Fault Lines - The Top 1%

I'm still searching for a transcript for this great report from Al Jazeera (please drop a note in comments if you find one), but I was talking to 'Liss today and said:

"It strikes me as ironic that I live in the country that essentially made the TV famous, but I have to go to new sources outside my own nation to get any real information."

Number of the Day

45.8 million: The number of people in the US currently receiving food stamps, up from 43.2 Million in January. The number would be even higher, "but only about 67 percent of the eligible people actually apply."

Discussion Thread: Recession Realities

In comments, Shaker CassieC writes:

I was wondering if there could be a thread for shakers to share what this recession/depression/catastrophe is doing to them and their friends and loved ones. ... I've just been reading people's accounts here and there, on various threads, and I know how strong the pressure is not to tell these stories of personal difficulties in the US, because of our society's f-ed up code of personal success/failure, which makes it so difficult for the personal to be seen as a collective, legitimate phenomenon.

Here it is.

Commenting Guidelines: Commenters are strictly prohibited from criticizing each other, auditing other commenters' choices, questioning other commenters' circumstances, or offering advice, unless it is explicitly solicited. You are being invited to talk about your own experiences, not stand in judgment of anyone else's.

What's on the Chopping Block, and Who's Holding the Line (Or Not)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has promised that the House Democrats named to the committee prescribed by the debt ceiling plan and tasked with reducing the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion will oppose cuts to the social safety net:

"That is a priority for us," Pelosi said. "But let me say it is more than a priority - it is a value... it's an ethic for the American people. It is one that all of the members of our caucus share. So that I know that whoever's at that table will be someone who will fight to protect those benefits."

It is, of course, qualified good news, because this country is going to hell in a handbasket Pelosi is willing to support cuts "to provider payments, waste and other Medicare spending," which, as I've mentioned previously, can still affect Medicare beneficiaries when cutting payments to providers could leave them unable to find any providers willing to accept Medicare patients. Medicare's reimbursement schedule already routinely leaves providers underpaid, and rejections for Medicare patients have been steadily rising for more than a decade as a result.

And then there's this: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will also appoint three members to the committee. And if even a single one of them is willing to cut into Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits, then Pelosi's efforts won't really matter—the committee's report can be approved by a bare majority of its 12 members. But if Reid and Pelosi play this smart, they could create a sturdy firewall."

It is incredible and terrifying and infuriating to me that so few people, possibly as few as one, will hold in their hands the power to protect or dismantle the social safety net.

Whoooooooooops

Stock market tumbles again despite avoidance of U.S. default:

The Dow Jones industrial average slumped more than 265 points Tuesday as mounting concerns about the fragility of the U.S. economy weighed heavily on Wall Street. It was the Dow's eighth straight daily loss, its worst string since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Though relieved at Washington's ability to forge an eleventh-hour debt-ceiling plan that averted a feared default, investors are spooked by the notion that the government cutbacks called for in the debt plan could further weaken an already torpid economy.

"Investors are looking past the budget situation and realizing this is an austerity plan," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "We have an economy that's struggling to stay afloat and we don't have the ammunition to keep prodding it forward."

Emphasis mine.

Open Thread: Senate Debate & Vote on the Raw Deal

You can watch it live on C-SPAN here.

Discuss.

UPDATE: It passed, 74-26.

UPDATE 2: Obama is about to make a statement. You can watch live here.

Number of the Day

1.8 million: The potential number of jobs that will be lost in 2012 as a result of the debt ceiling agreement, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

In addition to the immediate cuts to spending, the debt ceiling agreement fails to continue two major policies which had been part of broad agreements in the past. The payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment insurance were passed last December along with the two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts; but are set to expire at the end of 2011. While Congress could still extend these policies between now and the end of the year, that scenario is looking much less likely today. (Any economic support subsequent to this deal would have to be offset by other tax increases or spending cuts in 2012 or a further increase in the debt ceiling, neither of which seems politically viable.)

...It should be noted that while the payroll holiday creates jobs, there are more effective ways to target tax policy to those most likely to spend the extra income, creating an even bigger bang-for-the-buck without some of the negative side-effects.

...If Congress fails to renew these existing programs or enact improved versions, we can expect slower growth, fewer jobs, and higher unemployment. Specifically, there could be 1.8 million fewer jobs and a 0.6 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate in 2012 as a result of abandoning current budget policies.

...Roughly one in three workers will be unemployed or underemployed in 2011 and there would be little progress on this front in 2012. This persistent high unemployment not only creates great economic distress for those families directly impacted but also undermines wage growth and continues the erosion of benefits of those still employed. Moreover, these high levels of unemployment make it more difficult to face our fiscal challenges over the long run.

And here's another number: 60% of respondents in the latest CNN poll disapprove of the debt deal failing to include tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Whooooooops!

Open Thread & News Round-Up: The Raw Deal

The Senate will vote on the Raw Deal today at noon eastern. In the meantime, here's the latest...

The Guardian—House of Representatives passes debt bill: "Enough Democrats and Republicans reluctantly joined forces to see the proposed legislation through, 269 votes to 161."

The Hill—Dems furious, see deal as GOP win:

House Democrats on Monday expressed outrage at the White House for how it handled the debt-ceiling negotiations, claiming the administration caved to the GOP and left them in the dark.

The irate lawmakers took exception to the lack of balance between cuts and revenues; they railed against the White House for excluding them from the process; and they accused President Obama of bowing to the demands of Republicans without putting up much of a fight.

"Our negotiators weren't tough enough," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Monday. "They didn't do the work."

...Not only did the agreement slash domestic spending while excluding new tax revenues, many Democrats ranted, but the White House left rank-and-file members in the dark through most of the talks.

...[Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)] said most Democrats in the New York delegation had requested a meeting with the White House to discuss potential cuts in graduate medical education.

"We couldn't get a meeting," he said.

When the deal was reached Sunday, Engel continued, the White House "didn't bother" to contact House Democrats.

"We all heard that there was this deal through the media," he said.

CBS—Boehner: I got 98 percent of what I wanted: "When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy."

LA Times—Biden denies likening Republicans to terrorists in debt talks:

"I did not use the terrorism word," he told "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley. "What happened was there were some people who said they felt like they were being held hostage by terrorists. I never said that they were terrorists or weren't terrorists, I just let them vent."

Too bad. Because we could really use someone in his position to speak that truth.

The coverage of this debacle abroad has been interesting, to say the least. Two of my favorites today: In Der Spiegel, they're running an interview with "Tea Party Co-Founder Mark Meckler," who is a garbage nightmare, and in The Telegraph, under the awesome headline "The real story of the US debt deal is not the triumph of the Tea Party but the death of the Socialist Left," Toby Young says: "To focus on the Tea Party is to ignore the tectonic political shift that's taken place, not just in America but across Europe. The majority of citizens in nearly all the world's most developed countries simply aren't prepared to tolerate the degree of borrowing required to sustain generous welfare programmes any longer."

Which puts me in mind of that great Edwin Starr classic, "Empathy! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" Sob.

Elsewhere...

The Hill—Union chief warns of job losses from debt-ceiling deal: "Gerry McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said: 'The deal forced upon the White House and the nation represents a form of economic malpractice,' McEntee said in a statement. 'At the least, it will slow economic recovery and impose more joblessness, wage cuts and hardship on America's working families.'"

David Dayen at FDL—Future Congresses Can Change Austerity Terms, But These Democrats Won't: "I don't see these Democrats, who have been parroting the language of austerity so much they have to believe at least some of it, will ever go beyond this agreement. ... The way out of this box is to find different people than the ones currently in office. I don't see any other way around that."

Politico—Matt Damon weighs in on the debt ceiling: "I'm so disgusted, man. ... The wealthy are paying less than they've paid in any time else, certainly in my lifetime. ... It's criminal that like, you know, so little is asked of people who are getting so much; I mean, I don't mind paying more. I really don't mind paying more taxes."

And here's a fun picture lulz.

Open Thread: House Vote on the Raw Deal

Have at it.

The Latest

Via Taegan Goddard:

Since an agreement was reached last night, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wouldn't say whether she would vote for the proposal or not. However, multiple sources now say she will vote "yes" when the bill comes up for a vote later tonight.

The latest guidance suggests the House vote will be between 6:30 pm and 8 pm ET.

If the bill passes the House, the Senate will vote on the measure tomorrow.

At which point, if it passes the Senate, President Obama can be expected to sign it into law tomorrow.

We need the second coming of FDR to usher in another New Deal. Instead, we've got FML and the Raw Deal.

Close, but no cigar.

Recommended Reading

This statement by Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel on the proposed agreement to raise the debt ceiling is really great in succinctly explaining why it's so failful. I'm not even going to try to blockquote it, because it really just needs to be read in its entirety.

David Frum (I never imagined I'd link a piece by Frum under the heading of Recommended Reading, lulz): Wake up GOP: Smashing system doesn't fix it.

I'm a Republican. Always have been. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. But as I look back at the weeks of rancor leading up to Sunday night's last-minute budget deal, I see some things I don't believe in: Forcing the United States to the verge of default. Shrugging off the needs and concerns of millions of unemployed. Protecting every single loophole, giveaway and boondoggle in the tax code as a matter of fundamental conservative principle. Massive government budget cuts in the midst of the worst recession since World War II.

...Republicans have become so gripped by pessimism and panic that they feel they have nothing to lose by rushing into a catastrophe now. But there is a lot to lose, and in these past weeks America nearly lost it.

Krugman answers the question, inevitably intended to be a belligerent conversation-stopper, about what he would have done in the president's position:

I would have made a statement declaring that giving in to this kind of blackmail would constitute a violation of my oath of office, and that my lawyers, on careful reflection, have determined that there are several legal options that allow me to ignore this extortionate demand.

Now, the Obama people say that this wasn't actually an option. Well, I hate to say this, but I don't believe them.

...Why, at this point, should anyone trust these people when they say that they did all they could?

It's much, much too late for Obama and co. to say "Trust us, we know what we're doing." My reservoir of trust is now completely drained. And I know I'm not alone.

Indeed not.

Oh Good

White House senior adviser David Plouffe, this morning: "We think, at the end of the day, this is an agreement that will pass the Senate and the House and the president will sign it into law."

Well, that's a relief! We wouldn't want any principled opposition holding up the precipitous skid of the nation's middle and lower classes off the fucking edge.

I Write Letters

Dear Corporations, Rich People Who Were Pissed at the Possibility of Having to Pay Slightly Higher Taxes, and the Politicians Who Represent Your Interests:

Congratulations! You will continue to do very well.

Good for you.

No Love,
Liss

P.S. Just a reminder: The conservative philosophy asserts that private charitable enterprise and philanthropy are better at solving the problems of need than the government. I can't wait to see you fix all the problems this is going to cause!

P.P.S. HA HA JUST KIDDING! You fucking assholes.

And So the Deal Was Struck

It's bad. Real bad.

The press release from the White House, laying out the specifics of the deal with each detail spun to sound like this it isn't a complete garbage nightmare, is titled: "BIPARTISAN DEBT DEAL: A WIN FOR THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET DISCIPLINE." Well. At least the President didn't have the audacity to claim it's a win for the American people.

(I won't bother reposting it since it's already posted in a million other places; DKos has posted it here.)

The Wall Street Journal calls the deal a Tea Party Triumph, although Tea Party Terrorism Aided and Abetted by Spineless Congressional Democrats and a Ostensibly Democratic President Who Is Really a Moderate Republican would be more accurate.

The New York Times calls it, simply, a Terrible Deal: "There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery."

Krugman explains how the deal "will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America's long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status."

Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is very unhappy. Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the CPC, released a statement as the details of the deal were emerging yesterday:

This deal trades peoples' livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals, and I will not support it. Progressives have been organizing for months to oppose any scheme that cuts Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, and it now seems clear that even these bedrock pillars of the American success story are on the chopping block. Even if this deal were not as bad as it is, this would be enough for me to fight against its passage.

This deal does not even attempt to strike a balance between more cuts for the working people of America and a fairer contribution from millionaires and corporations. The very wealthy will continue to receive taxpayer handouts, and corporations will keep their expensive federal giveaways. Meanwhile, millions of families unfairly lose more in this deal than they have already lost. I will not be a part of it.

Republicans have succeeded in imposing their vision of a country without real economic hope. Their message has no public appeal, and Democrats have had every opportunity to stand firm in the face of their irrational demands. Progressives have been rallying support for the successful government programs that have meant health and economic security to generations of our people.

Today we, and everyone we have worked to speak for and fight for, were thrown under the bus. We have made our bottom line clear for months: a final deal must strike a balance between cuts and revenue, and must not put all the burden on the working people of this country. This deal fails those tests and many more. The Democratic Party, no less than the Republican Party, is at a very serious crossroads at this moment.

For decades Democrats have stood for a capable, meaningful government – a government that works for the people, not just the powerful, and that represents everyone fairly and equally. This deal weakens the Democratic Party as badly as it weakens the country. We have given much and received nothing in return. The lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want. While I believe the country will not reward them for this in the long run, the damage has already been done.

A clean debt ceiling vote was the obvious way out of this, and many House Democrats have been saying so. Had that vote failed, the president should have exercised his Fourteenth Amendment responsibilities and ended this manufactured crisis. This deal is a cure as bad as the disease. I reject it, and the American people reject it. The only thing left to do now is repair the damage as soon as possible.

Other progressive groups are responding with resounding contempt as well.

It's probably too much for which to hope that progressive Democrats in the House will be able to tank this thing, but, last night, Pelosi would not commit her support to the bill: "We all may not be able to support it, or none us may be able to support it."

So there is still a glimmer of hope, but, realistically, it's probably the glimmer of fool's gold, since we've got a Democratic president up for reelection who is INEXPLICABLY FUCKING DETERMINED to capitulate to Republicans and ruin the country in order that he might appear reasonable.

Below the fold (on most browsers), the President's remarks last night on the deal.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 31, 2011

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
8:40 P.M. EDT


THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. There are still some very important votes to be taken by members of Congress, but I want to announce that the leaders of both parties, in both chambers, have reached an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default -- a default that would have had a devastating effect on our economy.

The first part of this agreement will cut about $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years -- cuts that both parties had agreed to early on in this process. The result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was President -- but at a level that still allows us to make job-creating investments in things like education and research. We also made sure that these cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on a fragile economy.

Now, I've said from the beginning that the ultimate solution to our deficit problem must be balanced. Despite what some Republicans have argued, I believe that we have to ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions. Despite what some in my own party have argued, I believe that we need to make some modest adjustments to programs like Medicare to ensure that they’re still around for future generations.

That's why the second part of this agreement is so important. It establishes a bipartisan committee of Congress to report back by November with a proposal to further reduce the deficit, which will then be put before the entire Congress for an up or down vote. In this stage, everything will be on the table. To hold us all accountable for making these reforms, tough cuts that both parties would find objectionable would automatically go into effect if we don’t act. And over the next few months, I’ll continue to make a detailed case to these lawmakers about why I believe a balanced approach is necessary to finish the job.

Now, is this the deal I would have preferred? No. I believe that we could have made the tough choices required -- on entitlement reform and tax reform -- right now, rather than through a special congressional committee process. But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need, and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year.

Most importantly, it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America. It ensures also that we will not face this same kind of crisis again in six months, or eight months, or 12 months. And it will begin to lift the cloud of debt and the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy.

Now, this process has been messy; it’s taken far too long. I've been concerned about the impact that it has had on business confidence and consumer confidence and the economy as a whole over the last month. Nevertheless, ultimately, the leaders of both parties have found their way toward compromise. And I want to thank them for that.

Most of all, I want to thank the American people. It’s been your voices -- your letters, your emails, your tweets, your phone calls -- that have compelled Washington to act in the final days. And the American people's voice is a very, very powerful thing.

We’re not done yet. I want to urge members of both parties to do the right thing and support this deal with your votes over the next few days. It will allow us to avoid default. It will allow us to pay our bills. It will allow us to start reducing our deficit in a responsible way. And it will allow us to turn to the very important business of doing everything we can to create jobs, boost wages, and grow this economy faster than it's currently growing.

That’s what the American people sent us here to do, and that’s what we should be devoting all of our time to accomplishing in the months ahead.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END
8:44 P.M. EDT

Open Thread & News Round-Up: Debt Negotiations

Reportedly, a deal is being struck and may be announced as soon as this afternoon...

ABC—Congressional Sources: Republicans and Democrats Reach Tentative Debt Deal:

Democratic and Republican Congressional sources involved in the negotiations tell ABC News that a tentative agreement has been reached on the framework of a deal that would give the President a debt ceiling increase of up to $2.4 trillion and guarantee an equal amount of deficit reduction over the next 10 years.

...Here, according to Democratic and Republican sources, are the key elements:

* A debt ceiling increase of up to $2.1 to $2.4 trillion (depending on the size of the spending cuts agreed to in the final deal).
* They have now agreed to spending cuts of roughly $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
* The formation of a special Congressional committee to recommend further deficit reduction of up to $1.6 trillion (whatever it takes to add up to the total of the debt ceiling increase). This deficit reduction could take the form of spending cuts, tax increases or both.
* The special committee must make recommendations by late November (before Congress' Thanksgiving recess).
* If Congress does not approve those cuts by December 23, automatic across-the-board cuts go into effect, including cuts to Defense and Medicare. This "trigger" is designed to force action on the deficit reduction committee's recommendations by making the alternative painful to both Democrats and Republicans.
* A vote, in both the House and Senate, on a balanced budget amendment.

So, no new revenue (OMFG).

And never mind, of course, that cuts to Medicare, which is underfunded, and cuts to Defense, which has the most wildly bloated budget of any government program in the nation, are not remotely equal. This is an absolutely fucking absurd "compromise." But we're supposed to feel okay about potential cuts to Medicare because they "are designed to be taken from Medicare providers, not beneficiaries." Oh, that's fine then, because not paying providers will definitely have no effect on beneficiaries when they can't find any providers willing to accept them as patients!

Again, I feel obliged to point out that this entire framework, tying budget cuts to raising the debt ceiling, is bullshit, because we raise the debt ceiling to accommodate spending we've already done. Future spending should be based on what we need, not on what we've already spent.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats never should have conceded that the debt ceiling talks be contingent on anything else. They never, ever, should have budged from the position of a clean raise. Twelve-dimensional chess my big fat ass.

And let me stress again: No new revenue. This is unfathomably stupid.

McClatchy—Economists: Now is wrong time for Congress to cut spending:

Some House Republicans backed by tea party groups demand even deeper front-end cuts, perhaps as much as $100 billion, arguing that politicians can't be trusted to keep their promises further out.

That'd be dangerous, warned Mark Zandi, chief economist for forecaster Moody's Analytics.

"I think the idea is a very serious policy error," he said. "This would be the fodder for another recession. The economy may be able to digest $25-30 billion more (in federal spending cuts) ... but $100 billion, I don't think it could digest that."

Zandi, who's frequently cited by Republicans and Democrats alike, favors spending cuts "when the economy is off and running," but he cautions that "to add more fiscal restraint in the latter part of 2011 and 2012 would be a mistake."

Additionally, Suzy Khimm rightly points out that the deal will squeeze state governments, which will ultimately lead to decreased spending and layoffs in the public sector, deepening the economic crisis.

There isn't enough UGH in the world for this mess.

ThereIsNoSpoon [TW for violent imagery]:

It's hard to imagine how it gets much worse than this. If this deal goes through, it would represent nothing less than a capitulation on the part of the President and the Democratic Senate to economic terrorism on the part of the Republican caucus, and would set a major precedent for more accountability-free hostage taking in the future. Grover Norquist seems pretty happy about it, and why not? The gameplan for drowning the government in the bathtub is obvious from here. It's clear that the Democrats won't do a thing to get in the way, because there's no hostage the Democrats will be willing to shoot--or even threaten to shoot--when the GOP takes one, nor will the media abandon its postmodern "both sides are just as bad" shtick no matter how asinine the GOP becomes.

None of which even touches the fact that the discretionary spending cuts and bipartisan commission to recommend entitlement cuts are right in line with what President Obama has repeatedly said he wanted, anyway. We're certainly not going to get any help to stand up to this atrocious "compromise" from the President: he actively wants most of what is in it.

I just don't know what to say anymore. We are simply not being governed by responsible and decent people who are keen to represent the interests of and be accountable to the US citizenry. Our democracy is lost.

UPDATE: Additional recommended reading...

Digby: The New Deal vs. The Bad Deal

Reuters: Britain, Japan warn of disaster if no U.S. debt deal.

Debtpocalypse Open Thread

The House is garbaging around with Boehner's revised plan. There will be voting! And then the Senate will drink Boehner's milkshake. Or something.

This is an exercise in futility, because even if the legislation on the table passes the House, it won't pass the Senate, and, even if it inexplicably passed the Senate, Obama would veto it. It's a huge waste of time, orchestrated by people with balled-up paper towels where their sense of decency should be.

Anyway, here's an open thread for discussion, if anyone still has the energy to talk about this nightmare.

An Observation

I feel like I have spent an enormous amount of energy paying attention to debt ceiling and spending negotiations the resolution of which will make me even more tired.

I may need to sleep for 100 years to recover.

And the stupid thing is, I already know the outcome: Austerity and garbage.

Debtpocalypse Update

The latest version of the Boehner bill, which "reflects changes made after GOP leaders failed to assemble the necessary votes to pass it Thursday."

Spoiler Alert: It's garbage!

Open Thread & News Round-Up: Debt Negotiations

Here's the latest...

Peter Daou sums up where we are: "So, two parties are bickering over opposing plans to sink the country into recession and if they can't pick one, they'll torpedo the economy." Pretty much.

As I mentioned last night, "House Republican leaders have postponed indefinitely a vote on Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) debt limit bill after they could not persuade enough Republicans to support the measure."

You know we're really in trouble when Joe Klein is a voice of reason: "Let us not put too fine a point on it: [Any] House vote on Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling proposal is a joke. If it passes the House, Harry Reid has said it is dead on arrival in the Senate. If it somehow passes the Senate, which it won't, President Obama will veto it. It is, therefore, a symbolic act that is wasting precious time. It follows last week's Republican theatrics, the passage of the Cut and Demolish Act (or whatever they called it), which also was a waste of time. These are the actions of a party that has completely lost track of reality–and of a leader, John Boehner, who has lost the support of his party."

By the way, that lack of support is owing, in part, to the fact that there are members of the Republican caucus who "are angry that it includes $17 billion in supplemental spending for Pell Grants, which some compare to welfare."

In the sense that Pell Grants are money provided by the government to people who need it, they are like welfare, which I don't consider a dirty word. Of course, that is not an opinion members of the Republican caucus share with me. Which is basically why we're in the situation we're in—a fundamental disagreement about the role of government and "entitlements," which Republicans spit out like a curse. Personally, I don't find anything controversial about the idea that old, ill, injured, disabled, widowed, orphaned, poor, unemployed, or otherwise needful people are entitled to assistance from the rest of their society.

Anyway, speaking of the Republicans being jackasses...

James Fallows in The Atlantic: Five Reasons the House GOP Is to Blame. (And he doesn't let the Democrats off the hook, either.)

Over at the New York Times, Paul Krugman takes a further look at the disaster that is centrism:

The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. ... Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. As you may know, President Obama initially tried to strike a "Grand Bargain" with Republicans over taxes and spending. To do so, he not only chose not to make an issue of G.O.P. extortion, he offered extraordinary concessions on Democratic priorities: an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility, sharp spending cuts and only small revenue increases. As The Times's Nate Silver pointed out, Mr. Obama effectively staked out a position that was not only far to the right of the average voter's preferences, it was if anything a bit to the right of the average Republican voter's preferences.

But Republicans rejected the deal. So what was the headline on an Associated Press analysis of that breakdown in negotiations? "Obama, Republicans Trapped by Inflexible Rhetoric." A Democratic president who bends over backward to accommodate the other side — or, if you prefer, who leans so far to the right that he's in danger of falling over — is treated as being just the same as his utterly intransigent opponents. Balance!

...Many pundits view taking a position in the middle of the political spectrum as a virtue in itself. I don't. Wisdom doesn't necessarily reside in the middle of the road, and I want leaders who do the right thing, not the centrist thing.

For further general reading, there's a lot of good stuff in the Guardian's Economics section.

Debtpocalypse Update

Reportedly, there will not be a House vote on Boehner's plan today after all. The vote is being postponed for Maude only knows what reason (probably because Boehner didn't have the votes), but I'm sure it can only make things worse!

I'll just go ahead and second D-Day: "The Boehner austerity plan is postponed, raising hopes that the Reid austerity plan has a path to passage. How exciting!"

lolsob.