Tea Partiers For Obama!
by digby
These deficit fetishists are starting to speak in tongues. Henry Cisneros, a Democratic member of the Rivlin-Domenici commission, is on my TV with Mrs Alan Greenspan telling me that the economy is about to come roaring back with huge growth so we don’t need to worry about hurting the recovery by slashing government spending starting next year — something he says must be done or we won’t have growth. He epitomizes the establishment “liberal” approach on this, which is to differentiate himself from the Republicans by agreeing to throw old and sick Americans, including Veterans, into poverty, economic stress and insecurity but also asking nicely if millionaires maybe might want to agree to pay a couple of thousand dollars a year more or that a defense contractor could be quietly asked to phase out a program that hasn’t been relevant since 1952 a little bit earlier than scheduled (say 2038.) That’s what passes for compromise. Huge sacrifice and suffering from the people, unnoticeable change for the wealthy.
He also just made shit up:
In about ten years we will pay social security, medicare and interest and have no money for any other form of government, including defense.
All these deficit fetishists seem to have an unusual proclivity for using bogus, apocalyptic talking points. I don’t know if they are all uninformed and biased like Alan Simpson or if they’re dishonest and dumb. But my suspicion is that people like Cisneros aren’t particularly engaged — they’re just board members who show up for some briefings — and then rush out with the Village consensus without really knowing what they hell they’re talking about.
But the political calculus is what proves how incredibly out of touch these wealthy Villagers are on this subject:
Mitchell: What’s the plus side for the president here if he adopts some of these tough measures. Does it help him move to the center and regain support of the Independents and maybe even Tea Party activists? [Oh dear.– ed]
Cisneros: I think this is one of the few ways the president can establish that he is a leader in this environment and capture the center. because he is dealing with a problem that people in this country intrinsically know is a problem. Americans have to balance their budgets, they can’t go into permanent debt the way the government can and they know it’s wrong. They understand a bit of debt. They understand a time of deficits, but they cannot comprehend just continual spending, running the credit card forever.
So if the president were to strike a tough pose on this I think, despite being battered by activists on the left and hardliners on the right, for various pieces of it, he could establish support with independents and the center again in a way that makes him competitive in 2012.
This is delusional and very, very dangerous. Here’s Joan McCarter with some interesting new poll analysis:
* According to national exit poll data, Democrats lost seniors by historic proportions—21 points—in the November mid‐terms. Even in 1994, Democrats only lost seniors by 2 points.
* The survey reveals Democrats no longer have the advantage they traditionally have enjoyed on Social Security. However, candidates who made Social Security an issue often saved their seats, and voters who say Social Security was a top voting issue voted more for Democratic candidates.
* As we have seen in previous work, voters see little relationship between the deficit and Social Security.
* Voters strongly oppose cutting Social Security benefits, even under the rationales of reducing the deficit or making the program more solvent in the long run. They strongly oppose cutting benefits for those earning above $60,000, and they strongly oppose raising the retirement age to 69 years‐old. This includes voters of all ages and partisan groups, including Republicans and Tea Party supporters.
* There is also strong bipartisan support for lifting the cap to impose Social Security taxes on all wages above $106,800. Support for this is stronger when both employers and employees are taxed.…Social Security was a particularly important voting issue for independents who voted for a Democrat in this election, voters aged 65 to 74, and older voters who are women, independent, moderate, white and African American.
As Joan goes on to point out, Democrats cannot lose these voters. Moreover, if they lose their moral center by “leading” the destruction of the safety net and therefore the compact between the people and their government, they will also destroy any remaining rationale for the Party to exist.
Update: You’ve got to love Simpson on some level. He is one of the few people willing to translate the agenda into plain English:
The Republican co-chair of the White House’s fiscal commission predicted this morning that his controversial recommendations for reducing long-term deficits will have a real opportunity to become enacted next year, when the nation brushes up against its debt ceiling, and newly elected Republicans threaten to send the country into default.
“I can’t wait for the blood bath in April,” said Alan Simpson at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast roundtable with reporters this morning. “It won’t matter whether two of us have signed this or 14 or 18. When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat, off of this package.’ And boy the bloodbath will be extraordinary.”
Yeah.
.