and build their own movement. But to me at least the way forward both politically and governmentally. Progressives should essentially be Center-Left Progressives. Especially as the country is becoming more liberal-libertarian as a country and less socialist. That we like our taxes down and our freedom up both economic and personally.

And we want government to do for us what we can't for for ourselves. So the Progressives who could compete with this growing mindset is that we believe government should try to make life  better for everyone. Especially for people who are snuggling, but that should be in a limited sense. Not in a socialistic sense that government has all the answers and that people the world is too complicated for people to do their own decision-making. But government when managed well can also make positive contributions in the areas of social services as well. Like in education and health care, to use as examples.

Progressivism at it's best has given America the and contributed to creating equality in America as far as equal rights and equal justice. And economic development in the areas of infrastructure and free trade.  Governmental protections like the regulatory state to protect consumers and workers from predators. Progressivism at it's best is what FDR was which was pragmatic and figuring how government can help people help themselves and do what we need government to do. But not with some big government philosophy that government should try to do everything for everyone.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Dan Dimaggio: 'How Can We Build the Socialist Movement in The 21st Century?'

Source:Twitter Dan DiMaggio.

“It is easy for good to triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the Mafia.” – Kurt Vonnegut

For the past seven-plus years I have devoted much of my life to effort to build a socialist movement in the United States. As a member of one of the many tiny socialist groups on the U.S. left, I have organized dozens of anti-war, labor solidarity, immigrant rights, and other rallies and campaigns. I have toured the country to speak at college campuses about socialism. I have set up numerous study groups and conferences and written and edited hundreds of articles for socialist publications. Most people might say, “Dan, you’re crazy if you think that socialism can be achieved in a country like the United States!” But despite the challenges, I hope to continue doing this for the next 50 or so years.

Lately, though, I’ve started to wonder just how the &*^$ a viable socialist movement can actually be built in the U.S. I’ve been grappling with this question for much of the last year as I attempt to overcome a funk rooted in my sense that the current organizational forms of the socialist movement, to which I and many others have given so much of our time and energy, are a dead end. Recently it seems like every time I try to raise a finger to help the movement, I am overcome by a crippling sense of the futility of it all.

My paralysis does not stem from pessimism about the possibilities for social change in the U.S. Rather, it is rooted in frustrations with the current methods of organization dominant in the socialist movement, methods which make a difficult task even harder – if not impossible. I can’t shake the feeling that despite our best intentions, we are wasting resources by taking roads that lead to nowhere. It doesn’t help that the main form of organization – tiny, competing groups divided by marginal differences – is out of tune with the content of our aims – “the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers.” I’ve come to feel that all the heroic effort in the world cannot invest inherently barren forms with meaning.

This piece is my attempt to stimulate critical thinking about the way forward for the U.S. socialist movement. I hope that it will be of interest to practicing socialists as well as other progressive activists, because I think that a healthy, attractive socialist movement can help contribute to the rebuilding of a broader and more powerful left. I realize I am not the first person to say what is written below, and there is much that remains unexplored and unanswered. But I hope it will lead to a productive and collaborative discussion that might open new possibilities for anti-capitalist organizing." 

Friday, January 11, 2013

The American Prospect: Matthew Duss: 'Ending the Mindset that Got Us Into Iraq'

Source:The American Prospect at The White House.

"The Hagel pick makes Obama look far less timid than he did during first-term nominating battles—and far more likely to follow up on his big 2008 foreign policy promises.

President Obama's announcement yesterday of his nomination of former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense is important in a couple of ways. The first is that by following through with a candidate who faced one of the most intense negative pre-nomination campaigns in recent memory, the president signaled that is shaking off some of the caution that characterized his first term, and is prepared to undertake a bolder political course.

Indeed, the opposition to Hagel already seems to be weakening in the face of an overwhelming outpouring of support for the nomination now that it has been announced. According to a former Democratic Senate staffer I spoke to, this was to be expected. "It's highly unlikely that the White House would've made this nomination without conferring with the Senate leadership first," the former staffer said. "So the Republican caucus is going to have to make a decision: Do they want to be seen as a party who voted against an enlisted man war hero with shrapnel in his chest, who the armed forces will love? Are they really going to oppose him over a few comments that will probably be swatted down during hearings anyway?"

The second way the Hagel nomination is important, one that has even more significant implications for U.S. foreign policy, is that Obama may be preparing to pursue one of the more ambitious goals he articulated as a candidate for president. Back in January 2008, when the Democratic primary contest between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hilary Clinton was still raging, Senator Obama took the opportunity during a debate to explain his opposition to the Iraq war. "I don't want to just end the war," he insisted, "I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place."

Many foreign policy progressives remember that line with great fondness, as it encapsulated much of what we wanted to see accomplished as well: An end to a reflexively hawkish unilateralism that favored military force at the expense of international diplomacy and consensus building, where being wrong meant never having to say you're sorry, provided you always err on the side of more war.

Describing his vision of U.S. foreign policy in remarks at the Center for American Progress in May 2008, Hagel struck a very similar tone. "The world does not want an America that imposes, that dictates, that lectures, that preaches, that invades nor occupies," he said. "I think the world does want a clear-thinking America that will lead with a consensus of purpose. That's what we've done most of the time since World War II ... we can do that again. That's what the next president, in my opinion, is going to have to do."

One of the main charges we've heard from Hagel's hawkish critics is that he is "out of the mainstream." On MSNBC this Monday, Senator John Cornyn said Hagel's views on Iran and the Middle East "strike me as Senator Hagel being out of the mainstream, and I believe just wrong when it comes to protecting the national security of the United States." Appearing on CNN this past Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham told host Candy Crowley, "Quite frankly, Chuck Hagel is out of the mainstream of thinking, I believe, on most issues in foreign policy," citing Hagel's support for "directly negotiat[ing] with Iran."

But opinion polls over the last several years have consistently shown that, when it comes to Iran, as well as to broader questions of U.S. military force, the American people are more with Chuck Hagel and the president, not with their hawkish critics. Unlike conservatives, who-as if trapped in Iraq-era amber-have mocked and criticized the president's efforts to negotiate with Iran almost every step of the way (as well as ignored the evidence that those efforts have proven to be essential in forging a strong international-sanctions coalition) Americans are broadly supportive of diplomacy as the most important tool in the U.S. national security toolbox, and exceedingly wary of more costly and unnecessary military interventions. The fact of the matter is, here in the future of 2013, it's Hagel's hawkish critics who are out of the mainstream." 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Joe Swanson: 'Using The "Nuclear Option" for Filibuster Reform Endangers Cooperation'

Source:Salon Magazine- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada)

"Congress may be a mess, but allowing a simple majority to override the rules of the Senate threatens our democracy. 

In recent years, Congress has achieved several unprecedented failures. Since 2007, an estimated 391 filibusters forced cloture votes. Compare that to only 49 cloture votes between 1919 and 1970. In the 112th Congress alone, members of Congress have accomplished the passage of a mere 219 bills, many of which were housekeeping measures such as naming post office buildings or extending existing laws. This output has set the record as the least productive Congress in record-keeping history, including the 80th congress in 1947, infamously known as the “Do Nothing Congress.” In addition, they have won the reproach of the people with a 10 percent approval rating earlier in the year, the lowest approval rating Gallup has reported in its history. These statistics not only document the abuse of the filibuster and its consequences, but also demonstrate that the reasons behind our legislative gridlock reach beyond the filibuster or even Senate rules.

Our lawmakers have lost the ability to compromise. While the filibuster was once a tool designed to increase the space for debate, it now has the polar opposite effect. However, changing the rules may only exacerbate the inability to compromise. If done through fundamentally uncompromising partisan political tools, the very goal of reforming the filibuster to increase debate and the functionality of the Senate will both be at risk.

Filibuster reformers have so far offered three solutions. First, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed eliminating the filibuster on the steps necessary to go to House-Senate conference and has given his support to Senator Tom Udall’s proposal to eliminate the filibuster on the motion to proceed. Senator Jeff Merkley has also authored the “talking filibuster” proposal, which requires senators seeking to filibuster to debate the issue they are blocking.

If our goal is to center the Senate’s focus on debate rather than mindless obstruction, the first two proposals are common sense and moderate changes that get us there. They neither seek the destruction of the filibuster nor obstructionism. Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University, notes that eliminating the filibuster on the motion to proceed would make it easier for the majority to set the legislative agenda and bring bills to the floor for debate. But it wouldn’t stop the minority from filibustering a bill’s final passage. Rather than eliminate obstructionism, “it might shift it and put focus elsewhere.” This change in focus would be a shift toward debate, thus cultivating the Senate’s true purpose.

Though the “talking filibuster” proposal’s attempts to return the filibuster to the days of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is intuitively appealing, it comes with several pitfalls that would need to be resolved in the final proposal. For example, one of the fundamental problems in the proposal is that it does not take into account the possibility of the existence of a minority greater than two or three senators. Today, our senate has become subject to such partisanship that most filibustering minorities carry around 40 votes, if not more. Therefore, under the current provisions of the “talking filibuster,” filibusters would, as Richard A. Arenberg puts it, “become merely a scheduling exercise.”

Though reforms are absolutely necessary given the unsupportable gridlock currently choking our legislative process, and the reforms suggested by Senators Reid and Udall are moderate and viable, the manner in which these reforms will be enacted should be the focus of any reform efforts.

Unfortunately, there is talk from the leadership in the reform movement of the use of the constitutional/nuclear option. The use of this option would eliminate the need to speak to, or compromise with, any senators in opposition to the reform, because the nuclear option would only need 51 votes to change the rules (as opposed to the two-thirds majority vote that would be needed to change Senate rules on any other day than the day the Senate opens in the new year). According to Udall, reformers already have the 51 votes needed to impose the nuclear option. Not only will the neglect of nearly half of the Senate further aggravate partisan tension, many in opposition fear where the nuclear option may lead the Senate.

If the nuclear option is used at the beginning of the 113th congress, it will stand as a dangerous new precedent. Many claim the move could fundamentally change the Senate, an institution designed to protect the rights of the minority, into a body annually altered to create the roads necessary for majorities to pass legislation while minimizing any need to compromise with minority parties, thus creating a tyranny of the majority.

If the nuclear option is not used, then reformers must find a 67-vote majority to change Senate rules. However, many would ask how they could possibly find the 67 votes if a majority often cannot even scrape together 60 votes to file cloture. The answer is simple: senators would learn to compromise as they have in the past.

In 2005, former President George W. Bush’s presidential nominations were subject to heavy filibustering and, just as today, obstructionism became so damaging it came to the point that Republicans were threatening to reform the filibuster via the nuclear option. To avoid setting this dangerous precedent, senators created the “Gang of 14,” seven Democrats and seven Republicans who came together to negotiate. They produced a signed agreement whereby the seven Democrats would no longer filibuster judicial nominees except in “extraordinary circumstances.” In return, the seven Republicans would not vote to enact the “nuclear option.”

It is worth noting that in 2005, many of the statements surrounding the argument seemed to have flip-flopped as the minority in 2005 now stands as the majority in 2012 and vice versa. Therefore, reformers threatening to utilize the nuclear option should understand that they will be playing by the same precedent when they become the safeguards of minority rights.

The obstruction in 2005 may be the closest example we can cite of a debilitating gridlock that nearly resulted in the utilization of the nuclear option to reform the filibuster. However, the current state of uncompromising politics that has plagued our legislative branch is unprecedented. As David Waldmanpoints out at Daily Kos, the entire argument surrounding filibuster reform in 2005 addresses an entirely different aspect. Moreover, in January 2011 an attempt to curb abuse of the filibuster and avoid the nuclear option through a “Gentleman’s Agreement” between Senate majority and minority leaders Reid and McConnell quickly fell apart. This all demonstrates that the chances of any compromise, and especially one that will amount to a 67-majority vote, are very slim. Nonetheless, the Senate must take that chance.

We must begin to reward senators belonging to the minority who maintain the ability to compromise, even if they are few. There are currently no proposals that suggest the complete elimination of the filibuster, so even if reform is enacted, Democrats are still going to have to work with Republicans, even if only to achieve a successful cloture vote. Therefore, reformers cannot burn bridges as they would with the nuclear option. Breaking a filibuster can be a matter of persuading only one or two senators. With Democrats on the brink of a 55-vote control of the 113th Senate, only five Republican votes are necessary. Perhaps refusing to use the nuclear option would lead to the political capital necessary to persuade these Republicans and set a precedent of compromise and cooperation.

Thankfully, talks have already begun between Senate reformers and opposition leaders to avoid the nuclear option. Senators from both sides, led by McCain and Levin, have recently offered a counter proposal that would last two years and give the majority leader two new methods to block a filibuster on starting debates, going to conference with the House, and some presidential nominations.

Though Senator Merkley is not satisfied with the counter proposal, claiming, “The heart of the current paralysis, the silent, secret filibuster, is not addressed by the Levin-McCain proposal,” the offer demonstrates the signs of bipartisan support and openness to reform needed to render the nuclear option unnecessary. In exchange for not going nuclear, both sides should agree to work together to make formal, reasonable, and viable rule changes that will curb filibuster abuse and reestablish our Senate’s paramount ability to compromise." 

The Nation: 'What Executive Actions Should President Obama Hand Down?'

Source:The Nation- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) 44th President of the United States.

"In this era of Congressional intransigence, Obama should be encouraged to exercise his constitutionally mandated authority when it comes to a wide range of needed changes. What executive actions would you like to see him to hand down?

What do the successful “Mini-DREAM Act” policy and last year’s executive order capping student loan payments have in common? They didn't require the approval of Congressional Republicans.

And what do finally ending the War in Afghanistan, directing the EPA to regulate carbon and methane emissions, and ratcheting down the War on Drugs have in common? They wouldn't require the approval of Congressional Republicans.

Progressives should take note. In this era of Congressional intransigence, Obama should be encouraged to exercise his constitutionally mandated authority when it comes to a wide range of needed changes. Although the expansion of executive power, particularly after 9/11, has led to a number of dangerous policies–and we do not wish to see a further consolidation of such authority–there is a time and place for the president to issue executive orders that seek to realign the country with its values and with the needs of Americans.

A presidential executive order, briefly defined, is an action taken by the president that carries the force of law. It can be used to establish a commission–such as the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force ordered in December; to impose sanctions on a country–such as Iran; or to revoke previous executive orders–such as President Bush's 2007 authorization of enhanced interrogations. Other executive actions include directing federal agencies to enforce certain rules, or making appointments to said agencies." 

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Nation: Rick Perlstein: 'Why I Am A Liberal'

Source:The Nation doesn't always believe in moving forward.

"It is liberals who have been at the forefront of struggles for freedom and liberty.

This past October, I participated in a debate at North Carolina State University sponsored by the Libertarian group Young Americans for Liberty. The YAL debates join a libertarian, conservative and a liberal. I held down the liberal pole. Why two positions to right of center and only one to the left? Good question, given that I find the potential breach within the the Democratic coalition—between, you might say, Keynesians and austerians, Krugmanites and Obamaites—more profound and potentially more portentous than that between conservatives and libertarians within the Republican coalition, but that’s an issue for another post. For this one, though, my inaugural post, the first of my thrice-weekly missives I’ll be blasting your way here at The Nation, you get a manifesto: my opening statement at that debate.

Richard Kim, the editor of this site, asked me for a few lines about what I’m going to be writing about here. I wrote back, “I’ll be interpreting contemporary political developments in light of their historical context. I’m especially interested in educating folks on the left about the organic continuities in right-wing thought and action—since the 1960s, since the 1920s, even going back to the eighteenth century. Too often we act as if the forces we’re fighting came about only the day before yesterday.” But first, before I get into all that, here are some “priors,” as the philosophers put it, some thoughts about where I’m coming from and why, the very best brief statement I could muster, for an audience of mostly conservative Southern college students about why I am a card-carrying liberal, and why they should be to.

A “liberal.” Yes, I’ll own the designation, not, as many on the left do, preferring the identity “radical,” disparaging “liberal” as a synonym for all that is anodyne, weak-kneed, not really leftist at all (see the classic statement by Phil Ochs here). I own it in part for the reason that liberalism, done right in this all-too-reactionary nation, is always already radical; for the reason that what most of the people putting their lives on the line to make left-wing political change around rest of the world—in Iran, say, in India, in Greece—are fighting for is liberalism; because a politics not merely of tolerance but of recognition—radical recognition—of those “different” from contingent cultural norms also is liberal, properly understood; and because frankly most of what I think is worth doing to create an economically just society is pretty damned liberal, too. If it was good enough for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to call himself a “liberal,” saying stuff like this (start reading at the part about “our resplendent economic autocracy” and “the individualism of which they prate”), it’s good enough for me.

But enough. That’s a digression. Here’s the post. I hope you find it helpful. Hold onto it for Thanskgiving next year when your wingnut uncle asks you how a nice person like you can be a stinking rat-bastard liberal. Maybe you can make him one, too.

In the 1930s, a congressman named Maury Maverick defined liberalism in three words: “Freedom plus groceries.” That’s how I define it, too. Liberalism is a both/and philosophy. There is no freedom without groceries. There are no groceries without freedom. What people call “capitalism” and “socialism” are actually one and inseparable. It’s a virtuous circle.

Consider healthcare. We all of us—libertarians, conservatives and liberals—want a growing economy. And we all agree that a growing economy requires entrepreneurial dynamism.

So ask yourself this: In a country in which health insurance isn’t guaranteed, how many millions of Americans with great ideas find it impossible to become entrepreneurs because they’re terrified to leave their job, because then they would lose their health insurance and ruin their lives if they get sick?

Now, in response to something like that, you’ll hear my fellow debaters repeat a curious fallacy, a crushing intellectual failure. They’ll act like only governments have the power to deprive citizens of freedom.

Consider, however, a corporation like Walnart, which had $447 billion in revenue this year, bigger than the gross domestic product of all but seventeen of the world’s nations. But according to libertarianism and conservatism, Walmart can only produce liberty. It can never curtail it. Even if they fire you for no reason at all—and by law there’s nothing you can do about it.

Conservatives and libertarians somehow believe that you are freer if an entity bigger than the economies of Austria, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates is simply left alone to act against you in whatever way it wishes. Only liberals know how to make you freer on the job, which is where most of us suffer the gravest indignities in our lives.

Liberals, in fact, make you freer everywhere. Look at liberty’s greatest historic advances: ending slavery. Giving women the vote. Outlawing legal segregation.

Each and every time, the people at the forefront of advancing those reforms—often putting their lives on the line—called themselves liberals.

Each and every time, people who called themselves conservatives announced that those reforms would unravel civilization.

Then—each and every time—once the reform was achieved and taken for granted, and civilization didn’t collapse, conservatives claimed to have always been for it, even holding themselves up as the best people to preserve it.

It happens with economic reforms too.

Let me quote what some conservatives said, once upon a time, about a certain bill pending before Congress:

“Never in the history of the world has any measure been so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers, and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work for the people.”

“…Invites the entrance into the political field of a power so vast, so powerful as…to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the head of our descendants.”

“…Sooner or later will bring the abandonment of private capitalism.”

The bill they’re talking about was not Obamacare but Social Security. Which conservatives now say they’re the best people to preserve. That’s how they roll.

It’s happening now with same-sex marriage. Watch Fox News. Two years ago they brayed it would quote-unquote “destroy the family.” Now, they hardly mention it. Just you wait: ten, twenty years from now, conservatives will say they were for it all along. And that it is conservative. Just like they now say about Martin Luther King Jr., whom in the ’60s they called a Communist. (Did you know that when he was assassinated conservative leaders said he had it coming, that it was his own fault? Strom Thurmond said, “We are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case.” Ronald Reagan said it was just the sort of “great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they’d break.”)

What a childish way to be in the world. It’s cowardly. But that’s conservatism. Meanwhile, liberals will push for the next frontier for justice, and the right will figure out some way to call it the end of the world.

So in conclusion, I ask you, as young people parsing out your own political identity: Which side would you prefer to join? The side of the cowardly? Or the side of the courageous?" 


In reading Rick Perlstein's entire piece for The Nation (which is not a closeted Socialist publication) there's just one line in there that I agree with him on: "It is liberals who have been at the forefront of struggles for freedom and liberty." 

What Rick Perlstein really is ideologically (besides being a closeted Socialist) is a Democratic Socialist. He's someone who believes that every American is not just entitled to every basic necessity in life, but that it's the job of government to make sure that everyone has exactly what they need to do well in life and that those things should be provided for by the national government, as part of an economy that's still primarily run by private individuals. 

Here is a more accurate definition of Rick Perlstein's politics: 

"The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a multi-tendency, democratic socialist, and labor-oriented political organization in the United States.[7] After the Socialist Party of America (SPA) transformed into Social Democrats USA, Michael Harrington formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC).[8] The DSOC later merged with the New American Movement to form the DSA.[9] The organization is headquartered in New York City and has about 80,000 members. It has members in the House of Representatives, state legislatures, and numerous other local offices." 

From Wikipedia

My definition of a closeted Socialist, is someone who talks and thinks like a let's say Democratic Socialist/Social Democrat, but who calls himself a Progressive or Liberal, even if they a lot of what they believe is actually illiberal (meaning not liberal) or regressive. (Meaning not progressive) 

I'm not saying that Rick Perlstein is illiberal or regressive, necessarily. But when you think that every American regardless of economic status in life, is automatically entitled to a good living in this country, even without working at all and entitled to all the basic necessities in life, even if they don't even want to work, let alone work at all, you are no longer a Liberal, but a Socialist. 

Monday, January 7, 2013

CBPP: Robert Greenstein: Next Round of Deficit Reduction

Source:Center On Budget & Policy Priorities President Robert Greenstein.

"In recent days, policymakers, pundits, and the media have debated whether the “fiscal cliff” budget deal was a victory or defeat for the President or congressional Republicans, progressives or conservatives, rich or poor, the economy or the deficit — you name it.  Most of the commentary is unpersuasive, however, for one basic reason:  the fiscal cliff deal is only one stage in a broader budget battle, and you can’t render a legitimate judgment on that effort until the next stage — which includes the scheduled across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration” and, especially, the need to raise the debt limit — is completed.

What’s important at this point is not assessing winners or losers but, instead, understanding what lies ahead.  That’s because what lies ahead is truly frightening.  Indeed, it could (though it doesn’t have to) produce outcomes that are far more damaging to the economy, sound fiscal policy, and low-income and vulnerable Americans than anything that policymakers and experts feared from the fiscal cliff.

So, let’s look ahead to the next 60 days and their potentially monumental ramifications for our country, our economy, and our people.

The Big Challenges and Threats
As many fiscal policy analysts agree, policymakers must generate sufficient deficit reduction to achieve the key economic goal of stabilizing the debt over the coming decade so that it stops rising faster than the economy grows.  Policymakers generated about $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction in 2011 ($1.5 trillion in discretionary spending cuts, plus the associated interest savings, primarily through the Budget Control Act, or BCA).[1]   That left a need for another $2 trillion in deficit reduction to stabilize the debt.[2]

Entering the fiscal cliff negotiations, there were two main barriers to achieving deficit reduction in an equitable and balanced manner that honors the principle, as enunciated by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (“Bowles-Simpson”) and reflected in major deficit-reduction deals of recent decades, that deficit reduction shouldn’t harm low-income and vulnerable Americans or increase poverty — and that doesn’t disrupt the economy:

Apparent Republican unwillingness to raise taxes; and
The destructive notion, sometimes called the “Boehner rule” (for House Speaker John Boehner), that Congress should only raise the debt ceiling if it’s accompanied by at least a dollar in new spending cuts for each dollar that the debt limit is raised.[3]   Under this rigid formula, cuts in programs that are critical for future economic growth or that serve the nation’s poorest people count, while savings from curbing unproductive, special-interest tax subsidies do not. 
Moreover, the Boehner rule would require the most radical transformation of government in nearly a century; if policymakers enacted all of the cuts in the severe, House-passed budget of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, they would still eventually fall short of adhering to the Boehner rule.  They would have to eliminate more and more of the basic functions of government over time.

The Lost Opportunity
The fiscal cliff negotiations appeared to offer a singular opportunity for more rational, balanced, and comprehensive deficit reduction.

Republicans needed the agreement of President Obama and the Democratic-run Senate in order (1) to extend President Bush’s tax cuts (which were scheduled to expire at the end of 2012), including any tax cuts that Republicans could salvage for people who were making over $250,000 a year, and (2) to preserve as much as they could of the estate-tax break for the nation’s wealthiest estates that Republican leaders extracted from the President in their negotiations over the year-end tax bill of 2010.

The White House’s challenge was to use this leverage to broker a larger deal that contained enough deficit reduction to stabilize the debt over the coming decade, secured an adequate revenue contribution toward that goal (one that extended well beyond the revenues generated just from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for people making over $250,000), and raised the debt limit for at least several years.  That’s what the President tried to achieve in his December negotiations with Speaker Boehner.

At one point, Obama and Boehner appeared close to agreement, with Obama close to achieving his goals.  But then Boehner, pressured by other House Republicans, blew up the negotiations and opted for “Plan B.”

After Plan B’s demise, negotiations resumed — but on a very different playing field.  Gone was any discussion of raising the debt ceiling or of a larger deficit-reduction package.  Instead, the two sides opted for a deal that raises income, capital gains, and dividend taxes only on couples making over $450,000 ($400,000 for singles); limits itemized deductions and phases out personal exemptions for couples making over $300,000 ($250,000 for singles); makes permanent most of the estate-tax break originally enacted in 2010; extends improvements in the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working Americans, and in the American Opportunity Tax Credit for middle- and lower-income college students, for five years;[4] extends federal emergency unemployment insurance benefits for a year; and delays sequestration for two months.  All told, the deal makes permanent 82 percent of the Bush tax cuts.[5]

Consequently, the playing field for the next round is very different.  It’s a terrain filled with land mines and enormous danger.

The Next Round
The nation faces three related and very daunting challenges in the next round, all of which will play out over the next two months.

Achieving further deficit reduction:  The President and Republican congressional leaders both seek more deficit reduction, but they are miles apart on how to get it.  The White House notes that policymakers have already enacted large cuts in discretionary spending, which amount to $1.5 trillion over the next ten years (as compared to the fiscal cliff deal’s approximately $600 billion in revenue increases).  Quite reasonably, the White House calls for a dollar in additional revenue increases for each dollar in additional spending cuts.[6]

Republicans, however, have already declared that they flatly reject this concept.  Although Speaker Boehner offered $800 billion in revenue increases in his 2011 negotiations with President Obama and indicated that he’d go somewhere close to $1 trillion in the recent negotiations, Republican leaders now insist that “the tax issue is off the table,”[7] “the tax issue is finished, over, completed,”[8] and they won’t agree to a dollar more in tax increases beyond the roughly $600 billion just enacted.  They insist that all of the additional deficit reduction must come from budget cuts.  They say that, with the bulk of the Bush tax cuts now permanent, President Obama no longer has any leverage over them in the tax-raising arena.
Averting sequestration:  Sequestration will hit March 1 unless the President and Congress delay it further or replace it with something else.  Republicans are insisting that policymakers must replace every dollar of across-the-board cuts that’s cancelled with a dollar of spending cuts.  The White House, consistent with its dollar-in-taxes-for-a-dollar-in-spending principle, wants to replace sequestration with a package that includes equal amounts of revenue increases and spending cuts.
Raising the debt limit:  Most important, many Republicans insist that they won’t raise the debt limit unless legislation to do so is accompanied by massive spending cuts.  To raise the debt limit by, say, $1 trillion — enough for about one year — would require $1 trillion in spending cuts under their “Boehner rule.”  To raise the debt limit to last two years would require about $2 trillion in spending cuts.

The debt limit fight is key — key to the future of the economy, the budget, and programs for low-income and disadvantaged Americans.  The White House and some Democratic congressional leaders signaled a willingness to “go over the fiscal cliff” and into January if they could not reach a satisfactory budget agreement with congressional Republicans by December 31.  They believed that, if in place a few weeks and then cancelled, the tax increases and spending cuts that the fiscal cliff would trigger would not harm the economy in a substantial, lasting way.

But, Administration pronouncements on the dangers posed by failing to raise the debt limit suggest that the White House appropriately views those consequences as far more dire, for failure to raise the debt limit so that the federal government can pay its bills would eventually trigger a default, potentially sending interest rates on U.S. securities permanently higher and possibly even causing a global financial crisis.  Moreover, the President has said that he lacks authority, as some constitutional scholars have proposed, to invoke the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and essentially ignore the debt limit.

All of this greatly emboldens Republicans, who appear to believe that they are in a much stronger position in this evolving fiscal contest.  They believe that by holding the needed debt-limit increase hostage and threatening economic chaos if their demands aren’t met, they can bring Obama and Democrats to their knees — forcing them to accept very big spending cuts without any revenue increases, as they did in the debt-limit crisis during the summer of 2011.

The President has said that he will not negotiate fiscal policy as a condition for raising the debt limit, a very well-justified stance if you believe — as I do — that it’s grossly irresponsible for legislators of either party to hold the debt limit hostage and threaten economic chaos if they don’t get their way.[9]   But whether the President can secure a debt limit increase — which will require 218 votes in the House and 60 in the Senate — without acceding to huge spending cuts is unclear at this point.  Tea Party Republicans think this is their best chance in ages to secure big cuts in core New Deal and Great Society programs.  And with Republicans seemingly committed to this course (and nursing their wounds over the fiscal cliff deal) and the President maintaining that he won’t be blackmailed, the likelihood of a harrowing showdown — one that threatens the economy far more than the fiscal cliff ever did — is very high.
Why Low-Income People Are at Heightened Risk
Some Democrats dismiss the threat that the Boehner rule poses, saying that Republicans ultimately will back off of it because they won’t publicly identify the specific program cuts they would make to produce the savings that would raise the debt ceiling for a reasonable period of time.  That view, alas, is mistaken.

To be sure, Republican congressional leaders seem unwilling to propose specific cuts in the two main, popular middle-class entitlement programs — Medicare and Social Security — that would produce large savings over the next ten years.  They want Democrats to propose such cuts, or at a minimum, they want to find a way to put some Democratic fingerprints on them.

But, Republican leaders appear more than willing to specify deep cuts in two other parts of the budget — core entitlements for low-income Americans, like Medicaid and SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), and the annual caps on funding for non-defense discretionary programs.[10]   The Ryan budget featured trillions of dollars of cuts in these two areas.[11]   House Republicans may well try to pass legislation in February to raise the debt limit for a year or so, accompanied by cuts primarily in low-income assistance programs and in the caps on non-defense discretionary programs.  They will likely re-pass, in the new Congress, the legislation that they passed twice in the last Congress (most recently on December 20) to cancel the first year of sequestration and replace it with spending cuts that hit low-income programs disproportionately.[12]

These battles, just starting, will be brutal.  Attacks that disparage or demonize programs for low-income and vulnerable Americans may escalate in the weeks ahead in an effort to help lay the groundwork for this strategy.

It’s not clear how policymakers will resolve these showdowns.  The President’s ability to tie an extension of various Republican-backed tax cuts to an agreement on a larger balanced package — one that also raises the debt limit and averts sequestration — now is gone.  How the President can secure needed Republican votes in the Senate and House for measures that raise additional revenues — and for measures that raise the debt limit outside of the harsh and regressive confines of the Boehner rule — is very unclear.

But facile assumptions that President Obama will simply roll over in the face of these pressures seem quite unrealistic.  So, an extremely high-stakes confrontation — one that could culminate in an actual default, a government shutdown, or even a constitutional crisis — is definitely not out of the question.

What lies ahead will likely dwarf the fiscal-cliff dramatics that the nation has just witnessed.  Our leaders, our system of government, and the patience and wisdom of the American people will be severely tested.  And, for no one will the stakes — and the risks — be higher than for the tens of millions of our least fortunate citizens, those who lack the luxury of well-connected lobbyists and the access that big campaign contributions bring to help protect them on Capitol Hill in the dangerous weeks ahead."