Has the president finally gotten a spine? According to Sam Stein at The Huffington Post, President Barack Obama told House Majority Leader Eric Cantor not to call his bluff, promising to go to the American people to get something done on the debate over the debt ceiling.
And yet, why don’t I feel like the president has the back of the American people. Maybe it is the second part of his threat that has me worried:
“Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people on this,” the president said, according to both Cantor and another attendee. “This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political positioning, and protecting their base, than in resolving real problems.”
Translation: Both sides are wrong, Washington is the problem and principle is not all that important.
Stein reports that the two sides were arguing over just how much to cut from federal spending, though he does not say what programs might be on the table.
According to several attendees, negotiations stalled from the onset over the same issues that have proved irresolvable. Working off of talks that had been spearheaded by Vice President Joseph Biden, the president said he would be comfortable signing off on northward of $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending and mandatory spending cuts. With additional negotiations, he added, he could move that figure up to $1.7 trillion, and with a willingness to consider revenue increases and tax loophole closures, lawmakers could get to over $2 trillion. His preference, he said, was to continue to push for the biggest package possible, so long as it was balanced.
What is missing from this debate is that the cost of two (some, myself included, would say three-plus) wars and a bloated military budget — along with the recession — has driven the debt up dramatically. End the wars, create jobs and let the Bush tax cuts expire and we have a good start toward righting our fiscal ship.
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Why does the President think he has that much credibility left with American people?
I'd say just end the wars — including the \”(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs\” — and adopt the Swiss' foreign policy (i.e., MYOB) and we can cut lots of Gooferment spending. But what do I know? I'm just a little L libertarian fat old white guy injineer.
In a recent German poll, a huge chunk of the Germans DID NOT want taxes cut but they did want the debt dealt with. The somewhat remarkable results from a representative survey by the respected Emnid polling institute were published in Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.The survey found 70 percent of those polled believe it is more important for the government to cut debts than taxes even though Germany's debt levels are modest compared to many other leading industrial countries. German exports are up, unemployment is at a 20 year low, they are phasing out fossil fuels and nuclear power, they have universal health care, Germans work fewer hours and days than Americans. This is true for much of Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries. In our back yard, Canada has had no bank failures because it did not go on a deregulation binge as we did in the US. Oh, and they have universal health care, too. Return the top marginal tax rate to what it was during the Nixon regime, 74%. Tax the rich, tax the corporations; too many of the big corporations paid no income taxes for years and yet got tax refunds, such as GE.Hands off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Hands on taxing the rich and the corporations as they did during the period 1950s through the 1970s.Yes, by all means, end the wars NOW.