When I heard that President Obama was supporting a hike in the retirement age to 67, that was it. He has now made himself as much a threat to me and America's working class as any Republican ever has. He deserves to hear nothing from the vast majority of Democrats other than loud and shrill criticism.
He's calling his policy recommendations---gouging SS and Medicare---the "grown up thing to do." They are actually the foolish thing to do, both economically speaking and politically speaking.
What makes it all so bad is realizing that all he has really needed to do is sit back and wait for the Republicans to throw their crap at him and then simply use his veto pen to get the attention of the American people and then press his case for following traditional Democratic economic principles. Then, after a few weeks of exposing their selfish interests, he could make a few grudging concessions.
But noooooooo....
I tell you, I've been hanging in there for Barack Obama for a long, long time. I can even give you a weak excuse for everything he's doing right now that I am criticizing so loudly. I'm willing to grant that he is "sincere" in what he is recommending, that he really believes that what he's pushing for is really good for the economy and the American people in the long run. But he is profoundly mistaken.
There is only one thing that will stimulate this economy into renewed prosperity, and that is a big INCREASE in government spending---not on tax cuts, but on real improvements in the nation's infrastructure. The only reason why the economy is as weak as it currently is is because the economic "stimulus" plan Barack negotiated depended heavily on tax cuts and not on significant increases in government spending on infrastructure, education, health care, and the environment. That is why Barack Obama has failed on the economy, because he couldn't make those increases in government spending happen.
And now he wants to cut it, not just the fat, but right into the bone. And he's investing his passion and his willingness to "risk his Presidency" on a really, really bad idea. That's amazing. That's scary.
It's like all my worst fears have come true, re: what I thought Barack might compromise away in an effort to "get something done" with a Republican House of Representatives.
He needs to feel the heat of a massive backlash from within his party in order to start changing his mind about dealing with the Republicans. If he can't wizen up soon, then we're going to need to run an alternative against him in the primaries (Bernie Sanders? Dennis Kucinich?) in pure desperation, even if it means tearing the party apart, 'cause Barack Obama's political/economic instincts are so far off, they really threaten us all.