Pirate's Cove

I guess David Brooks is wrong: Obama does have a plan. Or at least an outline of a plan. Whether there are any actual details and legislation that can be voted on is unknown. Here’s Jennifer Palmieri blogging for Obama

A Balanced Plan to Avert the Sequester and Reduce the Deficit

Good thing America doesn’t have over $16 trillion in debt.

In eight days, apocalyptic automatic cuts are slated to take effect, threatening tens of millions of jobs, and cutting vital services for children, seniors, people with mental illness and our men and women in uniform, forcing them to live on the streets and be part of involuntary servitude. 50% of hospital will close, we’ll have to lay off 90% of First Responders, all of our Navy ships will be out of fuel and floating around, our submarines will sink to the bottom of the ocean, our planes will fall out of the sky. People will be stuck in 10 hour lines at airports, jails will have to close leading to cannibalism, and, worse, Andrews Air Force Base golf course will close. Most schools will close, turning our kids into rebels without a cause. Bears will eat tourists in our national parks without the hand of park rangers to protect them. Did I mention that Andrews golf course will close?

We’re dooooooooomed!

Only Congress can avoid this self-inflicted wound to our economy and middle class families, and the only thing standing in the way of a solution today is Congressional Republicans’ refusal to even consider closing tax loopholes that benefit wealthy Americans and well-connected corporations. The President and Congressional Democrats have put forward solutions to avoid these cuts and allow time for both sides to work on a long-term, balanced solution to our deficit challenges.

I love how the official White House website has been turned into a Daily Kos diary. Then we get some yapping about Obama having already reduced spending $1.4 trillion, which is a bunch of mule fritters, especially considering that the federal budget keeps going up and up and up, as does the debt. But, Obama’s got a plan!

Remember, this is laid out over 10 years. $100 billion for non-defense discretionary spending? A pittance. $400 billion saved in medical outlays? That means denial of service, including medicine and through the IPAB (“death panels”). $130 billion in Social Security cuts? In practice it’ll never happen. And let’s not forget $50 billion in new spending on infrastructure, as if Obama hadn’t already wasted $850 billion in borrowed money on Stimulus.

Unsurprisingly, he’s big on taxes, to the tune on $580 billion. But, even if people don’t change their behavior to avoid those taxes and the money comes in (unlikely), we are still talking about 10 years. Like Sequester, this is a joke. $1.8 billion over 10 years is a pittance when we’re running trillion dollar deficits and adding over a trillion a year to the debt.

Sadly, few Americans are willing to make cuts. We’re one step closer to being Greece.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.