Hi. I got a bunch of thank- you emails for Paul Krugman’s ‘The Unwisdom of Elites.’
Here’s part 2. Not only are Krugman, Baker, Stieglitz, et al right, the vast majority of
Americans agree with them – and us. Many thanks to Mha Atma for these articles. -Ed
From: earthactionnetwork@earthlink.net [mailto:earthactionnetwork@earthlink.net
American Majority Rejects
By Roger Hickey
Created 05/09/2011
Out in
As we approach the deadline for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, not a hour goes by in the 24-hour cycle without the media interviewing some expert who declares that the deficit is the most important threat facing the country, that tax increases are off the table, and that a severe crisis awaits if the Congress doesn’t cut and radically restructure Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
But one voice is missing from this discussion: that of the American Majority.
Occasionally some talking head on TV will acknowledge the almost daily public opinion polling showing conclusively that strong majorities of Americans:
•oppose cutting benefits for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients;
•reject the idea of raising the age of eligibility for these popular programs;
•hate the proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher or privatize Social Security;
•support taxing the rich and corporations to close the deficit and fund needed investment;
•favor cutting military spending for both obsolete weapons systems and current wars;
•and, while acknowledging the need to reduce deficits, place a higher priority on creating jobs and getting the sputtering economy growing.
Rarely in the public discussion are the views of the American majority presented in such a comprehensive way. Instead, some budget expert from a think-tank like Brookings or an honest reporter will nervously interject that “recent polls show Americans may resist taking the medicine,” and then the discussion moves on to why austerity is absolutely necessary. Rarely on talk shows or even in serious print news article does anyone challenge the predictable Republican mantra that “we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.” And, given the consensus that we face a “debt and deficit crisis” that could soon hurt the economy, rarely is anyone allowed to warn that a strong dose of spending cuts might hurt
And so the inside-the-bubble discussion moves on to how much to cut which programs—and whether automatic spending caps might work to appease the bond markets.
No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media [1] demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget.
We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates [2] who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough.
Out in the real world, despite being excluded from the Beltway discussion, the real people who represent the American Majority are finding their voice, as Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Paul Ryan, discovered when they went home last month to defend the Ryan/GOP budget they all voted for. They encountered well-informed and angry constituents protesting the plan to turn Medicare into a voucher and demanding to know why unemployment is still so high and why the rich are still enjoying the Bush tax cuts. It didn’t make any difference to these voters that columnists at The Washington Post thought Ryan’s plan was “bold and brave.” They were just angry that all the Republicans in the House voted to dismantle Medicare.
You can also see the American Majority stirring powerfully in the huge populist rebellion against the attempt to cripple workers’ rights in
In the dangerous looming showdown over the budget and the debt ceiling, those of us who share the views of the American Majority must demand to be heard. We have to get over our self-image as an embattled, if righteous, minority.
In recent weeks millions of our fellow Americans who voted in 2010 for conservative candidates who promised jobs have begun to realize what an extreme and destructive that their real agenda poses for our country. Even most rank-and-file Tea Party supporters reject dismantling Medicare and cutting Social Security. In April, when the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner [3] read a list of the programs likely to be cut by across-the-board spending caps (which Republicans and some Democrats are demanding as the price of raising the debt limit), 72 percent said they would rather raise taxes on those earning more than one million dollars. In March, Bloomberg [4] asked Americans to choose a priority—creating jobs or cutting spending—and 56 percent said creating jobs, rather than spending cuts, is the more important priority for the federal government right now. See all the polling that we have compiled at www.ourfuture.org/americanmajority
[1].
So it is time for all of us to ask, if we are the American Majority, why aren’t 72 percent of the pundits on television talking about raising taxes on the rich? Why don’t we read about—and hear from—the 56 percent of Americans (and experts) who think that jobs and economic recovery is more important than austerity. We don’t need to demand quotas—but equal time would seem to be justified.
The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research [5] (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR [6] (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority.
And while we challenge the media to present the views of the American people on the economy, let’s get to work on the politicians as well.
Links:
[1] http://www.ourfuture.org/americanmajority
[2] http://www.ourfuture.org/plain-page/2011051806/american- majority-project-experts
[3] http://www.gqrr.com/articles/2626/6555_First Focus-Results.pdf
[4] http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/rk74U1tEA.R0
[6] http://www.fair.org/index.php
***
www.http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/5885-the-battle-for- the-soul-of-the-gop
The
By Robert Reich,
Robert Reich's Blog:: 10 May 2011
The real battle for the soul of the GOP started today with a speech on Wall Street by Speaker of the House John Boehner.
Wall Street and big business fear Tea Partiers won't allow House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling without major spending cuts - and without tax increases on the wealthy. Wall Street and big business know this would be unacceptable to the White House and congressional Democrats.
The Street and big business want to tame the budget deficit but they don't want to play games with the debt ceiling. Credit markets are fine at the moment, but if the debt ceiling isn't not raised within the month - weeks before August 2, when the Treasury predicts the nation will run out of money to pay its creditors and its other bills - credit markets could go into free fall. The full faith and credit of the
The Tea Partiers don't care about the debt ceiling. To them, it's a giant bargaining chit to shrink government. Nor do they worry about credit markets. If the full faith and credit of the
You see, Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government. The Tea Partiers' real aim is to shrink the government.
But the Street and big business dislike the national debt more than they dislike government. And they wouldn't even mind a small tax increase on wealthy people like themselves in order to cinch a deal on raising the national debt. They have so much money they'd scarcely notice.
In truth, government has been good to Wall Street and big business. It bailed out the Street. It saved GM, Chrysler, and AIG. And most government spending improves the profits of big businesses - military contractors, big agriculture, giant health-care insurers, Big Pharma, large construction companies.
Tea Partiers have almost as much contempt for big business and the Street as they do for government. After all, the Tea Party was born in anger over the Wall Street bailout.
This is the heart of the civil war in the GOP.
House Speaker John Boehner, appearing today at the Economic Club of New York, tried to placate both wings, but he was far more in the Tea Party camp than with his audience. He said "everything is on the table" in order to reduce the nation's debt - a bow to Wall Street and big business pragmatists. But in the next breath he ruled out tax increases.
Boehner says he won't allow the
Boehner knows the only way to get cuts of this magnitude without increasing taxes on the rich (or cutting defense - something else the GOP wouldn't think of) is to make mincemeat out of Medicare and Medicaid, slash education and infrastructure, and kill off most of everything else people of moderate means depend on.
In other words, Boehner's conditions are just another version of the Paul Ryan plan House Republicans approved last month - the same plan that brought howls at recent Republican town meetings. Democrats will never agree to it, nor should they. Nor will the rest of
And that means no agreement to increase the debt ceiling.
Boehner is siding with the Tea Partiers. Wall Street and big business hold the purse strings in the GOP but the Tea Partiers are now the ground troops. Boehner and his GOP colleagues figure Wall Street and big business will stake them in any event. They need Tea Partiers to get out the vote in 2012. And they're afraid angry Tea Partiers will get out the vote against them in their own primaries.
But Boehner is playing with fire. If the debt ceiling isn't raised and the financial system begins to collapse, the GOP loses not only Wall Street and big business. It loses everyone who's still sane.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the
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