Will American Majority Outnumber Gang Of 6?
Our deficit and debt came from cutting taxes on the rich and big corporations, increasing military spending and sweetheart deals with big pharma and health insurance companies. Elite “solutions” always involve cutting back what We, the People do for each other while keeping taxes low for the rich and big corporations. The latest “Gang of 6” solution is being pushed hard, manipulating a sense of inevitability, but is just more of the same. Don’t be fooled, there is significant opposition. Grassroots organizations oppose it, progressives in Congress oppose it and The American Majority opposes it. But you won’t hear that from our elite media.
The Latest Back-Room Deal From Well-To-Do Elites
If you are following the day-by-day accounts of the back-room debt-ceiling “crisis” negotiations, the latest “deal” to emerge out of closed-room, secret negotiations between well-to-do elites is much like all the other deals that come out of closed rooms of well-to-do DC insider types: keep taxes low on the rich and corporations and cut back the things We, the People do for each other and for the non-Wall Street parts of our economy.
These insiders serve the interests of the biggest corporations and the extremely well off, not the interests of regular people, entrepreneurs and small businesses that democracy protects and empowers. Their closed rooms never include low-wage working people, unemployed people, teachers, mechanics, roofers, carpenters, veterinarians, lab technicians, trash collectors, nurses or law-enforcement officers in them.
If all you hear from is America’s elite media you would think the problem is solved and everyone is happy. You would think this is inevitable, and you must go along or be blamed for obstructing. The “gang of 6” deal is supposedly “bipartisan.” They say it is receiving a “warm reception” in Congress. For example, the Washington Post, New debt plan gains support in Senate, describes the “warm response” the proposal received in the Senate,
In the Senate, the plan received a warm response, both during the invitation-only morning session and during separate luncheon briefings for Democrats and Republicans. Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.),the No. 3 Senate Republican, offered strong support. And Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a leader in the GOP on budget issues, backed the plan as well, after dropping out of the Gang of Six in mid-May.
“There was palpable relief from folks in that room this morning. Like they were saying, ‘Here’s something we can actually be for,’ ” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), a Gang of Six member who has relentlessly pressed his colleagues to reach consensus.
And the NY Times is on the bandwagon: Bipartisan Plan for Budget Deal Buoys President,
Financial markets rallied on the news. And with time running out before the deadline of Aug. 2 to raise the government’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, Mr. Obama’s quick embrace of the plan left House Republicans at greater risk of being politically isolated on the issue if they continue to rule out any compromise that includes higher tax revenues.
Higher tax revenues? Actually the deal lowers tax rates for the wealthy and big companies. It raises revenues by removing things like the mortgage interest deduction for the rest of us.
Not So Fast
But if you look at polls you start to see that the American Majority has come to some very different conclusions about how to fix America’s deficit problems. The pubic says solve this problem the same way most economists say we should solve it. The public wants cuts in military spending, and increases in spending on infrastructure and other job-creation, economy-growing investment. The public wants taxes increased on the rich and big corporations. The public does not want Social Security benefits cut. The public wants health care reformed in the ways that the rest of the world has discovered saves money while providing better care.
Not So Fast, says the CPC
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