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<b>So This Is Despair</b><br>
Tuesday 26 July 2011<br>
by: William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed<br>
<br>
<i>At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and
at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to
live with it happily.<br>
<br>
- Flannery O'Connor<br>
</i><br>
It is difficult to describe this emotion. I’m used to
disappointment, fairly comfortable with heartbreak, and am well
acquainted with rage. Over the course of my lifetime, my presidents
have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now
Obama…and each, in his own way, has been worse than the last.<br>
<br>
How can I say that? Easy. The problems of Nixon are still with us,
and have grown worse by orders of magnitude through each successive
administration. Certain presidents have exacerbated the situation
beyond their expected purview, but generally speaking, each one has
adopted the worst ideas of his predecessor, and in nearly every
instance, has made those problems worse.<br>
<br>
But this…this is too much.<br>
<br>
The timeline as I understand it: the far-right GOP caucus in the
House decided to use the debt limit as a hostage to fortune in their
decades-long quest to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. The
current Democratic president saw this, and in a pure anti-Lakoffian
flail that explains everything you need to know about the man,
accepted the deranged premise put before him and went to work on the
annihilation of the social safety net…but with the proviso that we
find some new tax revenues by closing some loopholes…maybe…please?<br>
<br>
Not good enough. House Speaker Boehner walked away from the
debt-limit talks, not once but twice, because he can’t control his
caucus and because he had this Democratic president right where he
wanted him. The president blew up – in as much as “No Drama” Obama
ever blows up – and wondered what is needed for the GOP to say “Yes”
to anything. Read between the lines of that presser, and you get
this: “I tried to give them Social Security. I tried to give them
Medicare and Medicaid. I gave those things willingly, despite cries
of outrage from my ungrateful, foolish, obnoxious left flank, and
asked only for a pittance in tax revenues in exchange. Shame on the
GOP for not rampaging these social programs when I offered them the
chance to do so.”<br>
<br>
Web forums all across the Democratic Party spectrum celebrated the
president’s resolve. He showed them, didn’t he?<br>
<br>
Well…wait. I saw a president in a state of high piss-off because he
tried to give away Social Security and Medicare, but couldn’t
convince the far right to take the proffered opportunity. They’ve
been trying to do this very thing for three generations, and here is
Obama practically sweating bullets in his desire to give them the
victory they have pined for since Goldwater was in short pants.
Sure, it’s proof that Boehner is at the mercy of the Tea Party
freshmen in his caucus, but in which universe is this called
victory? This Democratic president was angry because he was being
denied the opportunity to preside over an historic roll-back of the
New Deal?<br>
<br>
Poor baby.<br>
<br>
Oh, but we weren’t done yet. The “Grand Bargain” was still in the
offing, now splintered into two or three or twelve different
iterations, but all ultimately coming down to the same thing:
trillions in cuts for the most vulnerable Americans, no new tax
revenues from the rich or anyone else, and the bonus prize sought
most passionately by the Democrats was the chance to kick this whole
fight down the road to 2013, so none of these failures would be
forced to address the question before their next all-important
election cycle.<br>
<br>
Sell out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for a chance at an
easier ride at the ballot? Where do I sign?<br>
<i><b><br>
The Bush-era tax cuts for rich people appear nowhere in the
discussion, despite the fact that eliminating them would go most
of the way towards resolving this “crisis.” We are still
fighting three wars, and the “defense” budget remains largely
untouchable. I have not heard an American politician talk about
jobs in over a year, even though a robust jobs program would add
revenue to the budget hand over fist.</b></i><br>
<br>
At the time of this writing, matters stand thusly:<br>
<br>
We don't yet know what the final deal to raise the debt ceiling will
be. But now that Harry Reid is developing a proposal with $2.7
trillion in cuts and nothing in revenues, it's a safe bet that it
won't include any tax increases. Which means that whether
Republicans realize it or not, they've won. The question now is
whether they can stop.<br>
<br>
John Boehner is proposing a deal with about $1 trillion in spending
cuts and a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and a bipartisan
congressional committee charged with developing a large deficit
reduction package that would be immune to amendments and filibusters
and would be the price of the next increase in the debt ceiling.
Harry Reid is developing a package of spending cuts that Democrats
could accept and would reach Boehner's $2.4 trillion mark.<br>
<br>
If you take the Republicans' goals as avoiding a deal in which they
have to vote for tax increases and denying Obama a political
victory, it looks like they have succeeded. That success has come
with costs - they've done themselves political damage, are risking a
crisis that could do the economy tremendous harm, and have left the
Bush tax cuts unresolved, which means they might end up watching
taxes rise much higher than if they'd taken Obama's offer - but it's
still been a success.<br>
<br>
A great many people who should know better continue to look at this
situation as if Mr. Obama has some fantastic rabbit
he…is…just…waiting to pull out of a hat, thus foiling the GOP and
securing our future forever. For a brief moment a couple of weeks
ago, I shared that optimism, but the last several days have slapped
me soundly out of that fugue state.<br>
<br>
I see a president on his knees, hands outstretched, offering the
best ideas and policies liberal governance has ever devised up to
the voracious carnivore of GOP opportunism. I see the end of the New
Deal, and a far crueler America emerging from the aftermath. I see a
Democratic president voiding his bladder on all that he is supposed
to uphold.<br>
<br>
Mr. Obama got on those knees again Monday night, on national
television no less, and once again begged the GOP to devour Social
Security and Medicare. He gobbled up the flawed, flayed premise of
the far-right's deranged argument, again, and pleaded for the chance
to give away the core of what he was elected to defend. <br>
<br>
I thought I was done being ashamed of my president.<br>
<br>
I was wrong.<br>
<br>
WILLIAM RIVERS PITT<br>
<br>
[William Rivers Pitt is a Truthout editor and columnist. He is also
a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two
books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and
"The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill
Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation,"
is now available from PoliPointPress.]
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