This is a fucking joke. The fix was in from the start. Look who pays the staff on the Catfood Commission:
Many of its employees aren't employed by the panel at all.
Instead, about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit.
For example, the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.
WaPo: Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups
The fix is in and was from the start. This is the commision to roll back the New Deal under the guise of "deficit reduction." Flatten the tax rate. Pigs at the trough.
Why on earth did President Obama create this? Did he know how corrupt it was? If not, who hid it from him?
Barbara B. Kennelly, a former Democratic House member from Connecticut who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the commission's staffing structure is "unprecedented" and casts further doubt on its fairness.
"Taxpayers fund the commission and they should work independently of Washington lobbyists and power brokers," Kennelly said. "This is the type of shenanigans that average Americans are so upset about right now - that money talks and everyone else is left out."
snip
Kennelly and other liberal-leaning critics say they are particularly troubled by the influence of Peterson, a billionaire and former investment banker who began a $6 million campaign this week urging lawmakers to cut the deficit. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group investment fund, paid for a series of town hall meetings this year that included participation by deficit commission members. He also funds the Fiscal Times, a digital news organization that focuses on federal debt issues.
WaPo: Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups
If there remains a real Democratic Party in this nation, it must stand up and fight for workers, for a party that abdicates on this no longer deserves the support of working people.
Here is what a real Democrat sounds like.
Trumka delivered an impassioned and deeply personal critique of another idea included in the Bowles-Simpson package: raising the age at which Americans can begin to draw their Social Security benefits.
"My dad worked 44 years in a coal mine. Retired the day he turned 62 because he couldn’t go another day," Trumka said. "If you had told him you have to go to 68, my dad would have died. It would have killed him. There are millions of people like that. When we work in an air-conditioned office, it’s a whole lot different than people who work on a construction site, in a hospital, teaching in an inner city school, in a coal mine, in a steel mill."
snip
"It has nothing to do with the deficit problem," said Trumka, arguing that the trust fund will be solvent for at least another 30 years. "Yet they continue to throw it in to confuse people." While labor is willing to make some changes to guarantee Social Security’s long-term future, "what we’re not in favor of is increasing the age and cutting the benefits," Trumka said.
snip
"Wall Street had this giant party for a number of years and we didn’t get invited," Trumka said. "And then the party came to an end and somebody had to pay for it. And where’s the first place they go to ask people to pay: Social Security. So you retire later and you get less."
National Journal: AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka says working Americans' retirement fund is being tapped to pay for a Wall Street party.
Which side are you on, Mr. President? Which side are you on Democratic Party officeholders?
If neither party is on the side of working people, then we need a new electoral and activist direction.
If Dems thought there was an enthusiasm gap in 2010, they ain't seen nothing yet. Without the unions, many Congress folks would have lost.
If Dems won't fight for us and with us, Mr. Trumka and the working men and women of organized labor will.
Hands off Social Security!
Another song for your listening pleasure:
Update I: Another song that seems to fit today's times:
Update II: From David Mizner in the comments, quoting a linked source:
In June, according to the Washington Post, Obama’s deficit commission will be participating in a 20-city electronic town hall meeting, put together by an organization called America Speaks. It is financed by Peterson, along with the MacArthur Foundation and Kellogg Foundation. This is a truly unusual event because it marks the first time a presidential commission’s activities are financed by a private group that has long been lobbying the government on the very subjects the commission is supposed to "study.