“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Robert Reich: The Republican’s Double-Dip, and What Must Be Done
John Boehner said Tuesday the Republicans got “90 percent of what we wanted” from the budget deal. So presumably he and his colleagues are willing to take responsibility for some 450 points of today’s mammoth 513-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
I’m being a bit facetious – but only a bit. It’s always dangerous to read too much into one day’s move in the stock market.
Yet the stock sell-off – not just today’s, but that of the last days – cannot be easily dismissed. It marks Wall Street’s largest losing streak since 2008.
Republicans repeatedly assured the nation that once the debt-limit deal was done – capping spending, cutting the budget deficit, and getting “90 percent” of what they wanted – the economy would bounce back.
Just the opposite seems to be happening.
Call it the Republican’s double-dip recession.
Mark Weisbrot: What Everyone Should Know About the “Debt Crisis” in the U.S.
There was never any chance that the U.S. would actually default on its debt. The whole “crisis” was manufactured from the beginning, with Republicans in the House of Representatives using a technicality to win unpopular spending cuts that they could not win at the ballot box. It worked: They got an agreement that promises large spending cuts without any tax increases on America’s rich or super-rich, who have vastly increased their share of the national income over the past three decades.
The right won because President Obama chose to collaborate with them, also seeking to take advantage of the manufactured “crisis” to implement cuts that offended and hurt the people who voted for him. Of course he also wanted to increase taxes on the rich, but because he had accepted the legitimacy of the Republicans’ extortion, he lost that too.
It has long been clear that the federal debt limit is far too dangerous and unstable for lawmakers to use as a political weapon. Allowing that to happen in the last few traumatic weeks created an artificial national crisis that put the economy and the savings of Americans at risk and helped produce a loss of confidence that lingered as a cause of Thursday’s stock-market plunge.
None of that, however, has stopped Republican leaders, who announced this week that they intend to repeat this explosive episode over and over, in perpetuity. With the bad memory still fresh, President Obama should quickly seize the opportunity to make clear that he will not allow it even once more, never mind permanently. Instead of raising the debt ceiling every few years, it’s time to eliminate this dangerous game once and for all.
David Sirota: The Bizarro FDR
Barack Obama is a lot of things-eloquent, dissembling, conniving, intelligent and above all, calm. But one thing he is not is weak.
This basic truth is belied by the meager Obama criticism you occasionally hear from liberal pundits and activists. They usually stipulate that the president genuinely wants to enact the progressive agenda he campaigned on, but they gently reprimand him for failing to muster the necessary personal mettle to achieve that goal. In this mythology, he is “President Pushover,” as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently labeled him.
This storyline is a logical fallacy. Most agree that today’s imperial presidency almost singularly determines the course of national politics. Additionally, most agree that Obama is a brilliant, Harvard-trained lawyer who understands how to wield political power.
Danny Schechter: As the Dog Days of Summer Approach, Politicians Rest Before Returning to the Fray. The Political War Will Continue
Now that the debt drama is over for the moment, we can all safely retreat in what was once called the “Dog Days Of Summer” and chill out if the volatile weather allows us to. We can think back to that old song, “Summer time and the living is easy” even as we all know that for millions “the living” is anything but.
The House and Senate have become ghost-like chambers because all its members, so filled with strident indignation and inflexible talking points just a week ago, are now off on their paid vacations hyping their political war stories to grandchildren.
Imbued with a sense of triumph, the Tea Party is huddling to come up with ongoing tactics to hold the system hostage while the party leaders plan the new “Super committee” with 12 chosen acolytes (how Biblical, that number 12!) to map the next round of fiscal blood-lettering.
Stanley Kutler: Say It Ain’t So, O!
When Barack Obama began his quest for the presidency more than three years ago, admirers and many opponents alike conceded he was smart, tough and articulate. Well, we are left with one out of three.
snip
One critic, with an eye to history, suggested that Obama declare himself a moderate Republican and seek the nomination of both parties just as in 1820 when James Monroe ran as the only candidate. Then we might replay the “Era of Good Feelings”-which was anything but-with Obama synthesizing Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. What political genius!
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.The Right Way to Trim
THE recent debt deal will slash the defense budget over the next decade. And if Congress can’t agree on an additional $1.5 trillion in cuts, the law’s “trigger mechanism” will lead to deeper reductions in military spending. The initial cuts will not imperil America’s national security, but the deeper cuts could.
The administration of George W. Bush nearly doubled the defense budget following 9/11. With the winding down of Mr. Bush’s two wars, we could cut our ground forces to 1990s levels, reduce the planned purchases of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, make greater use of cheaper drones and other technologies, and deal with the escalating costs of the defense health care system – without serious damage to national security. Indeed, President Obama’s budget had already planned for $400 billion in defense savings by 2023.
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