Austerity Pep Squad

Austerity Pep Squad

by digby

Sen. Mark Warner is hoping to form a bipartisan, bicameral post-Gang of Six group to pressure the already bipartisan, bicameral supercommittee to “go big or go home,” his spokesman told POLITICO Thursday.
[...]
Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said Thursday the idea is for the nascent group to serve as a cheerleadering corps for the 12-member supercommittee “to speak out to encourage the new supercommittee to ‘go big, or go home.’” Hall said Warner has not developed details of the new group, which he called a “very preliminary concept.”

Warner told the group Wednesday that “$2.2 trillion is not enough” deficit reduction and warned that any new plan will likely include both more taxes and higher fees for services like the Tricare military health care plan.

“The truth is that you will see some increase in some of the Tricare co-payments,” he said, according to the Virginian-Pilot. The cost of health care “is the fastest-growing part of the defense budget. … I know some of you don’t want to hear that … but everything has to be on the table.”

Who, exactly, do the Democrats hope to have vote for them in the next election? For the moment, billionaires only get one vote.

Supposedly, the nation's corporate CEOs are all holding on to their huge profits because they are "uncertain" about the economy. But the real problem is that all these budget slashers are making average Americans uncertain, worried about whether or not they're going to have jobs and health care and social security. I think you can forgive people for feeling a little insecure when everyone in public life is calling for more sacrifice and "skin in the game" and constantly saying "everything's on the table." You'd be a fool not to hang on to every penny you have in a world that seems to be ever more dystopian.

They are making the wrong argument. I'll let Rick Perlstein explain:

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Chris, forget the word left. Ronald Reagan, let's quote him. "There is no left and right. There`s only up or down." Up for the middle class means some kind of protection of their economic interests. I mean, Obama is worried that if he talks about this stuff, he`s going to sound divisive. History suggests that people who talk about this stuff aren't divisive. They're uniters. I mean, look at -- look at Franklin Roosevelt. This is the guy who said the kind of stuff you -- you heard in that clip. This is also the guy who built the strongest, the biggest, the most diverse political coalition in American history, and then he united the whole country to defeat Hitler. The idea that talking about malefactors of great wealth, about -- about people who are taking away the birthright of every American, is going to make people think that you`re somehow creating class war, history doesn't suggest it. It`s just not there in the record. This is the kind of stuff that makes people feel that the Democratic Party is on their side, that Democratic leaders are going to lay down the tracks for their interests

If you listen to our current leaders you'd assume that the real malefactors of wealth are the moochers who are ruining the country with their expensive illnesses and lavish old age pensions. The enemy, according to Democrats like Warner, are veterans who are unwilling to lay down in the tracks for the interests of Wall Street.

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