Sacrifice (Not Shared)

We now have sorry news of the foul deal that the White House is pushing in the debt ceiling talks.

About $1.5 trillion in spending cuts -- including $200-300 billion from Medicare and Medicaid -- in exchange for $130 billion in loophole closings -- corporate jets, race horses and the like.

Forget about one-to-one spending cuts to top end tax hikes. This is worse than 10 to 1. Programs vital to Americans get cut -- Medicare, Medicaid, Pell grants, education, public health. Tax breaks not needed for the wealthy get extended.

Consider how we got here.

Instead of insisting on a clean lift of the debt ceiling with no extortion, the White House caved and agreed to negotiate with extortionists willing to threaten to blow up the economy if they don't get their way.

Instead of insisting on a one to one ratio of spending cuts to top end tax hikes, the White House caved and apparently accepts that spending cuts will be most of the deal, ratifying the utterly dishonest conservative claim that government spending has been out of control.

Instead of insisting that top end tax rates must be hiked, or demanding a millionaire's tax at a time when the richest Americans are paying a lower effective tax rate than their chauffeurs, the White House caved and now brags that it has embraced no tax rate hikes, it only wants to close egregious loopholes.

This is, in a word, pathetic.

Forget shared sacrifice. The most vulnerable Americans will be forced to pay for the mess created by Wall Street's excesses and Bush's follies. If these guys were negotiating for the purchase of your next car, your first born might be at risk.

Through this, Democrats have been silent.
~ from Will Democrats Embrace a Foul Deal? by Robert Borosage ~

Oh yes, Democrats are soooo much better than those evil Republicans!