Krugman- The New Obama Budget

[n2doc]

There was an old Washingtoon, probably from the mid-1980s, in which Democrats meet to plan their new centrist strategy — which consists of tax cuts for the rich, reduced spending on the needy, and big defense budgets. “But how is this different from the Republicans?” asks one member of the group. “Compassion,” replies the leader. “We care about the victims of our policies.”

That’s pretty much my initial reaction to what we know so far about the Obama budget. It’s much less awful than the Republican proposal, but it moves in the same direction: listening to the administration, you’d think that discretionary spending, not health care, is at the heart of our long-run deficit problems — and you’d also think that the job of rescuing the economy was done, with unemployment still at 9 percent.

It could be worse — the GOP proposal is — but it’s hardly something to cheer about.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/the-new-obama-budget/

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[neverforget]

2. less bad equals the new change

[grahamhgreen]

3. “We care about the victims of our policies.” That about sums it up, but really,

they don't.

[indepat]

4. The rate of movement farther to the right is seemingly increasing with alarming

alacrity, but rest assured: while pubs might be appeased, they will never ever be pleased until controlling all the levers of power. :patriot:

[ThomCat]

5. Obama has blatantly given up on his promise to start

helping the poor.

Weren't we supposed to expect him to finally start acting like he cared about Jobs and Foreclosures and Bank Fraud and Poverty after that last election? Wasn't it supposed to be his wake-up call that he had been ignoring the people?

So why is he proposing a budget that makes only poor people make sacrifices? So why is he going out of his way to cut off the poorest of the poor, and trying to balance the budget with the blood and deaths of those in need?

Because, make no bones about it, cutting off heating assistance will result in deaths by freezing. Cutting off community block grants that fund charity kitchens among other desperately needed services will result in deaths by starvation. Cutting of necessary services across the board is going to increase suicides as people find themselves more desperate than they have ever imagined with no options and no place to go for help.

To Obama these might just be numbers. Perhaps unfortunate numbers, but not numbers he will bother to feel responsible for. Let us remember that these are real people, and real lives. These are people we know.

Austerity measures are nothing short of Evil while we are wasting Trillions on:

• 2 unnecessary wars
  
• subsidizing wall street with $trillions in loans through the fed, without the right to even know the location or the amount of the loans or subsidies we have given
  
• corporate subsidies for profitable companies that pay no taxes, like oil coal and gas companies, big agra-business, and big pharma. If they are profitable then they don't need subsidies.
  

[Better Believe It]

6. K & R

[Dragonfli]

7. K&R