Hullabaloo

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

 
Get ready to push back

by digby

I don't often ask people to sign petitions, but this one's important.

Momentum is building! Close to 250,000 people have signed a petition in support of a bill by our colleague, Rep. John Conyers, called the “Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013.” You can guess what it does. 

This Thursday we are going to join with signers in Washington, DC before they go and deliver the petition directly to Speaker John Boehner. 

We need to stop this sequester to remove the pressure it creates to strike a “Grand Betrayal” that would cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. 

Help us get to 300,000 by Thursday: sign the petition to stop this false choice between cuts and more cuts. 

The sequester is just a series of cruel and irrational budget cuts that will eliminate over 750,000 jobs this year—including air traffic controllers, food safety inspectors, police officers and teachers. But it can be written out of existence as easily as it was created. All it takes is one sentence: 

“Section 251 A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is repealed.” 

That’s it. That’s all it takes. And that’s what the Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013 says. 

Help us get to 300,000 by Thursday: sign the petition, and be a part of this growing movement to cancel the sequester. 

That’s not all—Social Security Works will be livestreaming the petition delivery, so the whole country can watch the Speaker’s office react to the power of hundreds of thousands of people speaking with one voice. 

Thank you for lending your voices, 

Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison
Co-Chairs, Congressional Progressive Caucus

If you read what Bernie Sanders told Greg Sargent, you'll see that it's vitally important for every person to at least do this if we want to preserve Social Security and Medicare:

In an interview with me today, Senator Bernie Sanders said that progressive Democratic Senators should be prepared to band together to block any “grand bargain” that includes cuts to entitlement benefits — and even hinted that he and others might filibuster such a deal, if necessary.

As talk increases of White House outreach to Republicans in search of a big deal to replace the sequester, a question has presented itself. Is there any other realistic endgame in this battle, aside from either continued sequestration or a deal to avert it, in which Republicans agree to new revenues in exchange for entitlement cuts, including Chained CPI for Social Security and Medicare means testing? Republicans will never agree to repeal the sequester. So realistically, isn’t the choice between a deal or sequestration limbo, with future budgets configured around lower spending levels, damaging the economy?

Sanders insists to me that this framing — which I had adopted — is the wrong way to look at this fight. Instead, he says Dems must build a coalition to leverage public opinion to force Republicans to accept a resolution that combines judicious spending cuts with new revenues from the rich and corporations — while preserving entitlement benefits.

“It’s a question of making Republicans an offer they can’t refuse,” Sanders tells me. “Their position is no more revenues. You and I know that is not the position of the American people. One in four corporations doesn’t pay any taxes. What Democrats and progressives should say is, `Sorry, we’re not going to balance the budget on the backs of the vulnerable.’” Sanders described the idea of cutting education, Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits as an “obscenity.”

But Republicans don’t care about national public opinion on these matters, I pointed out to Sanders. What if they just say, “we’re sticking with the sequester”? I pressed Sanders on what should happen then. He reiterated that Democrats must not get drawn into this framing, that they should build a coalition — of seniors’ groups, veterans’ groups, progressive groups, etc. — to force the Republicans’ hand, and that they should “go around the country talking about this issue.”

“The alternative is not to go into a back room and negotiate with Boehner; it’s to make our case to the American people,” Sanders said. “I don’t believe there’s a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.”

I asked Sanders if he would filibuster any grand bargain that cuts entitlement benefits. “It’s more than just the filibuster,” he said. “That’s a one day tactic. This is about rallying the American people and winning.” He predicted liberals in the Senate (Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind) would likely band together to adopt a range of tactics to block such a grand bargain. “Filibustering may be part of it,” he said.

There's an inside game and an outside game and you have to be part of the outside game. And signing petitions isn't the only thing you may be required to do:

It's a real shame that the White House has been willing to put these programs on the table in pursuit of temporary deficit reduction despite the fact that they are vital necessities for millions of Americans. But it is what it is and Bernie Sanders is right.

Sign that petition at least. Call your congressional rep and let them know how you feel about it --- especially if your rep is a Republican. They are nuts, but they're the first line of defense against this thing. Maybe, in the meantime, we can stiffen the Democrats' resolve. After all, they have to run for office again -- the president doesn't.

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digby 3/12/2013 11:00:00 AM