President Obama's Centrist Actions/Rhetoric Now = Future Demise Of The GOP

[Jim Lane]

20. In practice, it means they go along with Republican ideas, but a bit less so.

In the current debate over fiscal policy, for example:
* Republicans say we must address the deficit crisis by drastic cuts in programs that help the poor and middle class, while protecting the rich -- cut their taxes, maintain military spending that benefits the MIC, and don't discuss the billions spent on corporate handouts.
* Centrists say we must address the deficit crisis by more balanced sacrifice -- serious but less-than-drastic cuts in programs that help the poor and middle class, some very modest increase in taxes on the rich, and even a few cuts in military spending and other programs that Republicans like.
* Liberals say that there is no deficit crisis, there's a jobs crisis. The rate of unemployment and underemployment is still disastrously high. Government can address that by taking steps to increase aggregate demand, so the projected deficit for 2013 isn't too high, it's too low. The government should undertake major stimulative action. Increasing taxes on the rich should be done in the interest of fairness, but that step will have a small contractionary effect on the economy, so the overall stimulus should be large enough to overcome that.

I am a liberal. About all you can say for the "centrist" solution, which Obama has adopted, is that it's not as bad as the Republican alternative.