Neoliberal Beltway Media "Distraught" at Obama's Upcoming Budget Decision

The Beltway media, and their allied Neo-lib ass kissers are all bent out of shape and in a state of distraught disarray.  They are miffed that Obama hasn’t subjugated himself yet again to their Neoliberal Imperative – which is to pull any and every fringe or thread of security out from under citizens. It’s almost as if they’d love to see a Ukraine type mammoth protest play out here in the US of A.

While Obama has abandoned (for now) the absurd plan for a “chained CPI” – to cut back on Social Security benefits (despite the fact S.S. is forbidden by law to contribute to the deficit), the Beltway hacks and blow-drieds aren’t too happy. They wanted to hear it on the tube, and see the oldsters weep as their own Prez screwed them over.

 Well, it’s not to be – as the Left – through a dedicated campaign, forced Obama to take stock and realize he was batting on a losing wicket, see e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/54446/yes-the-left-killed-the-chained-cpi

 

Excerpt:

“As for the president and his supporters, it is clear that the chained CPI is well-liked by both the White House's key economic players -- and by many of the commentators who support them. That's unfortunate, because it is inaccurate, unjust, and economically unwise. But like it, they do.

It appears that both the Republicans and the White House like it, but neither wants such a politically unpopular measure hung around their neck -- especially in an election year.”

Despite that, the Neoliberal jackasses and professional deficit scolds (which class includes much of the supposedly objective American political press) are dismayed. They are practically weeping that they can no longer yap their blow- dried thick heads off about cuts to Social Security. Why, they are asking, can’t American politicians simply grow up and cut social insurance programs?  Well, because it’s a third rail you inveterate morons!

Of course, since Watergate and the commercialization of news as well as contamination via PR, the WaPo has long since to function in citizens’ interest so no surprise that Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt excoriated Obama’s decision to abandon a politically untenable Social Security cut. This moron, believe it or not, actually compared that decision,  to Syria, scribbling:

 

“Did the president really once believe that the United States could no longer kick the can down the road on entitlement reform?”

But it just goes to show even low I.Q. people can rise to very influential heights.

Meanwhile, another dilettante, a political scientist named Adolph Reed Jr.,  recently asked in Harper’s Magazine,  that IF Obama is ‘an unexceptional neoliberal Democrat with an exceptional knack for self-presentation, Why do neoliberal Democrats feel disappointed, too?”

I beg pardon, but to me a “Neoliberal Democrat” is an oxymoron. But maybe not, given so many have seemed to have taken the Neoliberal kool aid in the last 30 years. (Which again, is one reason I left the Dem party for the Democratic Socialists) In any case, who gives a rat’s ass how many of these parasites are “disappointed”? I don’t!

But as salon.com’s Alex Pareene suggests:

“Maybe you’re disappointed because every Western government fully adopted your worldview decades ago and the result has been a new Gilded Age that you can’t blame on reckless Big Government New Deal Democrat”

Back to the Neolib hack Hiatt. While referencing  Medicare as  “the primary driver of entitlement spending,”  he ignores the fact that it’s already projected to cost much less in the future than it was before Obamacare, because the latter slashes nearly $500b off its tag. And we won’t even go into how the earlier sequester cuts seriously slashed reimbursement for cancer treatments.

 What planet is this twit living on? Isn’t he aware of any of this? Obviously, he perceives a target of opportunity because Medicare is usually yoked to Social Security, and one mandate of the Neolibs is to use Medicare costs to justify a preexisting desire to cut Social Security.

If Hiatt were really serious about lowering the long-term deficit by the most effective means possible, as opposed to the most regressive, then he’d opt for severe cuts to the Pentagon’s bloated budget. Say like scrapping the F-35 of which 2,400 are planned with a cost (currently) of $125m each.  Oh, and also pushing for total pullout from Afghanistan and – a final end of the Bush tax cuts for ALL. Those steps would solve all budget problems instantly – but the Neolibs would rather take the end run way because they’re hot to cut “entitlements”.

Joining Hiatt in disappointment is National Journal leadership correspondent Ron Fournier, who purports to explain that both parties refuse to admit (though both secretly know) that the debt will spiral out of control in the long-term future (like, 2038) unless we get a Grand Bargain.  Horse shit! The only ones who profess to know that are the Neoliberal parasites and vermin! (Like the ‘Fix the Debt’ bunch and Peter G. Peterson)

If Beltway centrists – who really believe they’re so much wiser than those “base” Democrats (who think Social Security should be more generous) had a frickin clue they’d pull their heads from their asses and note the  polls that consistently show overwhelming bipartisan majorities in favor of maintaining or expanding Social Security benefits.

But the morons likely think they’re all skewed.

Then there’s MSNBC’s  resident Neolib hack, Chuck Todd, who had a brief requiem for the seemingly dead grand bargain in yesterday morning’s “First Take.” In just one brief paragraph, this dope managed to hit just about every single trope common to Beltway centrist deficit scolds, from treating an unpopular and unnecessary plan to cut social insurance programs as “a universally acknowledged urgent necessity” instead of a highly ideological goal, to bemoaning the fact that politicians who support unpopular things are campaigned against for supporting unpopular things.

Do the Neolib media hacks really want to know why achieving entitlement reform — even on an incremental, bipartisan basis — is so difficult in American politics? Because it is deeply unpopular with actual voters who recognize it as a shitty deal for everyone but the rich.   If the Neoliberal media wasn't so uniformly blinded to that reality, and so ignorant that the majority of Americans want and demand the same security as the wealthy, they'd be more objective. Alas, they aren't - so they can't be.

In the meantime, the progressive Left will relax for the time being, but be wary of any further efforts to sacrifice citizens to the Neoliberal Gargoyle of Greed.