Nope, I'm not signing this petition:
President Obama: If you cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits for me, my family, or families like mine, don't ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I'm going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates who will fight to protect our Democratic legacy.
It's from the "Progressive Change Campaign Committee" and it does nothing to challenge the basic premise of the Tea Party, which is that we need to shrink the government to grow the economy. All the petition demands is for Obama to lay off "benefits for me, my family, or families like mine," which is exactly the attitude of the average "keep your government hands off my Medicare" Tea Party.
The biggest threat to the economy is not potential cuts to entitlement programs for the elderly (still the most powerful demographic group in American politics), it is continued high employment and the fact that about that there are about 500,000 fewer jobs in government than there were when Obama took office. (Chart below from Matthew Yglesias.)
In June, total employment went up by 18,000, but public-sector employment continued to fall, by 39,000.
The worst thing to happen to liberalism/progressivism during the Obama administration has been the rejection of Keynesian economics by the same NPR/MSNBC fans who mock conservatives for refusing to believe in global warming. I'm talking about self-described "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" voters who will speak up against every bit of misinformation about gay marriage, abortion, and anti-obesity programs but will let slide nonsense about the meager Obama stimulus package making the recession worse.
A referesher course from James Fallows:
when tens of millions of people cannot find work because of an overall "failure of demand" -- not enough paychecks going to not enough people who can not make enough payments to create jobs for enough other people -- the main problem facing the nation is not "runaway government spending." Any more than it was when Herbert Hoover tightened up on spending as markets crashed, in the wave of folly that Keynes and Ahamed in their different ways chronicled. A lot has changed since the 1930s, and the 1970s. But not this basic principle.
I'll gladly sign a petition calling for more government spending to save jobs, or one condemning Obama for spreading recession-enabling balderdash like "Government has to start living within its means, just like families do."
But I'm not signing anything that pleads for Medicare, Social Security, public broadcasting, or Planned Parenthood to get sacred cow status while implicitly endorsing the Tea Party position that government spending has to be slashed elsewhere. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is, sadly, just as weak and timid as the Democratic Party.
Comments