NYT: Outcry from the Left Precedes Debt Deal

Outcry From the Left Precedes Debt Deal

snip

In a scathing statement based on early reports, MoveOn.org said the “debt deal has gone from bad to worse” and they called it “extremely troubling that it now appears that some Democrats are willing to give in to Republican demands to make this already disastrous plan worse for working families.....

..... they worry in particular about automatic cuts to Medicare that could be triggered if a congressional committee deadlocks later this year and cannot agree to a deficit-reduction package of nearly $2 trillion.

“Americans will not stand for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefit cuts–not now, and not six months from now,” said Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn.org. “We can not and should not ask seniors and the middle class to bear the burden of the debt deal.”

Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement that “seeing a Democratic president take taxing the rich off the table and instead set the stage for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits is like entering a bizarre parallel universe — one with horrific consequences for middle-class families.”

snip

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/outcry-from-the-left-preceeds-debt-deal/?scp=6&sq=obama%20transparency&st=cse

sample comments:

"1 trillion in cuts now. 1.8 trillion in cuts next year and no revenue increases. This is a total capitulation by Obama.

This seems to be The President's modus operandi - 1) Lay out clear markers that are supported by a majority of Avericans - i.e. balanced approach with cuts and revenues; 2) Watch the republicans take a hard line to satisfy the tea party; 3) Give the republicans 99% of what they want; 4) Blame the left for not compromising.

I never thought I'd see the day that a Democratic President would sell out on social secuity, medicare, and medicaid. "




"Who would have guessed that Obama was not a liberal at all, but a right-winger at heart? The proof is in what he does, not what he says. Obama is a disaster for progressives in America, and for Americans in general."

:shrug:

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"the deal contains no SS/Medicare/Medicaid benefit cuts." - November isn't that far away for the rest, Bza. You keep moving the goalposts, but every time you do we're behind another touchdown. Pretty soon, the game's over.

Beyond that, future Congresses can ignore the caps, since no Congress can bind its successors. Discretionary spending is decided in the appropriations process, and all it takes is a sentence like "notwithstanding this other law" to eradicate the caps. That (and other changes) have been the fate of many of these caps.

Yes, the committee deal that either raises taxes or won't pass is indeed in November. Do you really think that Republicans would agree to raise taxes, or that Democrats would agree to not raise taxes (when they could just sock Republicans with a 1 trillion dollar cut to defense instead)?

So, see, absolutely no tax for the idle rich. But in 6 months, if congress can't agree, and they seem unable to agree to anything, Social Security and Medicare go down the Obama appeasement drain. What fun.

Austerity for the working class, luxury for the idle rich.

not touched by a single penny. Same with Medicaid, unemployment, pell grants, veterans benefits, military pay, etc. The only thing on the Medicare side that is touched are payments to Medicare providers, of the same sort in HCR and would probably happen anyway, and those are quite limited (to 2%), whereas the huge cut in defense is not limited.

Because the bill currently on the table MANDATES option (b) if option (a) is not passed by Congress.

Gee, aren't individual mandates fun, and undemocratic to boot?

One option would be a Constitutional challenge of the bill, on the grounds that it kicks in automatic spending cuts by tying them to the outcome of a Congressional vote on an unrelated bill.

That technique could easily be shown to be unconstitutional on the grounds that it goes against the principle of how parliamentary voting rights are supposed to work.

but it really isn't.

Why? Because the cuts are extremely backloaded. Not one PENNY of trigger cuts are cut before 2013, after the Presidential election and a new Congress. If the trigger cuts are kept in law for the next 10 years, the 600 billion cut to the rest of discretionary (mostly in distant years) would be large, but there is no way Congress is going to defy history and keep as is some law from years ago.

Of the triggered cuts, half come from defense and none come from entitlement benefits and many programs for the poor. Republicans are going to demand that the defense trigger is repealed in the future, Democrats would demand that the rest of the trigger is repealed, and there very well might be a bipartisan bill to repeal the trigger or change it to make it toothless. That would result in this entire debt ceiling deal basically mirroring Reid's original plan.