The end of “don’t ask/don’t tell,” some help for “9-11,” responders, and the START treaty were bright spots in the otherwise miserable year of 2010.  These three very decent and overdue legislative actions suggest that Americans can be fair, empathetic, and generous – in spite of the potent, ideological, right-wing, meanness that has been so influential for at least the past three decades.

It is gratifying to see the beginning of the end of de jure discrimination against gay people.  No doubt, de facto discrimination in many forms will continue against gays, just as it has against African-Americans, women, the elderly and other groups.  Anti-gay acts have been, and will probably continue to be, particularly vicious and often violent.  The struggle against this form of hate will need to go on for some time.

Although we saw some “socially liberal” progress in 2010, it was an economically conservative and miserable year for middle and low income Americans.  Earners and wealth holders in the top 10% can thank their lucky stars that the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration have decided to maintain a favorable tax status for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of all other income classes.  

The $3.5 billion spent on lobbying congress did not come from median income, struggling households.  Consequently, Wall Street is back in business as usual.  The incestuous relationship between the financial services sector, the congress, and the Obama Administration along with various industrial-you-name-it complexes, such as the medical-industrial complex, present a very dark cloud on the horizon for the masses.  The Citizens United case and the massive corporate campaign spending it unleashed make that cloud ever so much darker.

The revolving door between congress, the administration, and Wall Street is spinning faster than ever.  A case in point is the recent move by Peter Orszag to Citigroup for some really big bucks in salary.  This happened after he helped engineer a $10 billion U.S. Treasury deal/benefit for Citigroup.

In fact, the perfect economic storm is shaping up and is headed right for the working classes.  As one who visited the staffs of several members of the President’s “deficit reduction commission,” I believe that things don’t look too good for the last remnants of the New Deal and the Great Society.  A seemingly liberal Democrat like Senator Durbin of Illinois is signaling that he is supportive of proposals that would reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits.  This is not surprising.  Of all the offices we visited, it seemed to me that his was the one where we were confronted with the vaguest, most platitudinous, and even mealy mouthed verbiage.

In the meantime, employment, pension funds, college opportunities, and economic opportunities in general are going south.  The states are in really sad shape.  Any stimulus derived from raiding the Social Security Trust Fund, as happened in the deal between the President and the Republicans, will be offset by failure to provide massive stimulus dollars to the states for infrastructure building and other forms of employment. 

Corporate profits are better than ever and the middle class situation is continuing to deteriorate.  If the working classes remain passive or locked in a heated political fight with each other (think Tea Party and us), then the corporate juggernaut will continue to roll over us.  On a positive note, however, I do believe that as economic conditions worsen, groups that are now shouting at each other will begin to discern the real culprits and will learn to talk to each other.  In fact, I have had some success with that lately.

According to some poll or other touted by Chris Mathews on Hardball, 69% of Democrats, 75% of Republicans, and 69% of respondents overall (whoever they were), supported the Obama tax deal with Republicans.  Well, why wouldn’t they?  The propaganda machine has been in high gear for the past week or so.  How many of these poll respondents have taken the time to really understand what’s in this awful deal and how it will affect them in the future?

As for me, I am disgusted.  This is about the last straw for me as an Obama supporter.  In fact, I don’t really see any point in supporting the Democratic Party.  Although there are some Democrats such as Jan Schakowsky, Sherrod Brown, and others for whom I have the utmost respect, the party as a whole has pretty much sold us out.  So I will support individual Democrats and Independents but don’t see any point in providing any resources to the party.

As best as I can discern, the tax deal as negotiated and as it will probably pass includes the following elements:

• Business Tax Extenders – a two-year extension of the research development and tax credits which were contained in the 2009 Stimulus Bill. Estimated Cost – $80 billion
• Business Expense Deduction – a provision that would permit any business to write on the entire cost of capital investments in one year rather then the current five. Estimated Cost – $146 billion.
• Extension of Refundable tax credit, child tax credits, and college tuition deduction. Estimated Cost – $21 Billion
• Reduction of Payroll Tax – a 2% reduction of payroll federal tax reductions for two years. Estimated Cost – $120 Billion
• Extension of Federal Unemployment Benefits – An extension of all four tiers of federal unemployment extensions through January 12, 2012 – Estimated Cost – $56 Billion
• Changes in Federal Estate Tax – A continuation of exception of federal tax on all estates up to $5 million. – Estimated Cost $64 Billion
• Adjustment to the minimum federal income tax to account for inflation – Estimated Cost $140 Billion
• Continuation of Bush Era tax cuts for two years for incomes of $250,000 and less. Estimated Cost – $280 Billion
• Continuation of Bush Era tax cuts for two years for incomes of over $250,000. Estimated Cost – $79 Billion

Does this look like a lopsided deal or what?  You add it up but while you do that keep a few things in mind. 

The 2% payroll tax deductions refer to the 6.2% deduction from our paychecks for Social Security.  The employers will also get the 2% (but that isn’t mentioned).  This will cost the middle class down the road.  The now healthy Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted and a wonderful excuse for cutting benefits will be handed to right-wingers who hate Social Security.

Federal Unemployment Benefits will be continued for one year at a cost of $56 billion – a  onetime shot.  Compare that to the Bush Era Tax cuts which will cost $79 billion over two years.  Does anyone really believe they will now go away in two years?  We are looking at nearly a trillion dollars over the next ten years – plenty to make the Social Security Trust Fund sound into the foreseeable future.

The inheritance tax cuts are more obscene than the income tax cuts for the rich – if that is possible.  This will benefit a tiny upper-class group of Americans who would be exceedingly rich without it.  Again, it won’t go away.  Like the upper class income tax give-away, this will cost a trillion dollars over the next decade.

In the final analysis, the middle class will pay dearly for any goodies they receive in this package.  Just take the time to download the various deficit reduction proposals and take a look at who will take the cuts in benefits or will pay more for their health care or will pay more in sales taxes.  The rich will keep the goodies and the middle class will give them back.  Jan Schakowsky’s recommendations are an exception to this but no one in the mainstream is paying any attention to her.

My respect for Barack Obama has dissipated.  It has been dissipating since the beginning of his administration when he brought the Rubinomics team back, but when he brought Bill Clinton in to make his case, any respect that I had left went poof.

Tell Claire McCaskill That We Will Remember Her Vote

Congressman Moore:  (202) 225 2865

Senator Claire McCaskill (202) 224 6154

Emanuel Cleaver (202) 225 4535

Call the above Democrats in congress.  Tell all of your friends, colleagues, relatives and every soul mate you have to call – now!  I plan to be on the phone as soon as offices open up tomorrow.  Congressman Moore still has a vote.  Tell him to join the Democratic caucus in the House.  Tell Claire McCaskill that we will remember her vote in the next election.  Emanuel Cleaver is probably on our side, but call him anyway.  It is really important to flood these legislators’ offices with calls.

Our Fighting President

Well finally, we are seeing our president fight.  The only problem is that he is fighting with liberals and progressives.  He is accusing liberals in congress and his liberal/progressive base for being sanctimonious purists.  Perhaps, just perhaps, he is confusing sanctimony and purism with what has been lacking in him and blue dog/DLC Democrats – core values and principles.

So, here is what our “pragmatic” president has done in the past few weeks:

What did he manage to get in these negotiations?  He did manage to get a 13 month extension on unemployment for some of the unemployed.  That is good for the millions that will qualify for it but it will do nothing for millions and millions of unemployed who have been unemployed for years and years, and who could be put to work on public works projects (paid for with the $900,000,000 or $900 billion that will be lost with continued tax cuts for the rich).  Essentially, Republicans were willing to throw a bone to middle and low income Americans.

The deal President Obama has cut with the Republicans isn’t just bad; it isn’t just very bad; it is so ugly that it doesn’t even merit consideration by legislators – especially Democratic legislators.  The Republicans will be able to say that the tax cuts are Obama’s tax cuts and that the deficit is Obama’s deficit.  Losses to the currently healthy Social Security Trust Fund will be used by Republicans and many Democrats to justify benefits reductions.

When I see David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Austan Goolsbee – Casper Milquetoasts all – on television with their limp justifications and tepid claims that this is “a pretty good deal – you know, the best we can get,” I feel myself getting queasy. And please spare me Larry Summers’s arrogant mug.  Hasn’t he been responsible for enough economic damage?

Brooks & Marcus on PBS: A Phony "Two Sides of the Issues Give and Take

Most everyone has heard by now that Simpson and Bowles were able to garner 11 votes for their set of deficit reduction recommendations.  They needed 14 votes from the 18 member commission.  Members on the “far right” and the “far left” (however those terms are defined) voted no and hence left Simpson and Bowles three votes short.

This is not in any sense of the word good news.  Let’s just consider how it was handled on Jim Lehrer’s PBS Newshour conservative-liberal give and take segment (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/). There is a reason that neo-conservative David Brooks and the not very liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus were absolutely giddy about the 11 votes for the Simpson/Bowles plan. They expressed effusive praise for those commission members willing to “make the hard choices” (such as reduction in Medicare and Social Security) and believe that yesterday’s vote is a harbinger of future action.

Brooks and Marcus could more aptly be said to have had a conservative versus extremely conservative give and take.  It was, in their view, a surprise that 11 of the 18 members of the commission would actually support draconian Social Security and Medicare cuts.  It was also, in their view, a matter of time until Congress is willing to muster the courage to vote these recommendations into law. 

I find it very interesting that this conservative-liberal give and take included nothing about Simpson’s and Bowles’s recommended tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy as well as nothing about their recommended regressive tax increases for low and middle income classes.  This is why liberal support for public television puzzles me.  I will probably anger some liberals by saying this, but I believe PBS, like NPR, has become a propaganda outlet for the ruling class. Given that their underwriters include Bank of America, EXXON, the Kauffman Foundation, etc., I am not surprised that they don’t really present a progressive side of issues.

I must apologize to those liberals and progressives who don’t like to talk about “war,” and think that terms like “class warfare” are best left unsaid.  The fact of the matter is, however, that a class war is being waged on middle and lower income classes right now.  It has been going on for some time.  Perhaps, it would be a good idea for those who don’t think that we should call it “class war” to reflect on a few phenomena:

1. Wages and salaries have been stagnant for some time for all but the very high paid and very rich.
2. The cost of college has been outstripping inflation for the past thirty years and is becoming increasingly unaffordable for middle class families.
3. Twenty-five percent of the U.S. working-age population is either unemployed or underemployed while corporations and the financial services industry continue to reap record profits and pay obscene salaries and bonuses.
4. Young people are graduating from college with an inordinate level of college loan debt and with few prospects for all but the most menial employment.
5. Although she went to prison for saying it, Leona Helmsley was telling the truth when she said “We don’t pay the taxes, the little people pay the taxes.”
6. In 2009, corporate America spent $3 billion on lobbying the U.S. Congress and was able to lock up control of the U.S. government through a Supreme Court case entitled Citizens United.

The quality of life for the middle class is sinking.  Furthermore it will continue to sink and life will become increasingly difficult for everyone and every family below the wealthiest few percent.  The first step in fighting back is to recognize the truth; to come to grips with reality; to stop believing media propaganda; and to stop thinking that the Democrats and the Obama Administration will take up our cause unless we, en masse, begin to demand a change.

Call your PBS and NPR local stations and tell them you will not contribute any money to them until they begin to press the national NPR for fair and balanced news and analysis.  Demand that we hear the other side.  I have had several conversations with Patricia Cahill at KCUR and can tell you that she is a sensitive and open-minded manager and a generally all around good person.  She will pass your comments along to the national offices of NPR (she is also on the NPR board of directors).