Why the Right-Wing Bullies Will Hold the Nation Hostage Again and Again
hen I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they'd beat me up. After a close call in the boy's room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They'd demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I'd have to take a stand. The fight wasn't pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.
I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning - the equivalent of my cupcake.
Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich - $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending - basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor - has been slashed.
The right-wing bullies are emboldened. They will hold the nation hostage again and again.
In a few weeks the debt ceiling has to be raised. After that, next year's budget has to be decided on. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan has already put forward proposals to turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private insurance companies, turn Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that give states discretion to shift them to the non-poor, and give even more big tax cuts to the rich.
There will also be Republican votes to de-fund the new health care law.
"Americans of different beliefs came together," he announced late last night. It was the "largest spending cut in our history." He sounded triumphant. In fact, he's encouraging the bullies onward.
All the while, he and the Democratic leadership in Congress refuse to refute the Republicans' big lie - that spending cuts will lead to more jobs. In fact, spending cuts now will lead to fewer jobs. They'll slow down an already-anemic recovery. That will cause immense and unnecessary suffering for millions of Americans.
The President continues to legitimize the Republican claim that too much government spending caused the economy to tank, and that by cutting back spending we'll get the economy going again.
Even before the bullies began hammering him his deficit commission already recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Then the President froze non-defense domestic spending and froze federal pay. And he continues to draw the false analogy between a family's budget and the national budget.
He is losing the war of ideas because he won't tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now - not less - in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.
That we got into the Great Recession because Wall Street went bonkers and government failed to do its job at regulating financial markets. And that much of the current deficit comes from the necessary response to that financial crisis.
That the only ways to deal with the long-term budget problem is to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, and to slow down soaring health-care costs.
And that, at a deeper level, the increasingly lopsided distribution of income and wealth has robbed the vast working middle class of the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going at full capacity.
"We preserved the investments we need to win the future," he said last night. That's not true. The budget he just approved will cut Pell grants to poor kids, while states continue massive cutbacks in school spending - firing tens of thousands of teachers and raising fees at public universities. The budget he approved is cruel to the nation's working class and poor.
It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they're going too far.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
