It isn’t just Pete Peterson, folks

It isn’t just Pete Peterson, folks

by digby

Richard Eskow has a big piece at CAF today about the continuing assault on our intelligence by the “No Labels” crew of wealthy centrists. It’s worth reading in its entirety because we’re going to be confronted with the “sacrifice” (for average citizens) agenda again even before the election. (This is giving John Boehner heartburn apparently because he’s not sure he will be able to keep his crazies in line enough even to get a temporary extension.)

I’m just going to talk about this one little piece of the program:

There’s also Presidential “fast-track” authority, which the New York Times describes as “a proposal to allow the president to send legislation to Congress twice a year that could not be amended but only approved or rejected. .. By preventing lawmakers from changing such legislation, a president could get yes-or-no answers on his top priorities.”

How would this work? The Times interviewed former Clinton aide William Galson, who “suggested that one possible subject of fast-track authority could be the … the Simpson-Bowles plan (which) included a cornucopia of unpopular tax increases and spending cuts.” Adds the Times: “(U)nder this proposal Congress would have to accept or reject the whole plan.”

See what they did right there?

In fact, supporters of this ill-advised and unpopular austerity measure have already tried to “fast-track” it several times. Had the failed Simpson/Bowles Deficit Commission come up with a proposal, Congress had agreed to subject it to just such an up-or-down vote.

Simpson Bowles isn’t a single policy prescription. It’s a smorgasbord of radical ideas which include the aforementioned benefit cuts; lowering the top tax rate for America’s millionaires and billionaires; deep cuts to other government programs; and the elimination of unnamed tax deductions that could slash employer health plans while raising the costs of paying a mortgage and raising children. And yet Congress and the President wanted to see it submitted for a single up-or-down vote, with no opportunity for amendments or changes.

A “fast track” vote creates enormous pressure on lawmakers to fall in line and denies the public the opportunity to hear an open debate about each provision of a bill. In other words, it’s ideal for unjust, impractical, and unpopular 1% proposals like Simpson Bowles.

An up or down vote on such a broad range of right-wing austerity ideas would make a travesty of the (small-“d”) democratic process. In fact, I’ll support any politician who signs a pledge against it.

Neat trick and one that I hadn’t realized was being pushed hard by the deficit fetishists. It makes sense.

In researching the Simpson-Bowles fast track solution and came upon a group called the Moment of Truth project: the era of deficit denial is over. It turns out that this is Simpson and Bowles own group, which is out there preaching the gospel. That’s to be expected. I suppose it’s also to be expected that this is also a project of the New America Foundation, one of our most revered establishment think tanks.

This is the heart of the Village, the studious centrism that also erroneously defines the leftward end of political power in our country. Certainly many people who are associated with the liberal side of the dial are involved, although it’s almost impossible to find any liberal policies among the group’s recommendations.