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The Great Undoing |
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Sunday, 31 July 2011 11:15 |
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John Cory begins: "Under the guise of a manufactured debt crisis that has little to do with reality, the ideological intransigence of Republican Tea Party extremists, aided and abetted by a centrist-right Democratic Party and a Democratic president obsessed with bipartisanship and compromise, working people are being sacrificed upon the altar of greed and bound over in indentured servitude to the corporate masters of America and their wholly-owned subsidiary, the US government."
House Speaker John Boehner, seen on a television monitor from Capitol Hill, 07/22/11. (photo: AP)
The Great Undoing
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
31 July 11
Reader Supported News | Perspective
 ow is the time of the great undoing.
Under the guise of a manufactured debt crisis that has little to do with reality, the ideological intransigence of Republican Tea Party extremists, aided and abetted by a centrist-right Democratic Party and a Democratic president obsessed with bipartisanship and compromise, working people are being sacrificed upon the altar of greed and bound over in indentured servitude to the corporate masters of America and their wholly-owned subsidiary, the US government.
Political theater trumps reality.
Let's understand that for all the posturing and all the hawking of compromise as the magic elixir for everything, Obama is going to get what he wanted from the very beginning. There will be cuts, and there will be a Super 12 Commission with special powers to force Congress to attack the "sacred cows" of "entitlement" programs like Social Security and Medicare and Veterans' care and any program that helps people. This is the "shared" sacrifice that Obama preaches while preserving the status quo of the wealthy and corporate ruling class.
We need to stop complaining that Obama is a "weak" negotiator and wake up to the reality that he is a right-of-center politician and a supporter of Wall Street and the mythical powers of the free market. As I heard someone say the other day, Obama "talks left but he walks right."
America is under assault. Regressive voter ID laws are being enacted across the country with the specific aim of suppressing the vote. Collective bargaining and unions are being outlawed from one state to another. Women's rights are being set ablaze everywhere. The GOP chants "smaller government, smaller government" - but what they mean by smaller government is government big enough fill a boardroom and small enough to fit in your bedroom - or ideally, between a woman's legs. 2011 brought to you by 1950. Are we winning the future yet?
To quote Jackson Browne: "The high ideals and promises you once dressed the future in are dancing in the embers with the wind."
Who benefits from this crisis charade?
The Democratic Party can safely denigrate its liberal base with a smug self-assured confidence that we have no other choice. Who else are we going to vote for?
Obama wins the short term by appearing reasonable and above the fray, without getting his hands dirty with partisan politics and looking out for the good of the country. And that will get him through the coming election cycle.
The Republicans lose the short run by appearing unreasonable and madly reckless. But they win in the long term because they championed no tax increases, and they will be able to run political ads pointing at the Democrats as the force that is cutting and reducing your Medicare benefits and Social Security.
And the mendacious media will dutifully report it all without ever pointing out the GOP hypocrisy. This is the tool that Republicans hope to use to drive Democrats into the wilderness for a very long time. And it might just work.
And of course Wall Street wins all the way around. Standard and Poor's threatens to downgrade the US credit rating unless there are big cuts to social programs and discretionary spending This is the same agency that rated the trash investments of Wall Street as AAA even as they caused the financial crash.
And by the way, while all the economic-hostage shenanigans filled the airwaves and newspapers, and all the talk centered on how nothing can get done in Congress, did you know that the House Judiciary Committee approved HR 1981? Legislation that requires ISP providers to collect and maintain users' activity records for 12 months. Go read what law and order is about to have the power to do.
A century of progressive protection of the poor and sick, of safety and regulations for the middle class, of equality and opportunity, is now on the chopping block in the name of compromise. We must burn the village to save the village.
We are become, undone.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Tea Party Tail Wags the GOP Dog |
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Saturday, 30 July 2011 18:18 |
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Intro: "By capitulating to the Tea Party caucus, John Boehner risks becoming the poster child for all that is wrong with Washington."
US House Speaker John Boehner waves a copy of 'The Republican Road to Recovery.' (photo: Win McNamee/AFP/Getty Images)
Tea Party Tail Wags the GOP Dog
By Megan Carpentier, Guardian UK
30 July 11
By capitulating to the Tea Party caucus, John Boehner risks becoming the poster child for all that is wrong with Washington.
 hen speaker John Boehner took the gavel from House minority leader Nancy Pelosi in January, Republicans cheered a new era in Washington, inaugurated by an all-out assault on women's reproductive rights, the administration's signature healthcare bill and a series of negotiations intended to bring government spending to heel. But though the speaker sets the agenda, he quite clearly took his cues from a boisterous set of backseat drivers: his new Tea Party members.
Fast forward to July, and the dewy-eyed freshman class (and their more tenured conservative coattail-riding colleagues) are threatening to take the wheel from Boehner altogether, over what they view as his stubborn willingness to compromise one iota with the administration over raising the debt ceiling to avoid a default by the US government. And while President Obama took to the air to encourage his supporters to tweet their support for compromise (and swamp Capitol Hill with calls and emails for the second day this week), Boehner and his consigliere, House majority leader Eric Cantor, were trying to find some way to keep their own members from jumping ship and voting no on their (relatively) grown-up bill to stave off the debt crisis by giving the Senate something it has any chance of passing.
But it wasn't always this way. Less than a decade ago, in the wake of the compounding infidelity scandals that rocked the then House leadership during the time of then President Clinton's impeachment, former high school wrestling coach Denny Hastert held the speaker's gavel and his consigliere, majority whip-cum-leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, ruled votes with an iron fist. Didn't like a bill? Delay didn't care - it was your job to vote for the leadership's legislation. Have a Dick Armey-led group threatening you with a primary opponent? DeLay was scarier: he'd set up your primary opponents, kill your earmarks, yank your chairmanship and even, in a case for which he was eventually censured, go after your family. He had no need to kowtow to some upstart ultra-conservative group, because he made sure they knew who was boss from the outset (and, frankly, you could hardly get more conservative than DeLay).
Boehner's willingness to let his freshmen members have sway, lest they complain about his forceful leadership style, set up the situation in which we find ourselves today: a small contingent of intransigent ultra-conservatives who care little about the real-world ramifications of a debt crisis and a great deal about ideology and personal brand are holding their own leadership - and the country - hostage to a plan of spending cuts few people actually thinks is desirable or sustainable. Meanwhile, former speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose forceful leadership style made her the first speaker to lose control of the chamber yet keep her preeminent position within her caucus, has managed to hold almost all her own members firm against the bill as well - something she often had trouble doing as speaker, given some of her conservative members.
Boehner has built his brand within the party around being willing to zing the president and being unwilling to be seen as working with him, which was politically convenient when there wasn't an actual problem at hand. But policy problems require political compromise to solve, and compromising with the administration is something he's allowed the Tea Partiers and his own political posturing to make untenable. With some calling for his head within his own party, the Democrats standing firm against the bill he considers a compromise and, now, the clock running out, speaker Boehner may end up the poster child for all that Americans consider broken in Washington - just in time for voters to choose new House members and who they want in the White House.
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FOCUS | Elizabeth Warren: A Farewell Note |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7122"><span class="small">Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Saturday, 30 July 2011 14:06 |
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Elizabeth Warren leaves Washington after being passed over to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Respected by some 500 of her staff, she exits the agency with a farewell note.
Elizabeth Warren leaves Washington with a farewell note to her staff. (photo: Mary F. Calvert/NYT/Redux)
Elizabeth Warren: A Farewell Note
By Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News
30 July 11
 Elizabeth Warren, passed over by the White House in favor of a less controversial candidate to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is returning to life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a Harvard Law School professor.
Warren invented and created the bureau, which protects borrowers from abusive lenders, during one of the worst financial episodes in US history, aligning herself with President Obama's intentions to reform the nation's financial system.
Warren was supported by unions, community bankers and a large swath of the American public, and was thought by experts to be a highly-qualified consumer advocate.
But, after hostile and dismissive questioning from Congress, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray was nominated in her place.
Elizabeth Warren exits respected by some 500 of her staff in the agency, with a farewell note. -- CW/RSN
From: Warren, Elizabeth
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 1:18 PM
To:
Subject: A new chapter
 eam,
Four years ago, I submitted an article to Democracy Journal that argued for a new government agency called the Financial Product Safety Commission. I threw myself into that piece because I felt strongly that a new consumer agency would make the credit markets work better for American families and strengthen the economic security of the middle class.
In 2007 and 2008, I wrote about the new consumer agency in a number of places, and I talked about the idea with anyone who would listen.
And then in 2009, something amazing happened. In June of that year, the President invited a few hundred people to the White House as he unveiled his initial outline for financial reform. It was the first time I had ever been invited to something like this. Just before the President stepped out, aides passed around a summary of the proposed reforms. I grabbed a copy and started tearing through it. As I skimmed over derivatives and capital reserve requirements, I turned a page and saw it - a proposal for a consumer agency. Until that moment, I wasn't certain whether the new agency would be part of the reform package or not.
Under the leadership of Secretary Geithner, Michael Barr, Eric Stein, our own Peggy Twohig, and so many of our other colleagues, the Treasury Department began to refine and improve the initial idea, preparing a proposal to submit to Congress. With strong support from the President, early leadership from Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and grassroots efforts launched by many consumer groups, the agency began to gather momentum. Despite repeated declarations from the financial services industry and some in Congress that the agency was "dead on arrival" or "going nowhere," the proposal moved through two nail-biting committee votes, four nail-biting floor votes, and one nail-biting conference committee. It was a hard fight, but the result was a strong and independent new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with the tools needed to make a real difference for American families.
And then something even more amazing started to happen. Good people started turning the idea into a reality. With Wally Adeyemo as Chief of Staff to keep it all organized, we were underway. Smart people with a wide variety of backgrounds - banking, consumer advocacy, government, business, teaching - focused their energy and enthusiasm and creativity on building something new - something that would work for American consumers.
All along the way, the pieces came into place. We set critical priorities for the new agency, including streamlining mortgage disclosure and making credit cards easier to understand. We focused our efforts on the challenges facing military families. We organized the most aggressive and effective outreach effort anywhere in government to make sure that our goals were clear and we got as much input as possible from those who will be most affected by the agency's work. We designed a high-speed, effective HR system, and we figured out how to get in place necessary procurements to support our work. We developed legal concepts to guide our work and procedures to make sure we always honored the law. We created an innovative supervision program. We generated rules of the road to guide our enforcement and fair lending programs. We designed the systems necessary to meet our statutory deadlines and to complete ongoing rule-writing passed from other agencies. We organized an approach for connecting with consumers all across the country through our website, consumer response system, and more. And we did it all in full view, working with Congress and the media every step along the way to make sure the American people are engaged in our work and able to hold us accountable to our mission.
That is only a small summary of what we have accomplished together. We did it - and we did it well. And we have some independent verification of that: Two weeks ago, our inspectors general - a tough and independent pair of judges - wrote a glowing report about our stand-up period.
Whether you have been here for long months or only a few days, I want to thank you for choosing to be part of this agency. I know that every one of you had other options. I also know that we chose you because we believe you have something special to add. I am grateful that you came here to make a difference.
Today is my last day at the Bureau. I leave this agency, but not this fight. The issues we deal with - a middle class that has been squeezed and business models built on tricks and traps - are deeply personal to me, and they always will be.
I will cheer as you open a new chapter in our ongoing push for a strong and independent CFPB. You can realize the vision of a 21st century government that holds law-breakers accountable and that enforces basic rules that make markets work honestly. An honest market will give companies that provide fair value to their customers a chance to flourish, free from competition with cheaters. And an honest market will give American families better information, better prices, and better products - and a chance to achieve real economic security. Now it's up to you - and I couldn't be more hopeful about what lies ahead.
ew
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Don't Fall for the GOP Lie |
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Friday, 29 July 2011 19:10 |
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Excerpt: "The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate."
Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
Don't Fall for the GOP Lie
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
29 July 11
Don't fall for the GOP lie: There is no budget crisis. There's a job and growth crisis.
 friend who's been watching the absurd machinations in Congress asked me "what happens if we don't solve the budget crisis and we run out of money to pay the nation's bills?"
It was only then I realized how effective Republicans lies have been. That we're calling it a "budget crisis" and worrying that if we don't "solve" it we can't pay our nation's bills is testament to how successful Republicans have been distorting the truth.
The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate. Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.
In economic terms, we will not "run out of money" next week. We're still the richest nation in the world, and the Federal Reserve has unlimited capacity to print money.
Nor is there any economic imperative to reach an agreement on how to fix the budget deficit by Tuesday. It's not even clear the federal budget needs that much fixing anyway.
Yes, the ratio of the national debt to the total economy is high relative to what it's been. But it's not nearly as high as it was after World War II - when it reached 120 percent of the economy's total output.
If and when the economy begins to grow faster - if more Americans get jobs, and we move toward a full recovery - the debt/GDP ratio will fall, as it did in the 1950s, and as it does in every solid recovery. Revenues will pour into the Treasury, and much of the current "budget crisis" will be evaporate.
Get it? We're really in a "jobs and growth" crisis - not a budget crisis.
And the best way to get jobs and growth back is for the federal government to spend more right now, not less - for example, by exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes this year and next, recreating a WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps, creating an infrastructure bank, providing tax incentives for small businesses to hire, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and so on.
But what happens next week if Congress can't or won't deliver the President a bill to raise the debt ceiling? Remember: This is all politics, mixed in with legal technicalities. Economics has nothing to do with it.
One possibility, therefore, is for the Treasury to keep paying the nation's bills regardless. It would continue to issue Treasury bills, which are our nation's IOUs. When those IOUs are cashed at the Federal Reserve Board, the Fed would do what it has always done: Honor them.
How long could this go on without the debt ceiling being lifted? That's a legal question. Republicans in Congress could mount a legal challenge, but no court in its right mind would stop the Fed from honoring the full faith and credit of the United States.
The wild card is what the three big credit-rating agencies will do. As long as the Fed keeps honoring the nation's IOUs, America's credit should be deemed sound. We're not Greece or Portugal, after all. We'll still be the richest nation in the world, whose currency is the basis for most business transactions in the world.
Standard & Poor's has warned it will downgrade the nation's debt from a triple-A to a double-A rating if we don't tend to the long-term deficit. But, as I've noted, S&P has no business meddling in American politics - especially since its own non-feasance was partly responsible for the current size of the federal debt (had it done its job the debt and housing bubbles wouldn't have precipitated the terrible recession, and the federal outlays it required).
As long as we pay our debts on time, our global creditors should be satisfied. And if they're satisfied, S&P, Moody's, and Fitch should be, too.
Repeat after me: The federal deficit is not the nation's biggest problem. The anemic recovery, huge unemployment, falling wages, and declining home prices are bigger problems. We don't have a budget crisis. We have a jobs and growth crisis.
The GOP has manufactured a budget crisis out of the Republicans' extortionate demands over raising the debt limit. They have succeeded in hoodwinking the public, including my friend.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
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eaders, please take a vote:
