Progressives Recoil At Reported Debt Ceiling Deal

Progressive groups are speaking out against the debt ceiling deal currently being hashed out in Washington. The response from two of the nation's largest organizations goes essentially like this: really?!?

Progressives are more than a little upset that the deal does not include taxing the rich, a line in the sand Pres. Obama drew early on.

They're casting the deal outlined on the Sunday morning talk shows as a huge win for Republicans -- and (yet another) agonizing defeat for the middle class.

"Seeing a Democratic president take taxing the rich off the table and instead push a deal that will lead to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit cuts is like entering a bizarre parallel universe," said Stephanie Talyor, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "One with horrific consequences for middle-class families."

In cutting a deal with Congressional Republicans that places Democratic legacy programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—at risk while cutting essential programs for working families, Obama and Democratic leaders in the Senate have moved to the right of the American people and opened Democrats running in 2012 to counter Republican messaging that it was Democrats who cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and essential programs for working families. [That strategy worked for Republicans in 2010 and they are counting on that strategy to work again in 2012.]

Krugman: The President Surrenders

By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 31, 2011 NYTimes

A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.

more @ The NYTimes

Mainstream Media Conservative Bias

Yesterday, an American Dream Movement rally, demanding a debt deal that “protects seniors and makes corporations and the rich pay [their] fair share,” drew a significantly larger crowd than a Tea Party rally a day earlier.

Both were held on Capitol Hill, both focused on the same ginned-up debt ceiling “crisis,” but you’d be hard-pressed to find the Beltway media noting the difference in crowd size—or even reporting on the progressive rally at all.

Wednesday’s conservative rally, organized by the Tea Party Express, was a bust: only about fifty people showed up...

In contrast, Thursday’s American Dream rally—organized by MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, AFSCME and AFGE, and featuring speakers like Van Jones and Representatives Keith Ellison and Jan Schakowsky—clocked in an estimated 450–500 people. Neither Politico or CNN mention the progressive American Dream rally.

In fact CNN talked up the Tea Party rally both the day before it took place and afterward—when it spun the measly crowd (and its own pre-event notice) by writing: “Don't be fooled by the tiny turnout at the Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The conservative movement doesn't much need rallies anymore. November 2010 changed all of that.”

Read the full story in The Nation.

Related:

• The Democratic Strategist: Krugman's Smackdown of Mainstream Media Groveling to GOP 'Extortion'

Krugman: Proposed Debt Deal Will Cost Jobs And Revenue

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman is very disappointed with President Obama and the Democrats for allowing the Republicans to control the messaging frame of the debt debate. Krugman warned during his comments on ABC's This Week Sunday morning that the proposed spending cuts in a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling would end up hurting the economy.

“These spending cuts are even going to hurt the long-run fiscal position, let alone cause lots of misery, said Krugman on ABC's This Week Sunday morning. Then on top of that, we’ve got these budget cuts, which are entirely — basically the Republicans [saying], ‘We’ll blow up the world economy unless you give us exactly what you want’ and the president said, ‘Okay.’ That’s what happened . . . We’re having a debate in Washington which is all about, ‘we’re going to make this economy worse, but are we going to make it worse on 90% of the Republican’s terms or 100% of the Republican’s terms?’ And the answer is 100%.”

Krugman insisted, “from the perspective of a rational person, in other words, a progressive on this stuff, we shouldn’t be talking about spending cuts at all now.”

Krugman’s grim forecast, as a result of Democratic “compromises” with Republicans, which focus on spending cuts, is that the American economy will experience worsening unemployment and general misery in the future.

DailyBeast: How Republicans Screwed the Pooch

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said he could explain the problems with the economy in less than 2 minutes, 15 seconds
—and he did it (with illustrations to boot).

Republicans say they want to save the country from Obama’s reckless spending. But as Paul Begala argues in the editorial below, it’s the GOP’s policies that have driven the nation into the ground.

But too few Democrats—and almost no media commentators—have countered the mendacious right-wing storyline.

Politico published a piece outlining the vast disparity in the ad war over the debt ceiling. Republican-aligned groups have run over $21.2 mil lion in attack ads highlighting Democrats as irresponsible drivers of the national debt, and elevating the debt ceiling as a top priority. Meanwhile, groups on the left have spent only about $30,000 on ads calling out Republican responsibility for the debt.

In this case Republicans broke the budget, but they are making Democrats own it - as usual.

"How Republicans Screwed the Pooch,"
By Paul Begala Published: July 30, 2011 Newsweek/Daily Beast

There it sits, lonely and forlorn on my shelf. A leather-bound copy of the 1999 Budget of the United States of America. A gift from President Clinton to the folks on his team, it was the first balanced budget in decades.

But it wasn't supposed to be the last. Indeed, experts projected surpluses as far as the eye could see. $5.7 trillion in surpluses, to be exact. The surpluses were so strong that deep into the future—in 2009—the entire national debt was going to be zero. For the first time since Andy Jackson was president, the United States of America would not owe a dime.

It didn't quite work out that way, did it?

Debt Ceiling Crisis: America Held Hostage by Republican Party Extremists

By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 28, 2011 NYTimes

The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.

Annual Gov. Ann Richards Dinner Next Saturday Aug. 6

The annual dinner honoring Governor Ann Richards, sponsored by the Democratic Party of Collin County, is set for next Saturday August 6, 2011. Click to the DPCC website for details - reservation deadline is Mon. Aug 1, 2011.

Governor Richards is admired as a person who stood up for everyday citizens in Texas throughout her life. A video at the bottom of this article presents Richards speaking at the 1988 Democratic National Convention where, in the first 16 minutes of the speech, she explains why it is important that our elected representatives in government stand up for everyday citizens.

According to Shawn Stevens, Chair of the Democratic Party of Collin County, 'that is why the 2011 Richards Dinner planning committee selected, "Standing Up for Everyday Citizens," as the theme for this year's fund raising dinner.'

In keeping with that theme several people widely regarded for taking a principled stand for everyday citizens have been invited to address Richards Dinner guests this year, according Mr. Stevens. Stevens today announced that several ranking members of the Texas Democratic Party are confirmed to join Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach, better known as one of the "Wisconsin 14," next Saturday to speak at the annual fundraising dinner.

Joining Wisc. Sen. Erpenbach at the speaker's podium will be Texas State HD-103 Representative Rafael Anchia, Texas State HD-116 Representative Trey Martinez Fischer and Texas Democratic Party state Chairman Boyd Richie.

Data Shows Deeper Recession, Sharper Slowdown

Reuters - The "Great Recession" was even greater than previously thought, and the U.S. economy has skated uncomfortably close to a new one this year.

New data on Friday showed the 2007-2009 U.S. recession was much more severe than prior measures had found, with economic output declining a cumulative of 5.1 percent instead of 4.1 percent.

The report also showed the current slowdown began earlier and has been deeper than previously thought, with growth in the first quarter advancing at only a 0.4 percent annual pace.

Read the full story @ Reuters

In the weeks after Obama won election in 2008 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he intended to delay Obama's proposed $1 trillion economic stimulus legislation and use his 40 Republican Senator cloture vote filibuster power to block all Democratic legislation.

Within two months of taking the oath of office, Republicans had convinced Pres. Obama to compromise and ask for half the amount of stimulus that his advisers thought necessary and substitute additional massive tax cuts for corporations and the rich in the place of infrastructure spending as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Most economists now say the 2009 stimulus plan was slow to kick in, did little to promote American job growth and unnecessarily added to the deficit because the ARRA indeed provided half the amount of infrastructure stimulus spending needed and the added tax cuts did not enticed corporations to reinvest their massive profit gains in U.S. based business growth and job creation.

Republicans continue to claim only more tax cuts for billionaires and mega-corporations will fix the flagging economy. But, will yet more corporate tax cuts really promote job growth in America? As a share of GDP, the U.S. has the second lowest tax rate, behind only Iceland. This statistic flips on its head the often-repeated Republican charge that America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (which is only true on paper). In 2009, U.S. corporate taxes had fallen to only 1.3 percent of GDP, from 4 percent in 1965.

Conservative Think Tank Trys Climate Skeptic Damage Control Over Record-Setting Heat Wave Headlines

As a record heat wave grips the U.S. with new record temperatures set daily this summer the conservative messaging network of think tanks and media outlets continue to try to convince people its all just natural and normal.

Forbes Magazine this month published an OpEd titled, " New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism." This OpEd is now being picked up and reprinted in newspapers around the U.S. as a "new finding," rather than just a republication of old discredited claims.

Why Americans Are So Angry

Wall Street Journal Op-ed - Reposted at Friends of Bernie.Org
Thursday, 28 July 2011
By Senator Bernie Sanders

The rich are getting richer. Their effective tax rate, in recent years, has been reduced to the lowest in modern history. Nurses, teachers and firemen actually pay a higher tax rate than some billionaires. It's no wonder the American people are angry.

Stewart: Tea party is the ‘violent, unstable sociopath’ from ‘The Town’

Watch this video from Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show," broadcast July 28, 2011.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart suspected Thursday that House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had not watched the end of “The Town” before trying to use it to convince tea party freshmen to vote for a plan to raise the debt ceiling.

“You went with the Boston-bank-robbers-in-nun-costumes flick?” Stewart asked.

“Let me see if I understand this metaphor. The establishment Republicans are saying to the tea party upstarts, ‘Hey, you know the violent, unstable, borderline sociopath from ‘The Town,’ who’s useful in a pinch but who’s suicidal single-minded mania will ultimately be his downfall? That’s you guys. And the guy who’s stuck in an uneasy alliance with you, but doesn’t really like you and ultimately saves himself by walking away as you are dying? That’s us. So, do we have your vote?’”

“I’m going to assume most of the tea part coalition has not seen the whole movie,” he added.

World Population to Surpass 7 Billion in 2011

Explosive Population Growth Means Challenges for Developing Nations

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added -- nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100.

These sizable increases represent an unprecedented global demographic upheaval, according to David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at the Harvard School of Public Health, in a review article published July 29, 2011 in Science.

Over the next forty years, nearly all (97%) of the 2.3 billion projected increase will be in the less developed regions, with nearly half (49%) in Africa. By contrast, the populations of more developed countries will remain flat, but will age, with fewer working-age adults to support retirees living on social pensions.

Read the full story @ ScienceDaily

ASCE: Old Infrastructure Costs U.S. Billions

Washington Post: As Congress debates how to meet the nation’s long-term transportation needs, decaying roads, bridges, railroads and transit systems are costing the United States $129 billion a year, according to a report issued Wednesday by a professional group whose members are responsible for designing and building such infrastructure.

Complex calculations done for the American Society of Civil Engineers indicate that infrastructure deficiencies add $97  billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in travel delays that cost $32 billion.

Nancy Pelosi: 'We Get The Sacrifice, They Share The Wealth'

Majority Of Americans Oppose Cuts to Medicare or Social Security

Large majorities of Americans oppose even a minor reduction in spending on Medicare or Social Security according to the newest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Sixty-two percent of the country wants no reductions to Social Security and 59 percent wants no reductions in Medicare spending.

The American people really like their Medicare and Social Security.

They are an important part of the social safety net that prevents millions of seniors from falling into poverty.

Latest Ad by the American Future Fund group. Click this link for the Real TRUTH About Who Really Owns America's Debt.

The common conservative messaging echoed in the mainstream media and by many cable news pundits is that the American people actually want a “grand bargain” or a “super Congress” to cut our entitlement programs has absolutely no basis in reality.

It is purely a conservative messaging fantasy created with lots of billionaire conservative money.

The GOP is winning the debate because they have the know how and bucks to message. Earlier this week, Politico published a piece outlining the vast disparity in the ad war over the debt ceiling. Republican-aligned groups have run over $21.2 mil lion in attack ads highlighting Democrats as irresponsible drivers of the national debt, and elevating the debt ceiling as a top priority. Meanwhile, groups on the left have spent about $30,000 on ads calling out Republicans on the debt, with one hitting lawmakers for “recklessly risking default.” That is why it is so important for grassroots progressives to push their own messaging programs.

And, Think Progress writes about, "How Shadowy Right-Wing Front Groups Engineered Our National Embrace Of Debt Reduction Over Job Creation:"

For the entire year, as a sluggish economy sputters by and states continue to struggle with falling revenue, the conversation in Congress has centered solely on spending reduction. Earlier this year, we witnessed looming government-showdown duels between competing spending reduction plans. Now with the debt ceiling debate, the only two options are a choice between a package of painful cuts and a package of deeply draconian cuts. There has been no lively discussion of new policy ideas for job creation, foreclosure mitigation, or how to spur demand, the key driver of economic recovery.

Gallup: President Obama's Approval Rating Remains High Among Democrats

According to a new Gallup poll, President Obama's over-all approval rating has dropped one point from 44 percent to 43 percent since the previous survey was taken. However, 78 percent of Democrats approve of how the president is doing his job. According to Sam Stein of Huffington Post, President Obama's numbers are the highest any Democratic president has enjoyed at this point in their term since Harry Truman.

President Obama also scored high marks with Liberal Democrats, scoring an 81 percent approval rating, a number surpassed only by his approval among black voters, which held steady at 86 percent.

At this point in his presidency, George W. Bush had a 59 percent approval rating, which was late July of 2003, three months after the invasion of Iraq and two months after he announced"Mission Accomplished" from the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

Debt Ceiling Debate: Similarities To FDR's New Deal

As we wrote in the post, "Pres. Obama Pushes "Serious Cuts" In His Weekly Address," last Saturday, the current budget debate mirrors the New Deal budget debates through the 1930's.

FDR's The New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run because he listened too much to conservatives of his day telling him to cut New Deal stimulus spending and balance the budget. Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman says, "The New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run was the fact ... that his economic policies were initially too cautious."

FDR was swayed by the conservative argument and signed a deep budget cutting budget bill for one Congressional budget cycle during the mid part of his first term. Those cuts pushed the economy back into rapidly contraction. The double-dip recession caused by that "balanced budget" legislation almost derailed FDR's chance to be re-elected for a second term.

Fortunately, the economist John Maynard Keynes convinced FDR to renew his new deal spending push with congress in time win re-election, but it was close. FDR was quick to learn the lesson - will Pres. Obama learn that lesson soon enough to win re-election?

Milton Friedman, a revered figure in right-of-center circles, famously pinned the severity of the Great Depression on contractionary monetary policy. Scott Sumner, a professor of economics at Bentley University who identifies himself as a "neo-monetarist", has argued that Friedman would have supported monetary stimulus. And he has argued, on neo-Friedmanite grounds, that tight monetary policy both precipitated and exacerbated our recent recession. I happen to think Mr Sumner is correct, but his expansionary prescription remains anathema on the right, and now seemingly Pres. Obama.

The comparison of the 1930's economic debate with the current debate continues in a Huffington post article, "Debt Ceiling Debate: Similarities To FDR's New Deal:"

John Maynard Keynes Was Laid To Rest This Week

Whatever the outcome of Thursday's projected House vote on Speaker Boehner's debt plan, this process has already ended the political life of one prominent member of the Washington establishment: John Maynard Keynes.

True, Keynes died in 1946. But his ghost hovered over America's economic debate until pretty much Monday night. In their ostensibly dueling speeches, both President Obama and House Speaker Boehner embraced the language of "austerity" and performed an unwitting exorcism.

In brief, Keynes is the man whose ideas led to 2009's stimulus policy. Looking at the problems of the 1930s, he helped develop FDR's "New Deal" concept that you spend your way out of a recession. [see: Pres. Obama Pushes "Serious Cuts" In His Weekly Address]

The Conservative Media Deny It’s A Record-Setting Hot Summer

When the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences reviewed climate research data last year, it concluded: “A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” The summer of 2011 heat wave is again setting new record temperatures.

Monthly ratio of daily high vs low U.S. temperature records for
June 2010 - July 23, 2011, NOAA data


Composite Graph of Data from Four Climate Research Groups prepare by Dr. Richard Muller from University of California and presented to congress during his testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

Climate change is driven by "global warming," the average recorded temperature of the earth, which has been going up for years. This warming of the globe leads to climate change, which doesn't necessarily mean all areas will become warmer.

Due to the highly variable and interdependent nature of the world's weather patterns, warming in some areas could lead to, for example, much colder winters in others.In much the same role that marriage and abortion played in previous election cycles, denial of climate change has now become a litmus test for the right.

The vast majority of Republicans elected to Congress during the midterm election say they doubt climate science, and senior congressional conservatives have vowed to fight Obama administration efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. [GOP Deny The Average Recorded Temperature Of Earth Has Been Going Up For Years]

Even as record temperatures have been set daily across the U.S. this summer the conservative media continues to deny the fact that recorded temperatures are on the increase, as Media Matters documents:

On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh declared that “almost no temperature records were broken” during the recent heat wave and that media outlets who reported on “record-breaking” heat were telling “a bunch of lies” to “advance a political agenda of liberalism.”

Call To ACTION: No Super Congress!

No Abdication Of Our Representation"

Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner are proposing to appoint six Senators and six Representatives from the House to meet in behind-closed-doors, non-transparent sessions, to agree to budget and program cuts for the next ten years that will affect all Americans. From Sunday night through today, details have emerged for what some are dubbing the “Super Congress,” otherwise known as the “Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.”

This small, unrepresentative group will decide on these cuts, outside of the normal order of procedures of both Chambers, and the results can neither be amended nor filibustered.

This FDL post and its comments describe what Reid and Boehner propose.

This undemocratic “Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction” is deliberately designed to block the input of every Representative and Senator in Congress other than the 12 members who would be selected by Party leadership to propose changes in any and every category they choose.

We are numbed and appalled at this development. It is an abrogation of the premise of elected representation. Tell congressional leaders, "No more secret backroom deals - deficit reduction deliberation must be held in open public committee meetings!"