MoveOn Blasts Latest Fiscal Cliff Offer

[ProSense]

MoveOn Blasts Latest Fiscal Cliff Offer

MoveOn, the progressive activist group, fired a strongly worded shot across President Obama's bow following reports that the White House had offered Republicans significant concessions on entitlements, in particular Social Security, in so-called fiscal cliff negotiations Monday night.

"MoveOn members overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, and they've made clear that they would see any fiscal agreement that cuts such benefits as a betrayal that sells out working and middle class families -- whether the cuts come via a chained CPI, increased Medicare eligibility age, or in some other form," said MoveOn Executive Director Justin Ruben. "If such a deal were proposed by the President and Speaker, MoveOn members would expect every Senate and House Democrat to do everything in their power to block it. Senate Majority Leader Reid would play a crucial role, as MoveOn members would count on him and other senators to remain true to their repeated promises to keep Social Security benefits off the table."

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/moveon-blasts-latest-fiscal-cliff-offer

I'm holding out hope that this rumor is a result of Boehner using the complicit media to create the perception that he's negotiating.

Boehner made a ridiculous offer a couple of days ago (http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=338282), and the President rejected it.

White House won't accept new tax offer from Republican leader
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/16/us-usa-fiscal-republicans-idUSBRE8BE0AN20121216

Now, we're to believe the President made a counter offer based on a proposal he rejected, only to have Boehner reject the counter offer?

Obama 'cliff' offer is flawed but positive: Boehner aides
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/18/us-fiscal-offer-boehner-idUSBRE8BH04A20121218

And why the hell is Social Security even being discussed in deficit negotiations?

[Cobalt Violet]

1. and then he expects dems to turn out and vote for a Kerry replacement?

[still_one]

2. This is what huffington is reporting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/obama-fiscal-cliff-offer_n_2319075.html

[DJ13]

3. Oh, this is (NOT) reassuring

"An administration official said that this was not the president's "final offer," but one that the White House viewed as a legitimate halfway point between the two sides."


Good news, the WH has already signaled a willingness to go even further than the sell out already proposed, before the other side has even responded.

Is there anyone in the WH who knows how to make deals?

They seem pretty incompetent at it.

[rhett o rick]

9. Maybe they are not incompetent at all. Maybe they are getting exactly what THEY want. nm

[HiPointDem]

10. yes. both parties want to cut social benefits, just as in europe and elsewhere. in fact, this

is the austerity programme of the global ruling class.

[kath]

15. To pretend at this point that we have anything resembling representative government is ridiculous.

It's government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

And it sucks. Big time.

[HiPointDem]

16. sure does. the whole public space is a big fat fucking joke. nothing but lies, manipulation,

distractions, & denigration of anyone who tries to speak out.

[rhett o rick]

22. I agree. But approx 68% of the eligible voters in the last election either didnt vote or voted for

dipshit Romney. Apparently most Americans are ambivalent about democracy.

[Faryn Balyncd]

4. kick

[TheKentuckian]

5. Good folding during the shitstorm distraction.

Better keep the eyes on the prize and no we can't walk and chew gum.

Occasionally, gum is chewed but walking is nil even without the gum in decades. We're going backward on economic issues fast.

[Doctor_J]

6. Right on schedule

cue the excuse-erator.

Why is this being discussed? Because we elected a weak-kneed appeasing corporatist.

This is the way the "president" will lead the Dems to disaster in 2014. For those of you who say we have to show up anyway, a great, big FUCK OFF

[rsmith6621]

7. I'm Hoping Obama Is Bluffing

...but right now I dont hold out hope.

[CitizenPatriot]

8. hello

"The details of the offer were sent to The Huffington Post on condition of the source's anonymity. "

so it could be from Boehner himself.

I have a hard time believing Obama would back off of the 250 marker he campaigned on. But whatever. Yes, let's all assume the anonymous source is a Democrat from the White House, even though it does not say that.

It's not like Republicans don't ever use the media to create bad publicity or sell their bs.

According to Reuters, this proposal matches the "Republican framing for the proposal" according to sources in the meetings.

"The WH rejected major points of the proposal." -- From Wall Street Journal.

No wonder you're outraged. This appears to be the Republican proposal.

[HiPointDem]

11. reported in the WAPO & by MoveOn, as well as other sources. reported as OBAMA'S Counter-

offer which boner agreed to.

[sabrina 1]

17. It certainly does sound like 'Republican Proposal' so it better NOT be from

a Democratic President.

[rhett o rick]

23. .

[Doctor_J]

12. Let me remind you of Chris Hedges' prescience after the election

...

Liberals have assured us that after the election they will build a movement to hold the president accountable—although how or when or what this movement will look like they cannot say. They didn’t hold him accountable during his first term. They won’t during his second. ... They will carp and whine in the wings until they are trotted out again to assume their role in the next political propaganda campaign of disempowerment and fear. They will, in the meantime, become the butt of ridicule and derision by the very politicians they supported.

...

“They attacked liberalism,” Stern writes of the fascists emerging at the time in Germany, “because it seemed to them the principal premise of modern society; everything they dreaded seemed to spring from it; the bourgeois life, Manchesterism, materialism, parliament and the parties, the lack of political leadership. Even more, they sense in liberalism the source of all their inner sufferings. Theirs was a resentment of loneliness; their one desire was for a new faith, a new community of believers, a world with fixed standards and no doubts, a new national religion that would bind all Germans together. All this, liberalism denied. Hence, they hated liberalism, blamed it for making outcasts of them, for uprooting them from their imaginary past, and from their faith.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/once_again_--_death_of_the_liberal_class_20121112/

I must say the WH is shitting on us way ahead of schedule. I thought they would give us a couple months at least of lip service, in thanks for working our asses off. Then when it was reported last week that Durbin & Pelosi had to talk Obama out of pre-emptive appeasement, the picture began to clear. we're not even going to make it to 2013 before he gives in.

[HiPointDem]

18. i thought they'd try christmas week while we were all eating ham.

[Skittles]

13. I prefer to wait and see

it cannot be possible Obama did not learn a fucking thing during the last election....

[Honeycombe8]

14. I don't believe this. Really. I don't believe it. SS cuts - no.

I just don't believe it, until a reliable source is quoted. It may have come from a trouble making Republican source.

But I do believe Medicare cuts, because Obama's initial plan offered to Boehner had $450M in Medicare cuts (not age eligibility being raised). I knew Medicare cuts would be done. That's been clear for a while now.

Well, I see in another post that Ezra Klein seems to have inside info that the CPI thing in Social Security is the major concession. I hope that's not true. I'll be really upset if it is.

[HiPointDem]

19. washington post, paul krugman, ezra klein, reuters, atlanta constitution, la times not reliable

enough?

according to them, this is the deal on the table and what remains is to sell it to republican congresspeople.

according to them, it was obama's counteroffer to boner.

[sabrina 1]

20. They are messing with the People's Pension Fund. They have no right to

touch that fund to pay fro the corrupt, gambling debts of Wall Street. That fund does not belong to the Federal Government. So why is it still 'on the table'?

No wonder Feinstein and Boxer won't answer calls asking them to make a statement about taking SS of the Deficit table where it never belonged. Maybe because they know that a deal was already made.

IF this happens, it will be the biggest betrayal of the people who elected him by a Democratic President in my memory. He will be the first Dem President to agree to use the SS fund as a bargaining chip with the party of Wall St.

Let's hope it's not true because if it is, as the Coalition of Unions and Progressive Organizations have warned, 'there will be hell to pay'.

[Luminous Animal]

21. I believe this is a cynical false flag operation. SS really is not on the table but "the people"

and the Dems look like heroes when it doesn't happen.

Sure, they can go on killing innocents around the world but but but, they DIDN'T MAKE GRANDMA EAT CAT FOOD!!!! What's a few (hundreds) of dead Pakistani children compared to grandma being able to enjoy her hamburger.

[woo me with science]

24. I think it's a definite possibility.

We get more austerity no matter what. The banks retain their power and immunity, no matter what. The MIC gets fed, no matter what. There is absolutely nothing on the horizon to slow the looting or help the people. Dangling this potential assault and then drawing it back at the last minute is how they will try to make us grateful for more austerity, looting, and protection of the banks.

We live and drown in carefully crafted illusion and propaganda to justify corporate bloodsucking. North Korea has nothing on Wall Street when it comes to stagecraft.