Senate Democrats and Obama abandon the jobless

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/jobs-j26.shtml

<edit>

The Obama administration, while nominally in favor of the extended benefits, did little or nothing to ensure passage. As the New York Times, a reliable supporter of the White House, was compelled to admit, “The Obama administration has not fought aggressively for the legislation.”

The extension of unemployment benefits was part of a larger bill that was repeatedly whittled down and narrowed in a futile effort to win the vote of even a single Republican senator. Senate Democrats cut the average benefit by $25 a week—a significant amount for the long-term jobless—and made other reductions in the overall cost of the bill, including cutting the proposed Medicaid assistance to near-bankrupt state governments from $24 billion to $16 billion.

The bill would also have paid for Medicaid assistance to the states by using money from last year’s stimulus bill, not yet expended for a planned increase in food stamp benefits. If the bill had passed the Senate and become law, there was to be a reduction of $11 a week for each food stamp beneficiary.

In other words, one low-income group, those on food stamps, was to pay for the extension of benefits for another low-income group, the long-term jobless. In many cases, of course, the two groups overlap, so that a jobless worker on food stamps could find his or her children’s food stamps cut to pay for the unemployment check.

Rather than attack the Republicans for their brutal treatment of the unemployed, the Democrats sought to mobilize sections of big business to lobby for passage of the bill, citing a series of tax breaks incorporated into the legislation. But business lobbyists focused instead on several proposed tax increases on hedge fund managers and multinational corporations.

<edit>

“Deficit reduction” has been raised as a mantra by the Democrats as well as the Republicans in response to demands by the ruling elite that the enormous cost of the bailout of the financial system be imposed on the working class in the form of reduced consumption. This is to be accomplished both by cutting jobs and wages directly and by slashing public spending on social services like education, health care and retirement benefits.

more...

[KonaKane]

1. Sigh. Another disingenuous OP title.

Obama did nothing of the kind. He did not "abandon working people". If you look at the voting roster for extended benefits in the senate, the culprits who killed it are clear - and all Republicans, except for one.

I really wish we could find a way to criticize our own that didnt start out with an incendiary title which is basically a big lie.

[Hannah Bell]

3. Based on reports in the MSM like this from the NYT:

“The Obama administration has not fought aggressively for the legislation.”

[KonaKane]

6. Which is a long way from "he abandoned working people"

which is a horseshit allegation and you know it.

[Hannah Bell]

7. i don't think it's such a long way, especially when other things *are* fought for.

it's expected that the republicans will vote "no" unless you twist their arms until they scream.

Twisting their arms would include going to the people & talking about how the top income tiers got a free ride during the bush years, how they literally destroyed the economy with their speculation, how they're fighting bearing any of the cost of their own folly, & how THEY'RE PUTTING PEOPLE ON THE STREETS with the BLESSING OF THE REPUBLICANS.

Republicans play hardball every day, why can't we?

[AnArmyVeteran]

23. A person has to have GUTS to play hardball.

And it seems almost everyone in democratic leadership are terrified of going up against corrupt, soulless republicans. Anyone who gives into an enemy IS the enemy.

[treestar]

30. But that would just be a speech

Since you know how it's done, run for office.

They own the media, too.

[KonaKane]

41. Its an absolute mischaracterization of Obama and the Dems

and smart, honest people here know it. The OP headline was inflammatory to the point of silliness.

[Jim Sagle]

11. Actually your DENIAL is horseshit - and YOU know THAT..

[Sheepshank]

26. Who would have thought

that with so many still unemployed, so many still hurting, the job market still so weak, the economy barely finding a foothold, that anyone would actually have had to fight aggressively to help their constituents put food on the table and pay the rent. So help me if this is merely a strategy for the REPS to hurt Obama, they will all rot in hell!!!!!

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. The World Socialists? It must be that time of night again.

:rofl:

[girl gone mad]

8. Okay, so..

You can back up your rofl with some real evidence as to why the source is unreliable, right?

[autorank]

4. k*r Deliberately let this be a "cloture" situation

That could have been handled in reconciliation to have a simple majority vote.

Reid knows the rules in detail. Thus, we can assume that the requirement for cloture was
deliberately left in place by those who knew there would be problems.

[SeattleGirl]

9. Unrecommended because Obama and "the Dems" did NOT

abandon the jobless, other than Ben Nelson. It was the Republicans who voted against the bill. Blaming him and Dems who vote FOR a bill that would help the jobless is disingenuous.

[MyNameGoesHere]

28. well it is 50% correct then.

if I remember correctly President Obama has and will sign off on more war spending? Even supplemental under the budget radar. I though he was against that? Is this his unemployment plan? more peons enlisting?

Do you think he would have the gonads to threaten veto unless the peons got some money? Nah probably not, it is easier to let the right define his presidency than to make change happen.

[amborin]

10. Obama started abandoning the jobless in Nov 2008 with the bankster bailouts he lobbied so hard for

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/12/matt-taibbi-obamas-big-sellout.html

Here he talks about the Citi bailout

“Just look at the timeline of the Citigroup deal," says one leading Democratic consultant. "Just look at it. It’s fucking amazing. Amazing! And nobody said a thing about it."

Barack Obama was still just the president-elect when it happened, but the revolting and inexcusable $306 billion bailout that Citigroup received was the first major act of his presidency. In order to grasp the full horror of what took place, however, one needs to go back a few weeks before the actual bailout — to November 5th, 2008, the day after Obama’s election.

That was the day the jubilant Obama campaign announced its transition team. Though many of the names were familiar — former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, long-time Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett — the list was most notable for who was not on it, especially on the economic side. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who had served as one of Obama’s chief advisers during the campaign, didn’t make the cut. Neither did Karen Kornbluh, who had served as Obama’s policy director and was instrumental in crafting the Democratic Party’s platform. Both had emphasized populist themes during the campaign: Kornbluh was known for pushing Democrats to focus on the plight of the poor and middle class, while Goolsbee was an aggressive critic of Wall Street, declaring that AIG executives should receive "a Nobel Prize — for evil."

But come November 5th, both were banished from Obama’s inner circle — and replaced with a group of Wall Street bankers. Leading the search for the president’s new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters — chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself).

Incredibly, Froman did not resign from the bank when he went to work for Obama: He remained in the employ of Citigroup for two more months, even as he helped appoint the very people who would shape the future of his own firm. And to help him pick Obama’s economic team, Froman brought in none other than Jamie Rubin, a former Clinton diplomat who happens to be Bob Rubin’s son. At the time, Jamie’s dad was still earning roughly $15 million a year working for Citigroup, which was in the midst of a collapse brought on in part because Rubin had pushed the bank to invest heavily in mortgage-backed CDOs and other risky instruments.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting. It’s three weeks after the election. You have a lame-duck president in George W. Bush — still nominally in charge, but in reality already halfway to the golf-and-O’Doul’s portion of his career and more than happy to vacate the scene. Left to deal with the still-reeling economy are lame-duck Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former head of Goldman Sachs, and New York Fed chief Timothy Geithner, who served under Bob Rubin in the Clinton White House. Running Obama’s economic team are a still-employed Citigroup executive and the son of another Citigroup executive, who himself joined Obama’s transition team that same month.

So on November 23rd, 2008, a deal is announced in which the government will bail out Rubin’s messes at Citigroup with a massive buffet of taxpayer-funded cash and guarantees. It is a terrible deal for the government, almost universally panned by all serious economists, an outrage to anyone who pays taxes. Under the deal, the bank gets $20 billion in cash, on top of the $25 billion it had already received just weeks before as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But that’s just the appetizer. The government also agrees to charge taxpayers for up to $277 billion in losses on troubled Citi assets, many of them those toxic CDOs that Rubin had pushed Citi to invest in. No Citi executives are replaced, and few restrictions are placed on their compensation. It’s the sweetheart deal of the century, putting generations of working-stiff taxpayers on the hook to pay off Bob Rubin’s fuck-up-rich tenure at Citi. "If you had any doubts at all about the primacy of Wall Street over Main Street," former labor secretary Robert Reich declares when the bailout is announced, "your doubts should be laid to rest."

It is bad enough that one of Bob Rubin’s former protégés from the Clinton years, the New York Fed chief Geithner, is intimately involved in the negotiations, which unsurprisingly leave the Federal Reserve massively exposed to future Citi losses. But the real stunner comes only hours after the bailout deal is struck, when the Obama transition team makes a cheerful announcement: Timothy Geithner is going to be Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary!

Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman — before the ink is even dry on a massive government giveaway to Citigroup that Geithner himself was instrumental in delivering. In the annals of brazen political swindles, this one has to go in the all-time Fuck-the-Optics Hall of Fame.

snip

[Divine Discontent]

13. when you bring on board many people that nearly everyone here disliked before Obama was elected, you

are going to have a questionable series of actions that benefit the corporations. Your post is a good read. Sadly, some will miss it, or worse yet, not choose to really 'read' it.

People like Rahm, Geithner, Froman and many others - heck, even Gates, were very untrusted by most of us here, and most of the people we know personally who pay ATTENTION to what is going on around us.

To ignore who he put around him, is to ignore the root problem with the legislation 'stumbling' (or outright capitulation) that has plagued the WH the past 18 months - the GOP idiots only make things worse because they want to have a say in trying to stop any good thing the president does want done! So, they whine and gripe in closed door meetings about how they need this and that out of the bills to secure their votes - only to not vote for the thing in the end anyhow!


Sigh... not the situation I voted for when I walked into that booth in Florida and happily voted for Senator Obama to become my president.

For me, btw, the #1 situation that determines my vote in 2012 is the wars... if he gets us out shortly, I will very pleased. Troops dying over in the sand for no reason is a big f*cking deal to me. And, worse yet, little kids dying in the sand for no reason is a bigger deal.

[AnArmyVeteran]

27. Unless Obama does a 180 he shouldn't get the 012 nomination.

But who can step up as a real leader without being owned by corporations? This is sad. Both the above posts were great. I worked my ass off to get Obama elected. I was one of his delegates. But he has turned his back on the very people who got him to his office. Candidate-Obama has completely vanished and almost no trace of him are left and his promises have mostly been unfulfilled. I feel cheated and completely disillusioned.

The President can still do what is right, but he needs to fire almost ALL of the advisors who are steering him in the wrong direction (a corporate direction). Then he needs to surround himself with true progressives and start cramming things through congress. He needs to get tough with leaders in congress and tell them if republicans want to filibuster then they will have to live 24 hours a day speaking before almost empty seats throughout each night. Republicans should be FORCED to actually PERFORM the duties of a filibuster. Why are democratic leaders constantly caving in to the right wing when they know they aren't going to get any of their votes? It's insane. President Obama needs to read how LBJ was a master at getting things through congress. I don't give a damn if he knows a lot about Lincoln. I want him to act and be a democrat, a leader who is capable of using force instead of constantly retreating.

The Gulf oil disaster is a golden opportunity for President Obama to mobilize the nation toward a green future and he needs to address the nation with concrete and detailed plans how he is going to do it. If he, or his advisors, have no idea how to do what is right I suggest they listen to the people. I'd be glad to help him develop an energy plan for our nation. So far our country is still operating under energy policies developed by evil and corrupt thugs like Cheney, Ken Lay and the oil industry.

I get dismayed when I hear President Obama constantly refer to things as 'complicated'. Perhaps to him it is but not to the millions of people who worked their asses off to get him into the office he now holds. And if he only appointed the right people, like true progressives, to advise him he could develop an energy plan that could lead our country away from fossil fuels and toward greener sources of energy. Hell, with all of the money wasted on Bush's two wars we could have paid for solar panels for every household in America. It's NOT complicated Mr. President. It's NEVER complicated if you do the right thing...

[Divine Discontent]

38. but, "it's hard work". wasn't that the saying of W?

excellent post that really speaks to why so many are disappointed in the policies and actions of the WH. When he brought in Rahm right off the bat, it forbade a sense of things going corporate. It sure made the possibilities of a couple hundred billion dollars going towards green issues seem VERY unlikely, and instead, yet again, to the march of war...

Cheers to you, stay strong. The People will prevail, even as we suffer through horrible times. May our president instruct the party to start taking great action in these challenging times, and force the GOP to stay up all night giving speeches if they want to try and block the bills that will truly change this nation. Just like with the Health Care legislation - if they really wanted to get an amazing bill, they should have continually backed it with their simple majority votes and forced the GOP until they gave up - which they would have. Hopefully, things will change - because America needs it badly, and we sure as heck voted for it.

[MrScorpio]

12. I guess that for the Socialists, nothing by the Democrats is good enough nt

[Hannah Bell]

15. I just posted an article about the socialist party imposing austerity in spain.

i'm an equal-opportunity opponent of balancing financiers' checkbooks on the backs of workers.

i'd be posting the same criticism whatever party was officially in power.

so you can stop using "socialist" as if it were a cussword.

[MrScorpio]

17. All I'm saying is that the article is written from a certain point of view

Such as from a party that's not currently in power.

It doesn't make it particularly objective.

[Hannah Bell]

18. neither is the new york times. at least with the wsws, you know what their bias actually is & they

don't pretend different.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. yes indeed , I thought broad brush attacks of this sort were

straight out, according to the new rules. Or is that only against conservatives?

[Selatius]

16. Cutting benefits to the poor while subsidizing the rich really isn't agreeable.

Especially since the richest did more than their fair share to shred the US economy and seize the public wealth. Running deficits in a time of recession isn't a problem in my book, especially if it supports programs that essentially puts money in the pockets of the working class. It's what FDR did. I don't see why it's become so bad now except to say everybody's perceptions inside Congress has shifted rightward.

[Karmadillo]

20. I think the wsws

does try to position itself in opposition to the Democrats & Republicans. They're socialists and likely wish their views played a greater role in what's going on in the world (I wish they did, too--this empire thing & trillion dollar defense budgets while we ignore problems that could devastate our future is crazy). But given all that, I think they're right on this issue. It's just wrong for the Democrats not to fight harder for the unemployed. Circumstances are always different and Obama couldn't be a cookie-cutter FDR, but he is really losing a chance to be a signficant president by fighting the powers at a crucial time. We can't shell out $$$ for the banksters and then try to pay for UC by cutting food stamp benefits. We're better than that.

[Divine Discontent]

14. I hope they stand up quickly for the people, or there's gonna be a lot more homeless

they need to force the GOP criminal's hands on this and make them filibuster! If worse comes to worse, this is literally a bill of major importance during a tumultuous economic downturn - and they need to do reconciliation if they refuse to make the GOP stand up there for a day or two and filibuster against the American citizen!

[spanone]

21. more like ONE democratic senator and ALL republicans

[JoePhilly]

22. The article is intended to supress Dem turn out, and return the GOP to power, nothing more.

[redqueen]

24. Yep... this kind of BS is rampant, and sadly effective. (nt)

[treestar]

31. +1

How progressives and socialists think they will benefit from this kind of thing shows how out of touch with reality they are.

[spanone]

25. world socialist website.....say no more

'As the New York Times, a reliable supporter of the White House,'

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[treestar]

29. What does this "aggressive fight" consist of?

Instead of blaming Democrats for not somehow having control over Senate votes, why not blame the Senators who made those votes? It's like Senators are mindless sheep under the spell of the President.

[Greyhound]

33. How about instead of pretending that the White House and Party "Leadership" can't exert

tremendous pressure on Democrats, we acknowledge that when they do exercise it, they invariably do so to screw working people in favor of the parasites?

[SargeUNN]

32. B.S. It is the Repukes fault

Why don't you just blame Obama for my dog urinating on the carpet because he didn't come train my dog. That is what is wrong with our side, we don't want to give the full credit to the repukes for their evil but blame our own side for them. WAKE UP to this fact folks and then we can fight the real enemy. Consider this by Rachel http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=479383&mesg_id=479383

[bvar22]

34. When Kucinich was holding out for a Public Option,

the President himself went to his district and ran a very public negative campaign against him.
I'm sure that if the Leader of the Free World had wanted to, he could have found a way to get Ben Nelson's vote.

BTW: Nelson WAS the DLC sacrificial monkey on this vote.
It was his turn to "take one for The Team".
The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)\


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone



"By their works (or lack of work), you will know them."

[lonestarnot]

35. Yes.

[treestar]

36. If the POTUS found something to give Nelson to get his vote

We'd hear about "caving."

Fact it, Senators have power - it's part of the separation of powers. Quit blaming the POTUS for what Senators do. Which they are supposed to do. Nelson is supposed to look after Nebraska alone, just like any Senator is bound to be there for his/her state first.

[bvar22]

39. Face it.

The President OWNS the Bully Pulpit, and can use it, or NOT use it, to get what he wants.
In THIS case, The President chose to NOT use it.
Case closed.

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[treestar]

40. What was he going to say to change Nelson's mind?

That you wouldn't called "caving."

You talk as if a President saying something forces Senators to vote with him. It does not. They are separately powerful.

[dflprincess]

42. He could drag the Senate leadership to the White House

and make it clear that the time had come to use the nuclear option.

But then they wouldn't have an excuse for passing "reforms" that are so badly compromised the working and middle classes still get screwed.

[ProSense]

37. "the President himself went to his district and ran a very public negative campaign against him."

Kucinich was a victim of the big bad President?

Is that why he said this: “one of the things that bothers me is the attempt to deligitimize this presidency.”