Is the WH having a contest with the Right to see who can cut more programs for the poor and needy?

madfloridian

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Thu Feb-10-11 03:38 PM
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Is the WH having a contest with the Right to see who can cut more programs for the poor and needy?

I have been reading several articles today on President Obama's plan to cut LIHEAP, the heating program for the poor. It is being rationalized and defended in every possible way.

Matthew Cooper at the National Journal has the usual take on it as one possibility. That it is a political ploy to make Obama look willing to cut even more than the teabaggers want. I heard the same kind of argument when it is pointed out that Obama is willing to (and in fact already has) start cutting Social Security.

That argument is wearing thin, and it is very tiresome. There comes a time when our party must stand for something, sometime, somewhere...instead of playing political games and trying to be even tougher than the other side.

What's the administration trying to accomplish by cutting a popular program for the poor?

When National Journal first reported that President Obama's budget will cut a popular home heating-assistance program for the poor, it got Democrats furious and pundits wondering.
The Democratic nominee for president before Obama, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., denounced the proposed cut. So did Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and many others especially from cold weather states. After all, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Plan is about as sacrosanct as, say, the Head Start program for low-income children.

.."Slashing the program's funding seems meant to prove a few things. It could show that the president is tough on the deficit. Even if the program costs just a few billion dollars and thus is minuscule in comparison to the deficit�let alone the national debt�it shows a degree of toughness on spending that no one has thus far seen from an Obama adminstration that came to office thinking that Keynesian pump priming was the only thing between America and the abyss.

Cooper mentions that Clinton campaigned on slashing welfare reform, and he did so. He mentions that many Republicans considered it a political repositioning. It was, and it was one that set our party on a rightward movement that it is still on today...seemingly unable to stop.

Still, each move may force a fundamental rethinking of the president who proposed it. If Obama can end LIHEAP as we know it, then it's going to be much harder to characterize him as the crazed spender of tea party fulminations. Two very different programs and circumstances, yes, but each changes the lens through which we see the president.

Of course, there is a possibility that this could become Obama's "firemen first" problem. The phrase comes from Washington editor and author Charles Peters, who has noted that when cities face budget cuts, those resisting the cuts almost always point immediately to the threat of firemen losing their jobs. The idea is to create so much fear that the cuts never go through.

I really don't care what the reasoning is behind this heartless move. Fear or politics, doesn't matter. There's enough unease and insecurity in this country now without our party's leaders making it worse.

If we don't stand for something now, we may not get the chance again.

I remember that Robert Kuttner recently used the same argument when it was clear that Social Security cuts were on the table....something we never thought would happen.

Obama to blink first on Social Security

Obama is already in trouble with older voters. Republicans have succeeded in convincing seniors that the health care reform bill diverted money from Medicare.

Consider what the right will do when Obama moves to cut Social Security. Republicans, with no sense of contradiction or hypocrisy, will whack Obama once for not being sufficiently serious about deficit reduction � then whack him again for cutting Social Security.

Destroying government�s capacity for social investment seems now only a tertiary concern for the White House � though a prime Republican goal. In this weird inversion, being willing to sacrifice the Democrats� best-loved programs is taken as a sign of Democratic resolve.

Obama is finally getting the bipartisanship he craved � but entirely on Republican terms.

Republicans win three ways. They have a Democratic president doing their work for them, destroying the Democratic capacity to use affirmative government to address dire national problems and annihilating his own party.

At least two Democrats have spoken up against cutting the heating program to the poor. That's a better record than speaking up on Social Security cuts. In fact none are speaking up against such cuts. There is not enough outrage among our leaders, and they are going along with the misrepresentation of this vital safety net.

Greider at The Nation on how they are "reforming" Social Security without saying it out loud.

What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case. If Obama pulls the deal off, this will be his version of "Nixon goes to China"�a leader proving his manhood by going against his party's convictions. Even if he fails, the president will get some protective cover on the deficit issue. After all, he is targeting Big Government's most beloved and trusted program�the New Deal's most prominent pillar.

Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda�the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus�$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s�unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.

This is not the time to pretend to be even more heartless than the teabaggers. It is sending terrible signals to seniors and adding to stress many already feel.

So when does the rationalizing stop? The reality of what is happening is right out in the open.

Our president just agreed to cut in half the money to help needy families through the winter. There is no excuse for that.