“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” -- Rahm Emanuel
The recent debt-ceiling deal shows that Republicans and Tea Party Randroids have taken Rahm’s quote and made it their own – with a cherry on top.
When I look back at TARP through the lense of today's GOP operators in the debt deal, Democrats had a golden opportunity to use the Wall Street crisis as a hostage by demanding a ransom – the ransom being the raising of the income cap on Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes to the level of the annual salaries of congress – around $175,000. With the additional boost in participants, they could have also reduced the payroll tax by a half point or so. They did not. Apparently, taking ultimate advantage of a poor situation is not in our DNA. One way or another, TARP just like the debt-ceiling crisis, was going to be approved. It was just a matter if anyone cared about not letting a good crisis go to waste.
Instead, Democrats tackled that one crisis issue of TARP head-on and never once thought about Rahm’s rule. The most Obama was able to get out of the deal was his using of TARP funds to save hundreds of thousands of middle-class American jobs by reinvesting in a restructured GM and Chrysler. But that was not part of the original deal to get the votes to pass TARP. TARP passed under Bush, and Obama never really took a hostage in exchange to save GM.
The public got its first taste of discernible republican "disaster capitalism" or shock politics in December of 2010. Obama was skewered and cooked when he attempted to re-instate the unemployment compensation extension and raise tax revenues by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. After the ransom was paid on that deal, Republicans wound up keeping the Bush tax cuts while handing Obama a dead and mutilated hostage worth about a NEGATIVE $900 billion over two years.
Now enter the next big national crisis.
Irresponsible Republicans took what should have been an informal increase in the debt ceiling limit, an event that has occurred routinely for decades and seven times under GW Bush, and turned it into a crisis threatening the nation’s ability to pay its bills. Instead of demanding Congress pass a one-page debt ceiling hike through 2012, Obama played along with their charade and attempted to corner the rigid Republicans into a compromise offering even deeper spending cuts for a slight tax revenue increase. No way would Republicans go for that since almost all them have superseded their oath of office with a pledge to one man, Grover Norquist, to never raise taxes. Ever.
In the end and yet again, Obama "compromised" with himself and shot the tax revenue increase ransom in the head while the terrorists released the hostage (debt-ceiling increase) in exchange for cutting trillions in active tax revenue dollars out of the U.S economy.
On two recent occasions now Republicans have brought the entire country down to the lowest common denominator, the potential for catastrophic shock, to achieve their goal. After the dust cleared, Obama leaves me scratching my head wondering if he's the inside man for them.
I totally agree with the observation that Republicans have mastered the art of political terrorism. They are not working for the good of the country, instead they are gauging the enemies weakness and strengths (anybody who opposes them) to formulate a legislative hostage/ransom plan to push through an ideological agenda. They know what the next hostage looks like and they know what the ransom demands will be. All they need is a crisis, or the framework to fabricate one. The problem is – do the Democrats even understand what’s going on? Asking whether they are fully prepared to repel this dastardly scheme seems like a punchline for a cruel joke.
Pelosi vows Dems won't get rolled again. Thanks for the boost in confidence.
Confirmation Of Disaster Capitalism Shock Politics - QUOTE
“The lesson from the debt ceiling brinksmanship is that it worked. I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage worth shooting. Most of us didn’t think that, what we did learn is this – it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the congress on something what must be done” – Sen. Mitch McConnell Republican Senate Minority Hostage Taker.
Here's yet another spin-off of Rahm's quote being expertly explained by Kimberly-Clark's CEO Thomas Falk at a recent Senate finance hearing. This video uploaded by the Democurmudgeon also noted that not one eye brow in the hearing room was raised. Disaster capitalism now appears to be the lay of the land.
It’s seems almost unconstitutional if not downright ludicrous to consider the idea of a “super committee” controlled by K street lobbyists to formulate government spending cuts, but I have to agree with Lawrence O’donnell on this one. On today's show he suggested any congressmen who signed a pledge never to raise tax revenue under any circumstances be barred from serving on the committee. That would leave only 13 Republicans who did not abandon their oath to their office.
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