DKos: "I Freaking Hate Super Congress, And So Should You"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/14/1036438/-I-freaking-hate-Super-Congress,-and-so-should-you

MON NOV 14, 2011 AT 06:30 PM PST

I freaking hate Super Congress, and so should you

by Hunter

If you've been reading the news about our great and all-powerful Super Congress, you know that we're now at the stage where Democrats are apparently looking for the best possible way to acquiesce to all Republican demands in exchange for some promises of maybe getting something in return later, maybe, if the Republicans feel like it. The current trial balloon is to cut the crap out of entitlements and other government programs now, in exchange for an argument later over whether and how to raise taxes. During an election year.

No, really. I know it sounds like satire, but it's really being floated.

- snip -

The Super Committee is one of those rare political ideas that nearly every single person in America, aside from the few people who actually invented the damn thing, can all agree was a stupid idea from the moment first proposed. We avoid a GOP-demanded shutdown of government (raise the debt ceiling, like we previously did all the freaking time? Unpossible!) by taking the courageous step of appointing a committee to think about the problem later, chartered by the exact same ideologues and half-wits that blocked all the other steps along the way. Then we say that they'll come to a deal for certain this time, because if they don't we'll cut national defense by some vast sum that our fighting boys in the Pentagon say is completely untenable and endangers America, but don't worry, it will still work because the Republicans will never, ever pressure Congress into erasing those defense cuts during an election year and—all right, I'm getting depressed just recounting this. We all remember it, right? Blah blah blah blue-ribbon panel blah.

Two things have been clear from the outset. First, that we need to raise revenues, because the "cut taxes on the rich and just pretend everything will work out" is, in fact, not working out. It's untenable, and it's screwing up America. Don't ask me, ask the economists. No, I mean the real economists.

The second clear thing was that Republicans would rather burn all of American government to the ground then raise those taxes back up by even one dime. That was the point of the debt ceiling fiasco. It was the point of holding unemployment insurance hostage, and the point of the continual efforts to make sure the "temporary" Bush tax cuts remain in place forever, regardless of what needs ransoming at any particular point in time in order to do it. We had a credit agency drop the debt rating of the United States, citing Republican intractability and inability to treat the economy seriously: didn't matter a bit. We've been mired in economic chaos and misery for years, now: Nope, still not good enough reason to do anything useful. Name a few post offices, block a few judges and spend every other waking moment figuring out how to best cripple the country's finances and let the top n-th of a percent cart off whatever national wealth they can carry.

MORE

[The Magistrate]

Too True, Ma'am, Unfortunately....

[elleng]

1. I freaking hate Congress.

[woo me with science]

2. It is a deliberate tool of thieves. nt

[Kablooie]

3. And the Democrats that vote to cut entitlements may not survive the next election season.

It gives a big hammer to the Republican candidate to batter the Democratic adversary with.

But Republicans who vote to cut entitlements will be praised as heros by their party.

The same hammer doesn't have nearly the as much power when it's in Democratic hands.

[msongs]

4. Obama and his dems buddies will likely sell us out again...past is prologue nt