A look at the austerity schemes cooked up by the chairs of the Catfood Commission

What's most striking about the Bowles-Simpson outline for the commission's final deliberations is who is being asked to tighten their belts. The co-chairs call for sacrifices from workers, the elderly, college students and veterans--while corporations and the wealthy are promised lower taxes.

BOWLES AND Simpson tried to disguise their agenda by not calling only for cuts in social programs. Instead, the co-chairs recommend a reduction in the government's discretionary spending of about $100 billion a year--while another $100 billion, surprisingly, would come from reducing the Pentagon budget, something that's been sacrosanct in Washington politics for years...

It's also worth putting this in perspective--even if the military spending cuts were somehow pushed through, the Pentagon budget would still be bigger than all its supposed rivals combined.

It's a sign of the system's priorities that proposals to raise the retirement age or cut social programs are on the agenda while the U.S. continues to waste trillions to maintain occupations and launch drone attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Amazingly, Bowles and Simpson's announcement came on the same day that the Obama administration gave its strongest signal yet that it plans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest section of the population. That led to some incredible doubletalk as Obama spoke both about being "serious" about deficits while simultaneously considering an extension of tax cuts that will only make the problem worse...

***Summary***

-- Simpson and Bowles recommend cutting the government's Medicare and Medicaid health programs rather than taking on the bloated health care/insurance industries.

-- Instead of taxing the rich, they offer them more tax cuts, while increasing taxes -- like the gas tax -- that hit the poor & working class disproportionately.

-- They suggest that deficit reduction is essential to stimulate the economy, despite all evidence showing that budget cuts have the opposite effect, showing that government deficits are the only thing currently sustaining demand.

-- It's crazy that workers are being asked to take cuts while the Fed continues to pour money into the system:

"It's an open secret that Wall Street banks are posting big profits largely through borrowing money from the Fed at 0 percent interest rates, and then buying long-term Treasury bills from the federal government at 3 percent interest. Also, the banks are using their ill-gotten funds to make money by playing the market--rather than making loans that would revive the economy."

-- The ruling class is waving the bloody deficit flag to extract concessions from workers -- meanwhile, their own share of wealth & income is at record levels.

***end summary***

"That's why we can be having a discussion about massive proposed cuts in spending at the same time Wall Street banks are planning to pay out an estimated $144 billion in bonuses--another new record--based on profits made possible entirely by government largesse."

http://socialistworker.org/2010/11/17/cutback-commission

And replacing it as a level blank slate is much easier.

--Simpson and Bowles would be behind bars for the rest of their useless lives.

K&R

Minor cart-tippings in France and Russia notwithstanding.