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bemused_leftisthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/21/barack-obama-social-security-cuts
The president’s attacks on America’s social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party’s platform
Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011
[....]
But in 2009, clear signs emerged that President Obama was eager to achieve what his right-predecessor could not: cut social security. Before he was even inaugurated, Obama echoed the right’s manipulative rhetorical tactic: that (along with Medicare) the programme was in crisis and producing “red ink as far as the eye can see.” President-elect Obama thus vowed that these crown jewels of his party since the New Deal would be, as Politico reported, a “central part” of his efforts to reduce the deficit.
[....]
Fast forward to 2011: it is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.
This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate’s so-called “gang of six” plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.
The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America’s bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America’s most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.
[....]
Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama’s legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left’s political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party’s leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.
And thus will Obama succeed – yet again – in gutting not only core Democratic policies, but also the identity and power of the American Left.
The president’s attacks on America’s social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party’s platform
Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011
[....]
But in 2009, clear signs emerged that President Obama was eager to achieve what his right-predecessor could not: cut social security. Before he was even inaugurated, Obama echoed the right’s manipulative rhetorical tactic: that (along with Medicare) the programme was in crisis and producing “red ink as far as the eye can see.” President-elect Obama thus vowed that these crown jewels of his party since the New Deal would be, as Politico reported, a “central part” of his efforts to reduce the deficit.
[....]
Fast forward to 2011: it is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.
This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate’s so-called “gang of six” plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.
The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America’s bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America’s most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.
[....]
Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama’s legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left’s political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party’s leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.
And thus will Obama succeed – yet again – in gutting not only core Democratic policies, but also the identity and power of the American Left.
