Obama, the master demogogue

Over the past several days, since announcing agreement on the proposed tax break legislation with the Republicans, Obama’s mantra has been his unrelenting commitment to the Middle Class. He has repeatedly said he has made this deal, as distasteful as it is to him, to save the Middle Class from the terrible pain of running out of work and out of unemployment benefits. If that means he has to cave in on continuing the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy and the continuing disproportionate increase in their wealth coming from the resources of the country, well, that is the cost of making a bipartisan deal. And if it means that he will have to agree to estate tax relief for 35,000 ultra rich, even though ultra rich people like Buffet and Gates have said they are not leaving the bulk of their own wealth to their children because such bequests stifle American innovation, so be it.

If the 35,000 have to get tax relief as part of a bipartisan agreement to secure their estates while protecting the Middle Class from unbearable pain, so be it. The people have spoken, the President says. And they have given him a shellacking that delivered their message. So he’s listening, giving them what they want. Never mind that 75% of the people polled since the mid term elections have said they oppose tax cuts for the wealthy. Everybody knows the vote count is the only one that does count.

Never mind that unemployment benefits will only continue 13 months under the proposed legislation and the tax cuts will continue until the next election. Apparently the President is calculating that the economy will improve by 2012, the additional 11 month unemployment benefits will be unnecessary, a weakened Democratic Congressional delegation will be able to strike a favorable bipartisan deal with a strengthened Republican Congressional delegation that they are unable to strike when they are in control, AND the Bush tax cuts will be rolled back on the wealthy.

What are the chances of that?

Could it be the President has misread the tea leaves? Could it be that the majority of a minority of voters in unpopulous states are the only ones whose votes were counted? Could it be that the polls are a true reflection of popular opinion? We will never to be able to know for sure because the vote count is the only thing that is certain, however you may interpret it. The President thought it was a shellacking. As for the President, he has decided the polls do not count. And after his masterful misrepresentation of the successes of his legislative agenda to the believing public, why should he decide otherwise?

I am speaking of the usual litany—the failure to support a public option in favor of government subsidies to corporations for 30,000,000 new health insurance customers. The continuation of Wall Street domination of American financial affairs by siphoning off free money from the Treasury for the banks’ profit. The further destruction of unions and pensioners, bondholders and dealers, with the failure to bankrupt the auto companies rather than power broke a restructuring—in the name of all the losers. The failure to prosecute Bush and Cheney and the others who have admitted breaking domestic and international laws on torture. The continued refusal to draw a line in the sand on Israeli expansion into the West Bank while claiming to be an impartial broker and offering additional financial support in the billions. The continued incursions, carried over from the Bush Administration and enhanced, on First Amendment rights. The escalation of the war in Afghanistan and the approval of multiple undeclared wars in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and other Muslim countries.. All clever ruses that undermined his own stated agenda for a more peaceful, equitable, transparent government but delivered the country to the rich and the corporate and the warrior tribe.

Because the only thing that matters, as we were first advised when the President threw his spiritual adviser under the bus, was getting elected—and then getting re-elected.

Never mind that the cost of the proposed deal is $900,000,000,000 when two weeks ago everybody, the Republicans and the Democrats, were concerned about the deficit impact of approving a $700,000,000,000 continuation of the Bush tax cuts for two years. The President has made a bipartisan deal that continues the Bush tax cuts for everybody perhaps forever, continues unemployment benefits for the 9.8% of the workforce unemployed for 13 months, gives probably permanent approval to a low tax rate on estate transfers, includes a bundle of other tax benefits to diverse constituencies, and increases the deficit amount by $200,000,000,000 over that deal.

A brilliant bipartisan move that gets the Republicans to support bigger deficits. As it appears, none of the political class really cared about the deficits anyway.

What really matters to the President is getting back the independent voters and getting reelected—proving that the lust for power has no color line or price tag.

Would the roof fall in if the Democratic House musters enough votes to scotch this deal? Probably not. People losing their unemployment benefits would have found another way to tide themselves over. Nobody is dying for lack of unemployment benefits. People have been steadily getting peeled off the rolls in the past months and have turned to relatives, friends, relief agencies, marginal jobs, sold valuables, and done whatever they could to continue to survive.

The tax rates would have reverted to a rate that had not been onerous during the Clinton years. People would survive the increase in taxes the way they have survived the increase in gasoline in the recent past. They would have hunkered down and done what they had to do to get to their jobs.

Will the Republican juggernaut in the House alone be more successful than the Democrat juggernaut of the past two years at preventing the other party from derailing whatever it finds unacceptable? I can’t imagine that unless the Democrats are a lot less clever at saying no than the Republicans have been. And the Republicans fashioned a winning election strategy by using no. How difficult can that be?

I am not clever enough to dig through the entrails of the proposed tax cut agreement to grasp all the nuances and ramifications of who wins and who loses. But I am clever enough to weigh the numbers. The President has calculated he needs to win back half of the 30% of the independent vote that appears to have abandoned him. That would be a maximum improvement of 15%. The President thinks he will keep the twenty percent of the Democratic Party liberal/progressives he needs to get re-elected.. They are compromised of a hodgepodge of minorities—Latinos, blacks, legal immigrants AND whites who believed with a fervor that he was a compassionate liberal.

What do you think the chances are that the public he has duped so many times will believe him again.?

JM