The sound of no hands clapping

The Sound Of No Hands Clapping

by digby


I'm seeing a lot of chatter recently about how we all need to chill out because there's no way that the draconian budget cuts, defunding of Planned Parenthood or cutting of Social Security is going to happen because all the Republicans really want to do is to slash the budget by a hundred million. And since the administration has already anted up half of that they'll end up compromising somewhere in between 50 and 100 bill. And then, presumably, Barack Obama will be again hailed as a hero for avoiding a government shutdown and we'll all be required to clap harder and revere his masterful negotiating skills.

But that's ridiculous. First, considering the Democrats' recent record of crack negotiating of there's no guarantee that some of the culture war issues or social security cuts won't be in a final deal. But even if they aren't, what this adds up to is that last December, with a Democratic House and Senate our president agreed to extend massive tax cuts for the richest Americans and then in March, with only a Democratic Senate he agreed to massive spending cuts. I'm not really sure why I should applaud such a thing, particularly in light of the fact that every economist I respect says that this is the opposite of what any pragmatic technocratic, common sense leader would do in our current economic situation, much less a transformational progressive Democrat. I'm sorry, no clapping from me. The idea that we are supposed to accept the nonsensical idea that massive tax cuts for the rich combined with massive spending cuts to essential programs for ordinary Americans is a "victory" under those circumstances just doesn't make sense.

I understand the politics, but it's simply not correct to say that the only possible way to govern is to slash spending, cut taxes and gush a lot of happy talk about "investments" and "winning the future" while hoping against hope that the economy improves enough (and the opposition is lame enough) to get reelected. Not when you have the presidency, the US Senate and a fractious, divided, opposition that should be easily leveraged against itself.

Last session I was told that the president was powerless without more than 60 votes in the Senate and even then there wasn't much he could do. Now, he's powerless in the face of a GOP majority in the House and the smaller majority in the Senate will save us all from the Teabag dystopia. At this point I would think that the executive branch is fairly useless and we ought to get rid of it except for the odd fact that it seems to be able to function quite efficiently when the GOP is in power.


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