My wife and I saw Judy Woodruff's conversation with Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky (D, Ill) on Channel 13's PBS Newshour (11-22-10). Representative Schakowsky said succinctly what I have been thinking after Bowles and Simpson released their plan to rape and pillage the poor, the elderly and the middleclass. "Right On" Congreswoman!" we both shouted out to the TV screen.See: http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=529805&
What did she say? Schakowsky who is a popular Congresswaman in the 9th Illinois Congressional District, who has won there handily for a number of terms now, was appointed to the Commission by Speaker Pelosi. She spoke eloquently and clearly and what she said made a lot of sense. She has just released her own plan for deficit reduction that differs substantially from the Erskine Bowles --Alan Simpson plan. Schakowsky's plan would wipe 440 billion out the deficit column by 2015, but not cut Social Security and Medicare, which the Bowles-Simpson plan carve away at. Schakowsky's plan relies on closing tax breaks for big corporations, it cuts $110 billion from the bloated "defense" budget and generates other income by new revenues including taxing capital gains as ordinary income.See: http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2010/11/12/krugman-dissects-catfood-commission-recomendations/
The so-called "bipartisan" commission was a bad idea from the start and President Obama was careless and shortsighted in dumping the problem on such a group. To begin with, any "bipartisan" plan in Washington is likely to fail since it must find middle ground between the likes of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. Whenever the progressives attempt to "compromise" they are dealing with colleagues who are so far removed from reality they end up having to re-invent the wheel and introduce the idea of fire to their comrades on the other side of the aisle. The commission has begun to be termed the "Catfood Commission" since its solutions are apparently aimed at getting the elderly and indigent to have to go on a catfood diet to survive.
Schakosky stated: “I thought it was important to put forth a proposal that says we don’t have to go after the middle and lower classes in our country in order to pay for deficit and debt that they had nothing to do with creating, and that we yet could take this problem seriously down the road to reduce the deficit and the long-term debt.” (Transcript from PBS Newshour)
See: http://www.zagasi.com/democratic-rep-jan-schakowsky-says-social-security-not-part-of-the-deficit-problem/221126/
Economist Paul Krugman (and NYT columnist) sees the Bowles-Simpson proposal this way:
"Actually, though, what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class. They suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate."
Beyond that the idea that our workers must work to the age of 69 years...rather than 65 strikes Krugman as unfair. It might not be bad for an office worker or accountant but a laborer? Also he states:" But beyond that, the proposal seemingly ignores a crucial point: while average life expectancy is indeed rising, it’s doing so mainly for high earners, precisely the people who need Social Security least. Life expectancy in the bottom half of the income distribution has barely inched up over the past three decades. So the Bowles-Simpson proposal is basically saying that janitors should be forced to work longer because these days corporate lawyers live to a ripe old age"
Krugman ends with" It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old — tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net."
So this is where Madam Schakowsky's proposal is so important. It at least puts the Bowles-Simpson proposal out there where it belongs--a right wing wish list. Ms Schakowsky's propsal presents a yardstick for the nation to gauge the commission's formal presentation. It helps to put it in its place...somewhere out with Genghis and Atilla.
Kudos Congresswoman Schakowsky!
Do you get the picture--now?
rjk
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