For weeks, Democrats and Republicans have debated about
whether to stab poor and working people in the back or in the chest. With their deal, President Obama and the Democratic Party have agreed with the
Republicans that yes, stabbing working people in the chest will do just fine.
Now they expect workers to applaud them for having worked
together and struck a deal to supposedly avert economic disaster. So try to
ignore that piercing pain and suffering over the next months and years—they
thank you for your sacrifice.
This deal is no “compromise.” It is a bipartisan attack launched by the White House and its allies in Congress on behalf of the banks and corporations against the living standards of workers:
$917 billion in spending cuts, with no tax increases on the wealthy. The
immediate targets will be education, housing, health care, transportation,
environmental protection, and an assortment of social programs and services that
are already stretched thin.
In November, a bipartisan commission will be tasked with
coming up with $1.5 trillion more in “deficit reduction.” While technically
this could include tax increases on the rich and closing their tax loopholes,
the corporate media is already referring to such tax changes as doubtful. The “deficit
reduction” will come in the form of more cuts.
And if they can’t agree on what to cut, then that too will
trigger automatic cuts!
Medicare and Social Security will be spared in the
short-term, but the last few weeks of ruling-class debate has shown these are
hardly “untouchable” programs. The Democrats were willing to put them on the
table this time, and with enough pressure from Wall Street, they will do so
again. They will be “negotiable” as soon as November.
Of course, the whole Social Security system could be put on
sound economic footing with a few rudimentary tax measures. Right now,
employees pay 4.2 percent of their wages into Social Security. But this is
capped at $106,800 in wages, so someone who makes $10 million contributes the
same amount as someone who makes $106,800. Workers pay 4.2 percent, whereas such
millionaires do not even pay 1 percent. A reasonable first step would be to
remove that cap, but neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would dare
suggest it.
Cuts in defense
spending?
The Democrats will advertise that the new bill cuts defense
spending by $350 billion, and could cut it by an additional $500 billion if the
Republicans don’t play nice in the next round of negotiations. The White House
calls this “shared sacrifice.”
But hold on. Cutting $350 billion over 10 years from the
Department of Defense would only be a 5 percent cut. The Defense department
budget is nearly four times the size of the Health, Education and Housing
budgets combined. Unlike Defense, such departments will be devastated. The
possible defense spending cut would have no impact on the endless wars and
criminal occupations, which have cost so much in financial terms and human
lives.
In fact, the bill speaks not of cutting “defense spending”
but “security spending,” which includes the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Instead of scaling back the forces of war, repression and domestic
surveillance, these “security” cuts may easily be aimed at veterans’ health
care and retirement benefits.
Is this really a
democracy?
Both Republicans and Democrats have falsely claimed that
they have an electoral mandate to cut public spending. They have used all of
their collective political will to make this cutback program a reality.
In fact, if this were a real democracy, the government would
have gone after the Wall Street thieves and parasites who everyone knows
plunged the country into crisis. Instead, they were bailed out to the tune of
several trillion dollars.
The public has time and again identified jobs as the most
pressing economic problem. If this were a real democracy, the government would
use society’s vast wealth to respond to the people’s most pressing needs. But
for the capitalist parties, it is no “emergency” or “catastrophe” that there
are 44 million people below the poverty line (and that is with a ridiculously underestimated poverty level of $22,350 for a family of four).
The number of people without health care has risen to 52
million. There is no emergency bill for the millions of families facing
eviction and foreclosure every year. From just 2005 to 2009, Latino households lost 66
percent and Black households lost 53 percent of their so-called “wealth.”
Based on demographic changes, the country’s elderly
population is set to become disproportionately larger than it is today. At the
same time, pensions have been systematically eliminated, and 401k plans have
taken monumental losses. Social Security—referred to as “supplemental income”—is
usually not enough to get by on. In a real democracy, the politicians would be
discussing how to expand Social Security payments, not cut them.
What can working people do?
This bipartisan agreement disproves once and for all the
notion that the right-wing tide in this country can be reversed, or meaningful reforms won, through electoral politics. Neither the re-election of
Obama nor the election of a Democratic Congress will transform a thing.
As a first step, community organizations and labor unions
should call for one million poor and working people to march on Washington.
There should be mass marches and sit-ins on Wall Street and in State Capitols across
the country.
A radical reversal of tides will also require a radical
vision. For the Party for Socialism and Liberation, that means the
revolutionary replacement of one power, Wall Street, with another power: the
vast majority of society. The debt deal confirms that this political system is
not by, of, or for the people. It is an impenetrable dictatorship of the rich
masked by the appearance of choice. All people who are serious about change
must think seriously about the need for a new system and how to achieve
it.
Join the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the struggle for a new system.
