Dear Friends,
Much has been written lately about David Brooks' op-ed "The Mother of All No-Brainers" in
The New York Times (
here). If you ignore the first few paragraphs, I certainly found much that I agreed with. The following paragraph is particularly telling.
If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of
this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century:
trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred
billion dollars of revenue increases.
Mr. Brooks is very clear that the Republican Party has been taken over by extremists which it certainly has. I am not sure that Mr. Brooks has yet acknowledged that since the Republican Party is controlled by and obeys the commands of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, that the Republican Party is an extreme party. However, that is not the subject of this post.
How did we get to a position where a Democratic President and Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate are willing to compromise Democratic Party values and jeopardize the good of the country? How did we get to a position where a conservative columnist could write that the Republicans have been handed such a good deal that they would be fools not to accept it and still have it be a real alternative that they will not accept it?
President Obama has lead the Democratic Party into accepting the narrative that we need to immediately take steps to reduce the deficit even though it will hurt the most vulnerable among us and stall or reverse the very weak economic recovery.
All the polls indicate that the American people are most worried about jobs. All reasonable economists agree that we need job stimulation now and not deficit reduction. Yet other than a too small stimulus at the beginning of his presidency, he has done little to promote jobs and has let the middle class and poor bear the pain of these difficult economic times. Keep in mind that it was the actions of a portion of the very rich that caused these very difficult economic times. President Obama has done nothing to hold those people that caused the problem accountable. I fear that in President Obama's Justice Department, the best way to avoid being prosecuted is to be a Republican. But I digress.
President Obama spent a day or two sounding tough about needing to get rid of some tax loopholes for the rich. Unfortunately, then he turned again to betraying the values of the Democratic Party. President Obama has signaled his willingness to impose significant cuts in Medicare in exchange for unspecified revenue increases that will occur as a result of an overhaul of the tax code.
Our healthcare system is the most inefficient in the world because of our lack of a universal single payer plan. Medicare is one of the most efficient parts of our healthcare system along with the VA system. We need to address our healthcare delivery system but not by cuts to Medicare. We need to address healthcare costs by joining the rest of the industrialized world by having a universal single payer plan subsidized by the government.
President Obama is once again playing into the narrative of the Republicans, and we can rest assured that the middle class and poor will bear the burden of his weakness. Whatever happened to the traditional values supported by the Democratic Party?
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
