First, full disclosure, I am from the hippie punching wing of the democratic party that thinks the knee jerk Nader voters who have come to dominate Dailykos are the enemy
of progress and, at best, unwilling dupes of the Koch brothers. If that sentence offends you, your probably not going to be open minded enough to read and understand this diary so, just skip to excoriating me in the comments.
Lets start with some assumptions. If you dont agree with these assumptions, the argument likely wont hold weight for you.
1. the President is extremely intelligent
2. the people who work for the President are at least average as political operatives (he did win and beat the Clinton machine)
3. President Obama's voting record, speeches, books and associations indicate he is from about the middle of the democratic party in terms of ideology. He is clearly to the right of Pelosi (no gay marriage, lets fight in afghanistan) and to the left of say, Ben Nelson and Conrad (strongly pro choice, insists we raise taxes of the wealthy, against corporate subsidies). If you think he is farther to the right than this, then you are letting emotions or something more pernicious distract you. If you thought he was to the left of this during the campaign, you were carried away by the Hope and not paying attention to his actual repeated assertions of moderation.
4. Objectively, the Obama administration has accomplished more for progressive causes than any President since Lyndon Johnson ( who progressives drove out of the Presidency). If you think Clinton (welfare reform and triangulation), Carter (killed the democratic brand and gave us the Reagan revolution) or any of the repubs were better then we really have nothing to talk about.
So - if you are still with me, lets move on to my Thesis:
Thesis:
President Obama wants to cut entitlements and he has said, we, as progressives, should want to cut entitlements too. My thesis is: He is right and the the folks sullying the rec list are wrong.
First Proposition: President Obama says that Medicare and Social Security must be cut in order to insure their solvency and the economic health of the USA. He argues that no amount of tax increases could offset their rising costs.
Fact: Medicare is projected to rise from 3.6% of GDP to 5.5% of by 2035 GDP
http://www.ssa.gov/...
Fact: Social Security is projected to be insolvent in 2036 and to rise from 4% of GDP to 6% by 2035.
http://www.ssa.gov/...
Fact: The annual budget deficit today is about 8% of GDP
http://www.cbo.gov/...
Fact: The current tax burden in the US is about 14.4% of GDP
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/...
Fact: We are radically underinvesting in education, infrastructure and the environment. If you dont agree with this, please report to www.Redstate.com
Fact: The capitalist class ultimately controls the levers of power and absent a popular armed revolution, will not let the US government raise their taxes dramatically. If you dont agree with this, you havent been paying attention.
Fact: Because of the above, the tax system in the US is actually regressive - poor folks pay a higher percentage of income in income, state, payroll, social security, property and sales taxes than rich people do. (can someone provide a good link for this? )
Fact: Given the power of the wealthy, any very substantial increase in US taxation is likely to hurt the poor and middle class. If you don't agree with this, please explain in detail in the comments how you intend to build a 60 vote majority in the senate for doubling rich folks taxes.
Sub Proposition:
To balance our budget and make the investments we need (say 4% of GDP) we have a choice of either raising taxes by about 16% of GDP (8% deficit, 4% increase in medicare and social security and 4% increase in spending for things like education and infrastructure.) Given our current tax rate of 14.4% of GDP that would mean more than doubling the total taxes for every American. If you would like to propose this as the democrats new slogan, please report to either redstate or firedoglake, (same place?snark).
Obama's implied analyses:
1. I want to spend more money on things we need
2. I want to raise taxes on the upper income brackets
3. There is no way we will ever have the political ability to raise taxes enough to offset the current budget deficit and the increases in entitlement costs and pay for new investment.
4. Given the above, we need a deal that raises taxes while enacting inevitable cuts.
5. Perhaps we can do things to medicare and social security that are either effective tax increase on the wealthy ( means testing), wont hurt much in terms of quality of life (chained CPI) and raising medicare eligibility age, which given the healthcare law would shift costs to corporations.
Conclusion: A deal now that raises taxes on the wealthy in exchange for the inevitable cuts that will have to be made will give us the ability to argue for increasing spending on things we care about and that will increase the well being of Americans.