In his first post-election press conference, President Barack Obama on Wednesday reiterated the claim that his focus in deficit-reduction talks with the Republicans is to provide jobs and help the struggling “middle class” recover from the economic crisis.
To this end, Obama declared, he is determined to reach a “balanced” compromise that will require the wealthy to “pay a little bit more.” In practical terms, that means, at most, slightly raising the income tax rates of the richest 2 percent of US households—those making more than $250,000 a year—by allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for this income group to expire on January 1st.
Obama spoke, as always in the vaguest terms, of the need to “reform” Medicare and other social entitlements. He made no mention of the scheduled expiration at the new year of federally funded extended unemployment benefits, a cruel cost-cutting measure that will, if implemented, deprive over 2 million jobless workers of cash assistance.
The real social and class interests served by the administration’s fiscal policy were indicated by the next item on the president’s calendar—a closed-door White House meeting with the CEOs of 12 of the biggest US corporations, including General Electric, Walmart, American Express, Honeywell, Ford, IBM, Pepsico and Chevron. This gathering of multi-millionaires was convened to ensure that the demands of the corporate elite for drastic cuts in social spending and further tax cuts for big business would be carried out.
Obama’s pretense of “fairness” and concern for working people, against the backdrop of the supposed looming disaster of the “fiscal cliff,” is a cynical sham. It is a cover for a calculated and ruthless assault on all that remains of the social reforms of the 20th century—most centrally, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—combined with a restructuring of the tax system that will cut taxes for corporations and the rich and increase the tax burden on working people.
The far-reaching and reactionary substance of Obama’s social policy emerges very clearly in secret documents that were leaked last weekend relating to negotiations in the summer of 2011 between the White House and Republican House Speaker John Boehner over raising the US debt limit. In response to Republican demands for massive spending cuts in return for an agreement on raising the debt limit, Obama proposed a “grand bargain” to slash the federal deficit by $4 trillion over ten years through a combination of cuts in social programs and increased revenues from “comprehensive tax reform.”…
Read the article for the detailed cuts that Rev. Deke O’Malley is going to implement. CLUE: If you supported Deke, you got played. You weren’t played? Can you explain why the U.S. is still in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Germany, etc. and why the funds that are used to support those imperial presences shouldn’t be cut for deficit reduction?
Related:
President Barack Obama increased inflation-adjusted Department of Defense spending by 10 percent–even while ending the war in Iraq.
That is more than the automatic cut in defense spending that will take place in January if Obama and Congress do not agree to a new spending-and-debt-limit deal…
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-increased-real-defense-spending-more-10-percent
Now you say, “Romney would have done the same thing.” Yes, but that’s a reason not to support either; not a reason to support the more effective evil. YOU GOT PLAYED! Deal with it and learn from it.
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