President Obama is releasing a budget that is too conservative for senate democrats to vote for? I'm shocked, shocked that...
...he released a budget just as un-passable as his last two. The senate has twice voted unanimously against Barack Obama's budget proposals.
This isn't all new. What is new is the chained CPI and Medicare cuts.
President Obama is a neo-liberal democrat. His policies seem to reflect centrist ideas about instituting only the minimum possible welfare state necessary to avoid all out revolt. Those policies might work really really well when the economy is running well and jobs are available. They worked pretty well under Clinton, though plenty of people got left behind during the Clinton years. When things are booming, Democrats can get away with triangulation.
But the economy is not booming right now, it's barely avoiding being bust. We need a progressive Democrat to clean up the Bush mess, and while the President took some important steps in that direction during his first two years in office, we're not there yet. Yeah, we have to deal with the house, and that means realizing that there will be gridlock as long as Boehner has the gavel.
But compromise isn't on the table for this President the way it was for Bill Clinton. Boehner is bad at his job, he doesn't have control of his troops the way Gingrich did. The rank and file Republicans in the house hate President Obama. Everything is about him, and not about the nation or the policies. The president could suggest cutting medicare and social security by 50% and the republicans would still find some reason to cry socialist and vote against him. The president could personally slay Satan with a sword carved by God's own hand while the heavenly chorus sang the Star-Spangled Banner and the majority of Republicans would still think he was a Kenyan socialist secret-Muslim puppy-eater.
There's absolutely nothing that the President, or anyone in any branch of government, can do or say to get the extremist Republicans on board with any compromise or bargain. It's not going to happen. They will keep moving the goal posts.
So we're going to have another budget voted down on bi-partisan lines because it's too conservative for the Democrats, and the only thing that Obama could possibly do to please the Republicans is to resign or drop dead.
I'm shocked, shocked that we're playing this game yet again. We've memorized the moves already:
The president releases a budget. The left and right both criticize it, and vote it down in the Senate, together. The house passes an absurdly conservative budget, which dies in the senate, and the senate passes a sensible budget that contains some cuts, and that budget dies in the house. We pass continuing resolutions, and kick the can down the road, while the republicans blame their inability to compromise on the President and the Democratic party, and the house manufactures crises that embarrass our nation in the eyes of the world.
20 goto 10
I'm getting really fucking tired of the same old chess game every single year. The moves are always the same, and will be the same again now.
It's time to flip the table, and hit the republicans where they live. Chained CPI is the opposite of that tactic. If we fight for social security we can start integrating parts of the aging, white base of the Republican party into the Democratic party. Talking about the facts of social security and Medicare proving to the marginal voters on the edge of the republican party that social security is fine means we can grab some house seats.
That's how we win.
Instead, the Republicans are still whistling Dixie, and we're still trading them pawn for pawn.