It’s only a matter of time before House Democrats pass the President’s tax giveaway to the GOP. Nancy Pelosi must be feeling pressure from the White House, the right wing echo chamber, the corporate media and any number of spineless Democrats. When it’s all said and done, signed and delivered, the President will claim victory for bipartisanship, but this claim will be as empty as the one Obama made the other day when he said that most economists think this absurd gift to the GOP will stimulate the economy.
Here’s what’s more likely to happen.
First, the federal deficit is going to get worse – much worse.
The gulf between the wealthy and the rest of us will get wider – much wider.
The temporary payroll tax holiday will hurt Social Security in the long run, exacerbating fears that the trust fund will not be able to meet its commitments; this will fuel calls from the GOP to reduce benefits, raise the retirement age or, at long last, end Social Security as we know it by privatizing the program.
The “temporary” tax cuts will become permanent because no politician of either party is going to suggest letting them expire in 2012. No matter what’s happening with the economy, the cuts will remain, starving the government of the revenue it needs to function. This is precisely what right-wing Republicans want to happen.
What argument will Obama fall back on when this middling “stimulus” fails to jumpstart the economy? What will he say when the official unemployment rate remains stuck between nine and ten percent and the true rate is up around seventeen?
The Democrats allowed themselves to be boxed in by the GOP and now they are stuck with what will be. This is Obama’s recession now.
The GOP offered one economic policy during the Bush reign, one policy prescription for every situation, one policy rain or shine, fire or flood, earthquake or tsunami: tax cuts. And how did that singular policy work out? The rich reaped the vast majority of the benefits, economic growth was anemic, the federal deficit ballooned, real wages for working people stayed dead flat or declined, and household debt exploded.
That’s the legacy of the GOP’s obsession with cutting taxes. It didn’t work last decade and it won’t work in this one.
1 comment:
And you expected what exactly? Democratic partisanship? Challenges to the dominant philosophy among Anericans? Constitutional adherence? Perhaps even a little statesmanship thrown in for good measure? Puhleeze! This is America! Home of the not-so-brave and not-so-free. Home of the con-artist and the snakeoil salesmen, the used car salesman and of course the nixons, reagans and other such hollywood types. Grow up for goodness sakes. This nation is not what you think it is. It's only appropriate for this kind of behavior to be a part of a political process that is based upon money, greed, and the price system.
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