I posted a version of this a few days back in GD, so I apoligize in advance if you've read it already.

Deficits aren't the problem staring Americans in the face now. An untenable economic future is the problem, and while ongoing massive deficits could lead us to that state someday they do not currently pose our gravest economic threat. That threat is a recovery from the Great Recession in which most Americans never really recover. That threat is an ever increasing pool of job applicants and an ever shrinking pool of good paying jobs to apply for. That threat is the collapse of the American Middle Class, that abiding source of hope and stability in a world where most people are less fortunate than us. For a decade or more Americans have watched this moment approaching us like a slow train rolling, but now the gate crossing lights are all flashing red.

It used to be that belonging to the middle class in America meant being economically comfortable in an upwardly mobile society, where the flat out poor struggled to enter the working class, and the working class aspired to join the middle class. There was always a strong element of myth to that picture, but at least some truth also, enough to keep the myth alive and most people believing in a real chance for a brighter future, no matter how dark the present tense.

We were taught to have faith in American ingenuity and the genius of our competitive free market system, which had bestowed greatness on America, and riches to our people. Americas leading brand name products were highly valued around the world, and typically made in America. For the most part Americas companies were American then, and their well being was linked in great part to the well being of a strong American middle class, who were ready and able to consume the products that they made in America. How long ago that all seems now.

When America suffered the Great Depression we were blanketed by a dark cloud that covered the globe, and Americans suffered along with the people of many other nations. But while America suffered that Great Depression the potential was always evident that better days could and even should lie before us. We were a still young and rising nation with abundant oil reserves and a technological lead over the rest of the planet, especially in the wake of World War II which was almost exclusively fought on other nation’s soil, leaving all of our natural competitors in shambles.

We don't live in a world that looks like that any longer. Asia is rising, India is rising, and parts of South America are starting to stir also. Europe as well has regained much of its lost traction. But most of all, America is not the same as it was a half century ago. Increasingly the great American companies of yesteryear are no longer owned and/or controlled by Americans, and their products are increasingly foreign made. Far more meaningful than that though is this; the American middle class is rapidly ceasing to be the consumer market of choice for the corporations that we once thought of as American. They don't need our skills to make their products, they don't need our land to base their operations in, and they increasingly don't need us to be their primary customers either. They no longer need for us to prosper.

Nor do they much longer need for their earnings to help maintain the health and social fabric of the society that they long called home. The ownership elite can live on any continent now, many nations are available for them to inhabit. They can go wherever they are made most welcome and there find shelter from the slow break down of the fabric of American society. They can always venture out in search of greener fields, but most Americans can not. They are global while we are local, increasingly just another market to invest in or not, depending on the relative rate of their return on those investments. The corporate class holds the cards and those cards are trumping the American middle class.

Big business used to say that a rising tide lifts all boats, but their ships are no longer anchored in American waters. The tide they speak of may not be our own. Government was in part a human invention to counter the avarice of organized gangs wielding enough power to overwhelm any individual standing alone. National governments however are now on a slow slide toward impotency in the face of the giant international economic networks that are today’s large corporations. Instead of being corporate regulators, governments instead are becoming corporate facilitators.

Deficits aren’t the problem in America today; they should better be viewed as a symptom of a national state of denial that has allowed the real threat to America to rapidly advance, virtually unimpeded.

An untenable economic future is the problem, and while ongoing massive deficits could lead us to that state someday they do not currently pose our gravest economic threat. That threat is a recovery from the Great Recession in which most Americans never really recover. That threat is an ever increasing pool of job applicants and an ever shrinking pool of good paying jobs to apply for. That threat is the collapse of the American Middle Class, that abiding source of hope and stability in a world where most people are less fortunate than us. For a decade or more Americans have watched this moment approaching us like a slow train rolling, but now the gate crossing lights are all flashing red.

It used to be that belonging to the middle class in America meant being economically comfortable in an upwardly mobile society, where the flat out poor struggled to enter the working class, and the working class aspired to join the middle class. There was always a strong element of myth to that picture, but at least some truth also, enough to keep the myth alive and most people believing in a real chance for a brighter future, no matter how dark the present tense.

We were taught to have faith in American ingenuity and the genius of our competitive free market system, which had bestowed greatness on America, and riches to our people. Americas leading brand name products were highly valued around the world, and typically made in America. For the most part Americas companies were American then, and their well being was linked in great part to the well being of a strong American middle class, who were ready and able to consume the products that they made in America. How long ago that all seems now.

When America suffered the Great Depression we were blanketed by a dark cloud that covered the globe, and Americans suffered along with the people of many other nations. But while America suffered that Great Depression the potential was always evident that better days could and even should lie before us. We were a still young and rising nation with abundant oil reserves and a technological lead over the rest of the planet, especially in the wake of World War II which was almost exclusively fought on other nation’s soil, leaving all of our natural competitors in shambles.

We don't live in a world that looks like that any longer. Asia is rising, India is rising, and parts of South America are starting to stir also. Europe as well has regained much of its lost traction. But most of all, America is not the same as it was a half century ago. Increasingly the great American companies of yesteryear are no longer owned and/or controlled by Americans, and their products are increasingly foreign made. Far more meaningful than that though is this; the American middle class is rapidly ceasing to be the consumer market of choice for the corporations that we once thought of as American. They don't need our skills to make their products, they don't need our land to base their operations in, and they increasingly don't need us to be their primary customers either. They no longer need for us to prosper.

Nor do they much longer need for their earnings to help maintain the health and social fabric of the society that they long called home. The ownership elite can live on any continent now, many nations are available for them to inhabit. They can go wherever they are made most welcome and there find shelter from the slow break down of the fabric of American society. They can always venture out in search of greener fields, but most Americans can not. They are global while we are local, increasingly just another market to invest in or not, depending on the relative rate of their return on those investments. The corporate class holds the cards and those cards are trumping the American middle class.

Big business used to say that a rising tide lifts all boats, but their ships are no longer anchored in American waters. The tide they speak of may not be our own. Government was in part a human invention to counter the avarice of organized gangs wielding enough power to overwhelm any individual standing alone. National governments however are now on a slow slide toward impotency in the face of the giant international economic networks that are today’s large corporations. Instead of being corporate regulators, governments instead are becoming corporate facilitators.

Deficits aren’t the problem in America today; they should better be viewed as a symptom of a national state of denial that has allowed the real threat to America to rapidly advance, virtually unimpeded.

Those savings were identified while conducting a detailed review of all government spending while preparing the current year’s budget proposal. That time Obama used a scalpel:

Weeding the budget of $17 billion
Obama administration proposes cuts in funding for more than 100 federal programs in latest salvo in 2010 budget fight.

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com
May 7, 2009: 4:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama on Thursday offered a more detailed look at his 2010 budget proposal, which includes recommendations to cut funding for 121 federal programs and save $17 billion in 2010.

"There is a lot of money being spent inefficiently, ineffectively, and -- in some cases -- in ways that are actually pretty stunning," Obama said.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/07/news/econo...

It is interesting to note that over half of those proposed savings came from the Defense Budget, which will be off limits from the new Budget Freeze Obama is now proposing. That freeze by necessity will include some significant further cuts to parts of the discretionary non Defense related budget, since Obama intends to allow spending growth in other targeted areas, which will then need to be offset by those cuts.

A spokesperson for the Administration explained it this way on the Rachel Maddow Show:

"We are NOT talking an across the board freeze!"

"This will entitle the President to comb through the budget and find policies that will help the middle class LIKE the policies that we announced today."

"It will allow him to pull back on wasteful spending that Congress has a hard time pulling back on, that lobbyists love."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#3506...

Which begs the question, where would those cuts be made now that the obvious fat was already trimmed from the Federal Budget last year? A small portion might come from the same list that Obama submitted last year. A story in the New York Times sheds some light on this matter:

Obama to Seek Spending Freeze to Trim Deficits
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: January 25, 2010

“…The administration officials did not identify which programs Mr. Obama would cut or eliminate, but said that information would be in the budget he submits next week. For the coming fiscal year, the reductions would be $10 billion to $15 billion, they said. Last year Mr. Obama proposed to cut a similar amount — $11.5 billion — and Congress approved about three-fifths of that, the officials said.

The federal government’s discretionary domestic spending has grown about 5 percent on average since 1993, according to the administration. It spiked to about 27 percent from 2008 to 2009, however, because of the recession. The sudden increase reflected both the first outlays from the $787 billion stimulus package as well as automatic spending for unemployment compensation and food stamps that is triggered during an economic downturn.

The freeze that Mr. Obama will propose for the fiscal years 2011 through 2013 actually means a cut in real terms, since the affected spending would not keep pace with inflation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/polit...

The New York Times story explains how even a simple across the board freeze would mean a real cut in funding for government programs in real terms, but with funding increases approved for some budget items under Obama’s flexible freeze, the full impact of those cuts will have to fall on those programs that were not singled out for funding increases, so they will suffer a double whammy. And this time that pain will not be shared by the Pentagon the way last year’s cuts were.

In arguing for a $17 Billion dollar cut last year, Obama made an interesting point:
"To put this in perspective, this is more than enough savings to pay for a $2,500 tuition tax credit for millions of students as well as a larger Pell Grant -- with enough money left over to pay for everything we do to protect the National Parks," he said.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/07/news/econo...

Anyone suggesting that the modified Budget Freeze that Obama is proposing for this year will be virtually free of pain if implemented might want to consider that observation carefully. Last year Obama used a scalpel when he proposed his budget cuts. What tool will he use this time, where will it’s blade be aimed, and who will fall on the cutting edge during this continuing recession? A small cut in government support can mean a great deal to someone who is already living on the edge.

Now you might think that this post is about the Health Care Reform Bill, or reappointing the Fed Chair, or about a new commission to balance the budget, or about torture at Gitmo, or Don't Ask Don't Tell, or any number of other specific issues. But it isn't. No, it's about the fabled epic quest to find an issue, any issue, on which progressive Democrats in Congress ultimately show less flexibility regarding their bottom line concerns than do centrist corporate blue dogs. It is a quest to find an issue, any issue, over which the left wing of the Democratic Party in Congress rebelled to the point of killing a major Democratic leadership initiative that the centrist corporate blue dogs faction of the Democratic Party had shown a good faith willingness to be flexible on in order to win one for the President.

This thread isn't about any of those above specific issues because specific issues always come and go, while lasting patterns get etched into the bedrock of conventional political wisdom. This is instead about a pattern as old as human history, it's the tale of the soft touch or easy mark, who can always be turned to when times get rough to get whatever it is that you need from them.

Lets update that morality tale to non political modern times. The first of the month is coming and the money just isn't there to pay all of your bills. One creditor, lets say its your fuel oil company, is known to be heartless and you can be sure they will shut you down instantly without loosing a minute of sleep over it. The other is a doctor who is treating you for an ongoing illness, who tends to show some compassion for the plight of others. You know both of these things to be true because your fuel oil company already shut you off once in the past for non payment while your doctor has renegotiated your fee after it was clear to him or her that you just couldn't afford the bill. Which of these creditors will you approach to tell them that they will have to accept less than they bargained for now?

Now you may think that I am about to argue that progressives in Congress should play hardball with the Democratic leadership over this or that specific issue. But I'm not. Reasonable loyalty and team play are positive political virtues that I support. But I am certain of one thing. At some point on some issue the quest for the progressives breaking point in Congress must be met with a loud *SNAP*, or progressives will continually illustrate the tale of the soft touch or easy mark for years to come in Congress, on issues that we haven't even heard of yet.

There's a lot of buzz now about pushing a Health Care Reform strategy that commences with the House passing the Senate HCR Bill as is, followed by another bill to improve and strengthen it crafted to pass the Senate via the reconciliation process. That makes a lot of sense. In fact it has always made a lot of sense to break HCR into two component pieces of legislation; one for reforms that reconciliation can't address but that could pass the Senate with the 60 votes needed for cloture, one passed by the reconciliation route with reforms that qualify for that path that can only muster a simple majority in the Senate for passage.

Because it makes so much sense and always has, it virtually begs the question, why is this only being seriously considered now? Why, had Coakley won in Massachusetts and Democrats thus retained their 60 member caucus in the Senate, were House negotiators about to be forced to accept a final piece of legislation that was 90 parts Senate version, and only 10 parts House?

It's not a moot question, because once again the House is being pressured, this time to word for word accept the version of HCR legislation that has already passed the Senate. Now the House is being told, "Don't worry we can cure what ails it through reconciliation", which is eerily akin to what liberals were told when the Senate version first cleared the Senate; "Don't worry, we can make it much better in the Conference committee" before those hopes were quashed by Conservadems in the Senate digging in their heels.

Talk about "the Reconciliation Sidecar strategy" has mostly been vague, with the content of that sidecar ill defined. except to say that it could be used to restore the agreements that were hammered out in negotiations between the House in Senate only to be thrown into chaos by the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election. I keep waiting for Democratic leaders to assert what for liberals is obvious; the silver lining in that wake up call from Massachusetts is our chance now to go back and get it right, to restore at least the Public Option and Medicare buy in that Joe Lieberman's "objections" forced Democrats to drop from the final compromise Senate version before it's final stripped down passage. Unless I've missed something none of them have said it, neither on nor off the record.

What I've heard instead is various pundits, some of them bloggers and others in the mainstream media, saying Democrats can pass the Senate bill now and improve it later, with a possible Public Option dangled out there as a carrot for getting on board with that strategy.

The reason, the one and only reason, why Democrats justified abandoning a Public Option in the first place was that unobtainable 60 vote threshold for it in the Senate, which becomes a null and void concern once the number of votes needed for passage in the Senate drops to 50 plus Biden by using reconciliation. So why don't we hear Democrats pushing "Senate Bill plus Sidecar" outright saying "Of course we'll minimally restore the Senate compromise that a working group of liberals and moderates worked out with Harry Reid before Joe Lieberman double crossed us"?

My growing unease is that we may be caught in a perennial spiral of managed lowered expectations. Now instead of having hope for at least winning a compromise on the compromised compromise of a Public Option as part of final health care reform, some seem to be asking us to hope, after the Senate bill is accepted exactly as is, that later efforts pursued through reconciliation will fix its most glaring deficiencies by restoring the deal we were about to get before Coakley lost. That's the deal that Liberals were told to hold our noises and support because nothing any longer could be done to improve upon it. That was back in the days when our Democratic leadership was firmly rejecting reconciliation as an option. Sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. I hope that isn't true now about health care reform.

A push for a reconciliation sidecar later, without a firm pledge that a real public option will be part of that, in order to win passage of the current HCR Senate bill as currently worded now, would tell me pretty much all that I need to know about today's Democratic Party.

That set the stage for so many troubles to follow. Our priorities could have and in hindsight should have been more sharply focused and boldly defined back then, in the early days of the Obama Administration on the heels of a sweeping Democratic victory in the 2008 elections. Direct job creation expenditures were cut back to make room for more Republican backed tax cuts and credits. The results; a less immediate and obvious bang for the buck in reducing unemployment, a concessionary soft peddling of the virtues of direct public works programs (laying the groundwork for a later retreat on the Public Option in HCR), an emboldened Republican minority who learned they could have their cake and eat it too by insisting that Democratic initiatives be changed in response to their concerns, and then opposing the final legislation anyway.

A tsunami of corporate money in politics is rapidly approaching. There may be effective long term strategies to contain or reverse it, but that wave of cold corporate political cash will arrive on our literal and virtual doorsteps by this summer at the latest. There is no way liberal activists, or even progressive PACs and Unions, can match it dollar for dollar, so I propose that we make a preemptive strike against it, and call it out wholesale in advance. The way I think we can most easily do that is to tap directly into populist distrust of "big money interests".

Slogans like I used in this OP title, and stuff like "If it really made sense why do they have to spend that many dollars trying to convince us?" can be used to make people naturally suspicious of all super funded political propaganda while simultaneously highlighting the adverse effects of the Supreme Court ruling, and stoking public opposition to it.

I remember when I lived in California, where there are always a dozen or more public referendums on the ballot, leaning a simple rule of thumb for deciding how to vote on all of them: Vote against the money. Most of the propositions were worded with 1984 "War is Peace" double talk, but the clear give away was always who had enough money to plaster the entire state with billboards? Whoever it was, vote opposite became my almost automatic mantra.

We need to start teaching the public that trick by making them suspicious any time massive amounts of media time get bought by corporations to promote a candidate. Tap into anti Wall Street fury and broaden it. Foster "who do they think I am to think they can buy my vote that way?" thinking. Condition knee jerk rejection of corporate funded candidates BECAUSE they are corporate funded candidates, and in that way start to turn their money advantage around against them.

Scaled down incremental may be the only way open in the short run. If Democrats introduce and pass some constructive reforms now while avoiding significant corporate give aways, they may get some slack from me on that issue. Admiration or respect? No, but a little slack perhaps. Obama almost certainly won't be able to get the Senate Bill through the House as is now because liberals and Unions are (justifiably) unhappy with too many of its provisions, and some conservative Dems likely want to run to the hills away from any Health Care Reform right about now anyway. Some Senate Dems like Webb have already signaled that they won't go along with rushing a new version through the Senate before Brown gets seated, so that isn't really an option either. And I don't think the trust is there for the White House to convince the House to pass the current Senate legislation with an understanding that the administration will fight for and win significant later improvements through reconciliation. One reason for skepticism is the length of time such an approach would take, even if the political will was there to attempt it.

Any reconciliation effort that failed to include a real Public Option in it would infuriate people like me, and there would be a lot of us. Republicans would use every stalling tactic in the book to stop that from going through. Democrats feel a need to make job creation front and center now as their primary political focus before the 2010 campaigns really ramp up, not some more months spent (in their eyes "wasted") arguing about health care reform.

I am not describing my ideal political strategy for Democrats now. I would urge them to throw caution to the wind and come down hard in favor of fighting for a massive expansion of Medicare right now using reconciliation in the Senate. I think they would do better in the Fall elections if they went that route than any other one I can imagine. And if pigs could fly...

...and people are not happy about it. Some changes were made, but "Change" didn't come, and Democrats are now held responsible for that. Change was the promise in 2008, and Democrats were trusted with the tools needed to make good on that promise. Voters didn't hold back on their end. They granted one political party, the Democrats, commanding majorities in both houses AND the Presidency for the first time in a generation. And Change didn't come to America. Be careful what is promised, or at least go down fighting to deliver what was promised.

Voters by and large are not looking for "adults who understand how to manage the system properly" right now. Voters by and large know that the system is broken, not merely mismanaged. It will take more than simple competency to fix what ails us now, and voters intuitively know it. It will take inspiration, it will will take a sharp rejection of the status quo, and it will take raw emotion to move voters in large numbers, because America needs to be on war time footing right now.

We need to rally to reverse a tide that is sweeping America toward a secondary status and a future for our children far worse than the life that their parents have led. The American dream has shifted into reverse and we all feel it, and we expect more from our leaders now than some tinkering with the engine after the transmission has slipped into the wrong gear.

Obama ran and won as an inspirational leader but he has governed more as a technocrat The Tea party types aren't bothering with the details of governance, they are out in the streets ringing alarm bells and screaming. Their shouts may be incoherent, but they still stand out against the gray false calm of technocrats fiddling with the same old knobs.

I would vote to elect Coakley to fill Kennedy's vacant seat, I would be part of that committed minority that turn out for a special election. In other words I would be a loyal Democratic base voter. I wouldn't stop with that though, I would also help out on Tuesday with get out the vote efforts, and I would volunteer to drive folks to the polls. Indubitably by now I would have made a small cash donation to the Coakley campaign also, even though I am severely underemployed.

In other words I would force myself to over ride my overall disillusionment with the Democratic Party and my anger over the HCR cave in to do at least that much to keep Republicans from picking up a Senate seat from my state. But I know I am capable of doing a great deal more than that.

Even though I live in New York State instead of Massachusetts, I could have been driving over to Massachusetts on my off days to volunteer for her campaign. It's a 90 minute drive, I've done that for politics before. Even living here in New York State, I could be giving up drinking coffee out and donating that money to Coakley's campaign instead, but I'm not. I do those type things when I really believe in something or someone, not when I'm just objecting to something or someone else. One thing you can't fake, and you can't replace, is enthusiasm. I have none for the Democratic Party right now.

I can still depend on my mind to tell me what I must do, and so if I lived in Massachusetts I would do all of what I said I would do above. I clearly do not want Brown to win. But my mind can't force me to do things that take a real sacrifice on my part to do, only my heart can make me do that, and my heart just isn't in it right now. That is political reality 101, it's a law of human physics. I hope the National Democratic Party understands the difference between loyalty and devotion. They can convince me of a need for loyalty, but my devotion can only be earned.

They know how to play hard ball and they did. They have money and activists that Democrats need in order to win elections and Unions are not shy about pointing that out in Washington. Liberals and even moderate Democrats were anxious about blatantly double crossing Unions on health insurance when Unions forcefully objected.

Unions have whatever influence they still retain because generations ago workers organized and banded together to protect their common interests, prevailing against overwhelming resistance. There are still many basic lessons for todays progressive activists to learn from Organized Labor's history and from their role today.

Of course it goes without saying that I also am proud of all of the Americans civilians who also are rallying to help those desperately in need now in Haiti. But I take special pride in seeing the institution that our nation deploys to defend ourselves, through the use force if necessary, used to bring rapid and essential relief to people suffering in the world. The U.S. is not alone in our willingness to use our military to respond to a humanitarian catastrophe like this, but it is a still source of pride for me that we do, and that we do it so well when we do.

I salute the members of our military who, as I type this, are scrambling to save lives in Haiti. Your efforts bring us honor of the sort that mere might never can.

New Yorkers embraced both Bobby and Hillary as liberal Democrats, unlike yourself. But more to the point, New Yorkers embraced both because they both were likely future Presidents when they ran, and both were already in the ranks of global movers and shakers. New York City is a world capital, and New York is a world center for the arts and finances. New Yorkers are attracted to big talent and tend to feel a common bond with those who have already achieved raves on the world stage. That is why neither Bobby nor Hillary were rejected as carpet baggers.

In case you haven't noticed Harold, you don't measure up.