I'm a democrat, a progressive and I'm sure by the end of this diary I'll be called a troll, traitor and apologist for the evil Obama. But, I am also a pragmatist.
We have one issue facing this country -- ONE, we have an imminent financial trainwreck underway that will not just cripple our way of life but completely gut our hard won victories on the proper social safety net. Let me say it more clearly: the US (and most of the developed world) is out of money - we have used up the tricks at the Fed (largely), If the US (and many developed countries are in worse shape) were a business we would have to contemplate bankruptcy. We must keep GDP growing and make some dramatic changes to spending and increase tax reciepts. It is very hard. There are few degrees of freedom and lots of ways to blow up the world economy.
If we don't radically change our spending (while keeping GDP growing) we quickly hit a wall. We simply have to reduce spending -- and that means precisely cutting some aspects of the costs of Social Security and Medicaid. We can not avoid the crisis without including these cuts in the solution. It is mathematically impossible. Please know that of course we simultaneously need to raise the corporate tax rate (we are the lowest in the developed world), raise taxes on the wealthy and super wealthy, AND reduce defense costs among other things. But to think we can get to some level of solvency without including our pet progressive agenda is naive or ill informed. Yes I'll be pissed if we don't see a balance in whatever solution is to be struck, but we'll have to give too, sorry.
Of course we want better social security, healthcare, regulations, etc. but it is a disservice to the awesome intellectual capacity of this group to discuss this in a vacuum without considering the costs and particularly the simply unsustainable increases that occur automatically to Medicaid/SS. Unfortunately compromise is required to get us to solvency. We can't all have our ponies while denying all ponies to the other kids. If you think that Obama should go down in a blaze of progressive glory now when we have a chance to get back Congress in 2012 and have 4 more years of pragmatic DEMOCRATIC leadership -- I couldn't disagree more. The independents matter and frankly he is making tradeoffs that must be made to avoid financial calamity. If we weaken him we end up with Romney or worse. Obama isn't perfect by any means, but he is doing some phenomenal things and I've got his back.
I love DailyKos which is a multiple time per day affirmation (on most days) that there are other sane people out there who want what is right for the country (and the world). But it is just incomplete to think we can cooly dissect the great social problems of the country without taking into account the financial impacts. The amount of diaries that balance the progressive agenda with the realities of where Bush left us with our budget deficit are near zero.
Given a bit more time I'd spend hours pulling together a brilliant, cogent, and irrefutable diary that demonstrates that the wall we are in danger of hitting is coming faster each month and with every successive CBO estimate. These conclusions are in about as much dispute as climate change -- which is to say -- no meaningful dispute. Denying the financial impacts of continued spending at this pace is similar to denying climate change -- do you really want to be one of those people?
I'm not sure I have the capacity or time to convince us all of the situation. Many of you are better writers and researchers. But suspend belief for a minute. Imagine that every independent and objective analysis of our government spending (particularly future spending) projects an unsustainable deficit. A deficit that can not be supported by our economy or reasonable growth projections (one example: we would have to average about 8% growth for 20 years to support the spending projections). AND that each successive leg down in the economy moves us much closer to a tipping point. If the world loses faith in US capacity to fix this mess -- both for us and because we are the train that pulls the world -- the bond markets blow up.
If that is the overriding issue facing any responsible President then guess what -- he has to save 100% of the country as his overriding goal, not placate 30% of the most progressive constituents -- even if I believe his heart is progressive.
I spend alot of time reading here and elsewhere but even more time studying economics and the global financial situation. I don't know where to send you if you want to hear more about where we are as a country and a world economically but one book was particularly clear and instructive: Endgame by John Mauldin. Its just friggin scary how few moves we have to avoid catastrophe. And in that frame of reference -- I was thrilled that we took another 40B out of our spending this year. Its a start.
Who can argue against a stronger social safety net? Not me, but who can afford it right now? Not us.
We have got to find a way to pull together towards a common goal instead of splitting into factions. Our goals are aligned, our tactics are not.
Flame away, but I'll keep coming back because I love what this group stands for.
Updated by sisyphusrocks at Mon Apr 11, 2011 at 11:46 AM CDT
wow! universal hate and derision, my first one!
you know i suspected about 1/3 support and 2/3 'you are an idiot/go away'. I sincerely want to just add some quant to the ideology discussion. Yep to all the points about reducing defense spend, selective tax raise etc., i just don't think the magnitude of risk to our economy is getting through. Somehow though I think the more I try to convince the firmer the opposition. So again i think all levers for rev increase and cost decrease must be on the table to at least consider. I can only anticipate the hugely negative response when Obama offers some pragmatic recommendations in his budget to also reduce SS and Medicaid costs.
Undeterred.