Obama Pick for Budget Commission Is a Very Ominous Sign; A Social Security-Medicare Slasher
OPS_admin | Feb 26, 2010 | Comments 0
We should be focusing on the cost of two wars, Bush’s rotten medicare reform and outrageous tax cuts to the wealthy before slashing Social Security.
On Thursday, President Obama signed an executive order creating a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
This commission is based on an idea promoted by two Senators, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus warned that the Conrad-Gregg legislative version of the deficit commission would have “painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That’s what this commission is all about. It’s a big roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare.”
President Obama pushed to get the Senate to pass the Conrad-Gregg commission, which would have required the Congress to vote on its budget-cutting recommendations in a “fast-track,” undemocratic up-or-down vote with no amendments and little opportunity for debate. Senate Republicans, some of whom sponsored the legislation, refused to vote for it – so Obama is doing something similar by executive order.
So what should the 60 organizations and many concerned citizens who opposed the Conrad-Gregg version of this commission (because they heeded Sen. Baucus’s warnings) think about the Obama version?
Filed Under: Progressive Issues
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
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