Priorities
By Mitch Berg
It’s no secret – Obama’s priority isn’t the economy. All that “I’ll be fine being a one-term president” was so much baked wind; he wants four more years to get his addled agenda across.
The guy’s got a nation to destroy:
Of course, this by no means is an indication the President has lost the Huffington Post. Arianna, Alex, and everyone at this liberal abomination will be campaigning for the former junior senator from Illinois next year as if he’s a close relative.
But the disappointment on the left is palpable, and if the economy really is double-dipping, it will be interesting to see whether the rats leave the ship or figure out a way to blame it on Republicans.
And it’s in this cycle that the Tea Party, and all of those millions of newly-minted fiscalcons, needs to earn its bones.
As NewsBusters previously reported, there already is an effort underway to use the debt ceiling agreement as the culprit for any downturn.
Whether or not the American people will buy it is another thing altogether.
The media is already working overtime try to rig that part the equation.
August 5th, 2011 at 11:13 am
“there already is an effort underway to use the debt ceiling agreement as the culprit for any downturn”
But most business people can’t here the argument: they have the administrations boots on their necks.
August 5th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
To get a rough glimpse of what the corporate state looks like, study the Federal Reserve’s list of banking, finance and business firms that received the $3.3 trillion the central bank dispensed in low-interest loans during the financial crisis (this valuable information is revealed only because reform legislators like Senator Bernie Sanders fought for disclosure). If you were not on the list of recipients, you know your place in this new order.
The power shift did not start with Obama, but his tenure confirms and completes it. The corporates began their systematic drive to dismantle liberal governance back in the 1970s, and the Democratic Party was soon trying to appease them, its retreat whipped along by Ronald Reagan’s popular appeal and top-down tax cutting. So long as Democrats were out of power, they could continue to stand up for liberal objectives and assail the destructive behavior of business and finance (though their rhetoric was more consistent than their voting record). Once back in control of government, they lowered their voices and sued for peace. Beholden to corporate America for campaign contributions, the Democrats cut deals with banks and businesses and usually gave them what they demanded, so corporate interests would not veto progressive legislation.
Obama has been distinctively candid about this. He admires the “savvy businessmen” atop the pinnacle of corporate power. He seeks “partnership” with them. The old economic conflicts, like labor versus capital, are regarded as passé by the “new Democrats” now governing. The business of America is business. Government should act as steward and servant, not master.
This deferential attitude is reflected in all of Obama’s major reform legislation, not to mention in the people he brought into government. In the financial rescue, Obama, like George W. Bush before him, funneled billions to the troubled bankers without demanding any public obligations in return. On healthcare, he cut deals with insurance and drug companies and played cute by allowing the public option, which would have provided real competition to healthcare monopolists, to be killed. On financial reform, Obama’s Treasury lieutenants and a majority of the Congressional Dems killed off the most important measures, which would have cut Wall Street megabanks down to tolerable size.
August 8th, 2011 at 10:54 am
Hehe — “I am not responsible for the guy I helped elect”, eh?