Obama using debt talks to flimflam the left
By Jesus Rivas Posted: 12:00am on Jul 20, 2011; Modified:
1:42am on Jul 20, 2011
President Barack Obama has turned out to be a superb
illusionist. The U.S. left stares bamboozled at his performance,
thinking he is on their side, not noticing that the long string of
multicolored, tied-up handkerchiefs is coming out of his sleeve and not
the small cup he is holding in his hand. As the date to raise
the debt ceiling approaches one thing is certain: If the consequences of
default are so dire, the sector that will lose more are the people who
have more money, the corporate class. So there is not a chance that it
will happen because neither Democrats nor Republicans will let their
corporate overlords endure any losses.Instead, they are using it
to scare people. Scared people will be willing to accept things that
they would not accept otherwise. The total collapse of the economy is so
scary that when people are told that they need only to give up on
Social Security they will be relieved.What we see is nothing
short of a play, pure theater.As the script goes, Obama hints that he is
"willing to take considerable heat" from his party. The Republicans
ramp up rhetoric and run out the clock. In the end, Obama needs to
choose between the total collapse of the economy or sacrificing the Big
Three — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Obama "saves us" all by
killing the Big Three.Let's make no mistake, this crisis is a
consequence of Obama's broken promises. He defaulted on his promise to
quickly end the Iraq war. In the last three years, these wars have cost
taxpayers a bit less than half a trillion dollars. Had Obama been
truthful, we would be that much farther from the debt ceiling. Democrats
could have saved a lot in medical expenses by giving everybody the
opportunity to buy into Medicare. The reason that Medicare is so
expensive is because older people have a lot of medical needs. However,
if you allow 40 million young adults, with a lot fewer medical needs,
to enroll, this would insure not only 40 million people but also would
bring Medicare way into the black overnight, at no cost to taxpayers. Last
but not least, Obama could have raised a lot of revenue by, as he
promised, not extending Bush era tax cuts This would not kill jobs. This
is what kills jobs: The U.S. gives more than a trillion dollars in tax
cuts to companies that take jobs overseas. These are quite literally
job-killing tax breaks. Eliminating those will bring plenty of cash into
the coffers and jobs back to the country. We would be so far from the debt
ceiling that no one would even talk about it. So,
the default problem is fully fabricated: Smoke and mirrors, an illusion
to push the corporate agenda of privatizing the country's social safety
net. However, when Obama decapitates the Big Three, he will not
do it with the cartoon villain's maniac laughter that would fit such
action. He will do it with a consummate act of illusionism pretending
that it is the best for the country. Maybe he will spare one of them,
for a couple years, and pretend to be "the savior of the working class."No
doubt there will be blithering morons from the left who will clap and
cheer, but there will be a substantial group of people who will come out
of their hypnosis to realize that the butcher of Social Security simply
does not deserve a second term. This is not the end of the
world. The left needs to come to terms with the fact that Obama is a
president of the right, and a very dangerous one too. Despite all
his rash rhetoric and frontal attacks, Bush could not manage to lay a
finger on Social Security during his eight years in office. However,
Obama, in only three years, could make Social Security disappear behind a
puff of purple smoke.Who is the most dangerous president for working people?
The left needs to start paying attention to the facts and not be distracted by
rhetoric and tricks. A
president who pretends to be on your side but swindles your cause any
chance he gets is a lot more dangerous than a straight attacker.
Jesus Rivas of Somerset is a former Herald-Leader contributing
columnist. Reach him at anaco...@prodigy.net
Read more:
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/20/1817456/obama-using-debt-talks-to-flimflam.html#ixzz1T2CZls9y
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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