Digby On Budget Negotiations: "Watching The Flames"

[Hissyspit]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/watching-flames.html

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I think that about says it all. This has become the new "middle ground" and it includes devastating cuts to Social Security, the worst of which will fall upon women in their most geriatric years and disabled people who depend upon SSI, more cuts to Medicare and a likely devastating body blow to Medicaid, which also will hit the elderly far worse than anyone realizes. (Learn how to change adult diapers, kids, because that's what you're going to spend your 40s and 50s doing.)

- snip -

If it is absolutely necessary to cut 4 trillion dollars in government spending in the middle of an economic downturn (a very questionable assumption) that should be the administration's preferred route, not this Grand Bargain nonsense.

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I know this is depressing. And there is still a good chance that the Republicans are too stupid to take yes for an answer. For all we know, a huge new boom in something is waiting just around the corner and it will obliterate all the bad decisions that are being made right now. But it still pays to remember that all this deficit talk is a construct that has no real meaning in terms of the immediate problems we face or the election to come. Interest rates are well in hand and even if they weren't, there would be other things to do aside from slashing government spending. This Grand Bargain talk is only even possible because we are in an Economic Shock environment in which all manner of otherwise nonsensical policies and delusional beliefs in magical solutions to irrelevant problems are being tested and possibly enacted.

It's true that the GOP is batshit nuts. Nobody is going to argue that the prospect of Michele Bachman and her freakshow followers with more power than they already have is terrifying. But the Democratic party isn't exactly behaving like solid, serious leaders either, no matter how many times they use the words "balanced approach." They are fiddling while Rome burns and the Tea Party is just dancing around the fire throwing gas on the flames.

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[madrchsod]

1. yup! he`s right on target....

he sums up how i feel about the bullshit that`s going on

[Hissyspit]

2. Digby is she.

I've met her!

[murielm99]

3. I pmed you. n/t

[KoKo]

4. I've been hearing Digby was so moderate it was frustrating for her readers...

so..this seems to be a turn in sentiment for her?

(have to confess I was a huge reader of her in her early days..and then drifted off after the last election, but don't remember why) But, I've seen comments around that some who used to read her felt she had become too moderate in her opinions compared to what she used to be. I don't know the truth of it.

[girl gone mad]

5. k & r