Voice of Reason? - debt ceiling & Bernie Sanders Forum

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2011-07-30 02:05 AM

Zach F
Denton, TX
Posts: 942

Bernie Sanders has been blasting both Repubs and Dems on the debt ceiling issue. Could he be the mediator that we need to minimize the hit of the economy from this looming problem?

2011-07-30 09:25 AM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

No...Bernie Sanders is far to the left of Obama and most Democrats. The reason he has criticized Democrats is that he feels they have compromised "too much" while not digging their heels in on the Republicans during negotiations. I love Bernie Sanders but with him as a mediator, I doubt that any compromise would be achieved on anything.

It would be the equivalent of asking Michele Bachman on the right to mediate.

2011-07-30 11:48 AM

CARLITOS BAM-BAM
Dallas, TX
Posts: 897

You know.....I don't know.

Not a lot we disagree on Schmidt. And when we do....I tend to see it your way at some point.

I just don't think you can compare Sanders to Bachmann. I mean really?

Bachmann would have the Republicans huddled in prayer circles......asking God to help Obama see the light on a BBA.

I think Obama faced a choice.....have this fight w/ Republicans now over the debt-ceiling or risk an even bigger battle over the budget and deficits come closer to election time.

Spending cuts are an inevitable consequences of GOP control of the House. Ultimately, Obama has sought to moderate the blow to the economy....by tying spending cuts to tax increases.....thus, preventing the Republicans from moving forward. In doing so, he's exposed the depravity of the Republican Party, and he had to go Dark from his own party in order to do this.
Let's be clear: Obama proposed raising age eligibility for Medicare, reforming/reducing COLA payments for SS spending recipients, & cutting Medicare payments to hospitals for doctor training & organ transplant services. And overall, 4 trillion in deficit-reduction, with $3 in spending cuts for every dollar of new tax revenue raised. And nobody from the administration bothered to explain themselves to anyone.

Then, detached from the base, far out in the center, Obama expanded on the outlines of spending cuts to include efficiency reforms, which will not necessarilly result in less spending on the most vulnerable. Means-testing Social Security and Medicare (the latter is more difficult) is far more preferable than cutting benefits across the board. And means-testing SS or Medicare is not an inherently centrist or rightwing idea in American politics. Nor is uncapping applicable Social Security taxes. Democrats simply cannot protect all government spending, just because. It makes no sense for the well-off to recieve SS retirement checks, and it takes balls to demand they still contribute. Now, I would like to see those savings put to other expenditures, yes. But reducing the deficit in this manner is a least stupid option.

By shaming the president.....the left makes the president's case stronger with centrist voters. Sanders is doing his job. This is a game of chicken, and the president needs centrist support, or these radical Republicans will feel free to reduce our society to rubble.
By tying tax hikes that the Republicans will never agree too.....Obama has protected a lot of targeted demand spending on the most vulnerable. This is a defensive position, yes. But it's the inevitable consequence of the Nov. 2010 elections.

We should blow smoke over Obama. This is the politics of the real.

2011-07-30 03:08 PM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

Thanks Kaboom. I'll clarify. I am a big fan of Bernie Sanders and listen to him regularly on the Thom Hartmann show. He is intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable on the issues, a good listener, soft spoken and doesn't lose his cool like some others in Congress. In fact I would be proud to call him my President.

But he is also a self described socialist, and so when I said he wouldn't make a good mediator in the debt ceiling debate, I was thinking more of his acceptablity to the other side. Republicans hate socialists or anyone endorsing socialist beliefs. They demean that term every chance they get. Of course, as we have discussed, we are all socialists to some degree, but that wouldn't register with the Tea Party folks who would refuse to sit across the table from a perceived socialist.

When I see Michele Bachmann, I see the polar opposite of Bernie Sanders. Not knowledgeable on the issues, opinionated, self-rightious, and hateful...always with her own selfish agenda. A "worst President ever" if elected. So if I was a Democrat charged with negotiating, I would not want to sit with her at a table while she mediates on the debt ceiling issue.

But you are right. Comparing Sanders and Bachmann is an apples and oranges type comparison.

Otherwise I'm just unsure of the debt ceiling debate. I am convinced that for some in the Republican Party, the debt doesn't matter, except as a politcal issue to be used against Obama. If John McCain was President, this would not have even surfaced as an issue. Heck some Tea Partiers never even knew that a debt ceiling existed until it came time to vote on it.

Obama is in a delicate position. He cannot dismiss the debt ceiling debate outright because the right wing of the Republican Party including Fox News made it the topic de jour. So he has to play their game and in doing so he has to play with all his cards on the table, gambling on the American people to bet on him. But the media doesn't seem to couch it in those terms...it's the usual "both sides are at fault." No it's not.

Paul Krugman had an excellent article in the NYT on that very point. See The Centrist Cop Out. Quoting Krugman: "The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault."

Not only that, Fox News and right wing talk radio skew public opinion against Obama. And it's working. The longer this drags on, the lower Obama's poll numbers. Thus Republicans want a short term fix and then hope to revisit the whole issue again in a few months. It's a well that they want to go to again and again before the election.

So however Obama's strategy is viewed by us, what matters is the public perception...and Obama is losing points in that game...still polling ahead of the Republicans but losing ground every day it drags on.

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