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| Guess who gets screwed in this meeting! (Hint: It's not anyone seated at the table.) |
Every day, I find fewer and fewer reasons to support President Obama. The ugly negotiation over lifting the Federal debt ceiling just about ices the cake.
The "deal" that they worked out (Harry Reid, John Boehner, Steny Hoyer, Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden, and the President, himself) involves $2.4 trillion (trillion!) in cuts to Federal spending and not a single red penny in raised revenues. Nothing will be required of the corporate robber barons and the über-rich. Nothing will be required of General Electric, which made billions in profits last year and paid nothing in Federal income tax. Nothing will be asked of mega-polluters ExxonMobil and British Petroleum, which continue to "earn" record profits while, at the same time, receiving Federal subsidies.
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| Looks like this is as far as we're likely to get. |
Everything will be required of the poor and middle class. Less money for national parks, schools and infrastructure. Less money for public health.
You'd think that this kind of regressive policy would have the Tea Party patriots kicking up their heels with joy. But if you thought that, you'd be wrong. Tea Party folks are too stupid to recognize a victory when they see one. (They're even more stupid imagining that this policy serves their interests.) Their puffed-up outrage provided the justification for political leaders (and, yes, that includes the Obama administration) to do what they wanted to do, but couldn't justify without the Tea Party. That is, to continue to fill the coffers of the plutocrats and scrimp on providing services to the general citizenry. And yet, heady with their false sense of empowerment, Tea Partiers rage that the deal doesn't go far enough.
For liberals and progressives, for people like me, this situation is horrendous. Unlike in the Bush years, when we had no ambivalence, when we could focus our antipathy and contempt on villains like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Junior, we are now stuck behind a president that, for all his mealy-mouthed passivity, is still the only alternative to insane nihilists deep in the grips of Ragnarok anticipation.
The Democrats have been calling me relentlessly over the past several months, asking for my time and my money. I've been turning them down flat. They usually don't ask me why, but I tell them anyway. Yes, I will probably vote for President Obama. But I won't do so with any enthusiasm. And I won't be donating my time or money any more.
F*ck it, Mr. President. Let the Tea Party burn the place down, if that's what you want. To the extent that you give a sh*t, I object.
