The Big Sellout - The Greanville Post

Charles P. Pierce , Esquire’s political blogs

IMAGE: This is how it happened.

First, Barack Obama hires the rancid flotsam of Wall Street to command the economic team tasked with salvaging the nation from what the equally rancid jetsam of Wall Street had done to it.

Not surprisingly, these people pivot the administration towards “deficit reduction” rather than balls-out stimulus as the solution to an economy gradually being cored out by nine-percent unemployment and the inevitable crash in demand that resulted from that. At which point, the administration appoints the Simpson-Bowles Commission, a pathetic collection of Beltway has-beens and, in the case of Alan Simpson, one mummified relic of an earlier age who was notable only for the fact that he apparently was born full-grown as a bitter, nasty old prick and only has gotten worse with age. At one point, Simpson memorably replied to a concerned constituent:

And yes, I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ’em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’ s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!

Why Barack Obama chose to exhume this fossil and empower him again will baffle historians down through the ages. Anyway, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the president’s commission came back with a preliminary draft report so howlingly bad that it couldn’t even command enough votes on the commission to be adopted officially. Nonetheless, the Simpson-Bowles “report” marked out clearly the parameters of the discussion going forward. As uncomfortable as it may be to him now, Barack Obama owns that report. It was his commission. In sum, the path to a complete sellout of Democratic values was there, if people wanted to follow it.

And, pretty plainly, they have.

Simpson-Bowles begat, in spirit, anyway, the SuperCommittee, and the SuperCommittee, which Newt Gingrich and I agree is a really stupid idea, is where the final yard sale of what’s left of the New Deal is going to happen. Apparently, all the pieces are in place for one of those Washington moments where we all take it in the neck while nobody cutting the deal misses a dinner invitation. “Bipartisanship” uber alles. The almost evangelical worship of a “deal” for deal’s sake between the irreconcilable Republicans and the invertebrate Democrats. And the magical thinking that only occurs when important politicians are put together with the financial wizards that have brought the country so much sweetness and joy since 2008.

“Nothing,” Boehner said, according to prepared remarks, “nothing, would send a more reassuring message to the markets than taking bipartisan steps to fix the structural problems in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

Oh, holy mother of god, what a crock these people are. In the middle of the worst recession since the 1930’s, with the country being told to accept nine-percent unemployment for the foreseeable future, and income inequality swamping the middle class, the responsible point of view among the leaders of both political parties is to “reform entitlements” until what’s left is sticks and splinters because then, and only then, will the delicate, blessed “Markets” feel goody-good-good about themselves again. We are all Dow Jones. This kind of thing should end your political viability on the spot. It should get you deluged with produce every time you set foot out of your house. It should mark you lousy.

Over the past three decades, a greedy, bubble-headed ferret named Pete Peterson has dedicated himself and his millions to the proposition that he and his colleagues in the financial-services sector should get their grubby paws on that Social Security money so that can do with it what they did so splendidly during the past decade or so. He has made this attempt in good times and in bad, under Republican presidents and Democratic ones, and he is an ace away from his goal right now. Barack Obama’s vaunted pivot to “populism” is doomed because he’s tied to the fate of a SuperCommittee made up of the isolated, self-involved members of a political elite to whom a kind word from David Gregory counts more than a public still rising in protest over the theft of their money and the pillaging of their birthrights. If the Democrats sign on to a “Grand Bargain” like this one, there simply is no argument any more for their continued existence as a political party.

ABOUT Charles P. Pierce

Charlie has been a working journalist since 1976. He is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America. He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.

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