Austerity: The real winner of the government shutdown

A popular thing to say on Capitol Hill is that there were no winners in the government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis that ended last night.

But once again, savage cuts to social spending have won the day. Sure, the conflict may have been a terrible embarrassment for the GOP, but the Wall Street-backed tea party agenda of austerity came out unscathed.

The Los Angeles Times observed:

As the shadow of the shutdown passes, it's proper to be reminded again that this fight involved spending levels that are materially suppressing economic growth and hampering the recovery.

Specifically, the deal soon to be voted on leaves the sequester in place, at least until Jan. 15….The sequester is merely one manifestation of Congress's love for austerity in the post-recession era. From the inception, recovery programs have never been as large or robust as they needed to be, despite evidence that even harsher austerity regimes kept much of Europe mired in slumps.

But the deal that was negotiated yesterday to reopen the government and suspend the debt ceiling didn’t just leave the austerity assault in place. It may end up escalating the assault on workers even more. Richard Eskow at the Campaign for America’s Future writes:

This deal will bend the next few months’ deliberations along the same misguided lines that have guided our political discourse for years now. House and Senate members will be encouraged to come up with a “deficit reduction plan” -- in other words, to impose another round of cuts just like those which have already wounded the economy and shredded millions of jobs.

Specifically, Congress’s latest deal opens the door to further cuts that will target working Americans by establishing a bipartisan committee to deal with budget issues.

Yeah, another one of those! And you can be sure that this committee will try to hash out a “Grand Bargain,” which is basically Washington-speak for harsher cuts and “entitlement reform” -- “entitlement reform,” by the way, is Washington-speak for gutting Social Security and Medicare.

But austerity was the winner even before that part of the deal was conceived. That’s because the goalposts in Congress’s spending debates have already been moved to austerity’s side of the field.
Think Progress reports:

It may seem like ancient history, but sequestration was originally designed to be so unpalatable to both parties that the threat of its automatic budget cuts to both defense and non-defense programs alike would be enough to force lawmakers to come to a grand bargain budget agreement. As it first went into effect in March, Republicans tried to pin the blame for any negative consequences on President Obama. But they gradually came out in favor of sequestration’s devastating cuts and have now made it the baseline in the fight over funding the government.

According to the Center for American Progress, Obama’s original budget for 2014 was $1.203 trillion. In 2010, Republicans took control of the House and deficit hawk Paul Ryan proposed a 2014 budget of $1.095 trillion -- that's 10 percent more than what Congress just passed to end the shutdown.

Outrageously, the justification for all these spending reductions is baseless. The country’s supposedly out-of-control debt has been falling significantly over the last two years.

But for tea party extremists, austerity was never about getting the deficit under control. It’s about shrinking government in a way that punishes workers and the poor. Even during the shutdown, what was deemed “essential” and “non-essential” gives you an idea of what parts of government right-wing elites think is important. So Congress’s gym – complete with heated pools and a sauna – was essential. Food assistance to low-income mothers and children? Non-essential.

Now, the latest agreement sets the stage for another budget and debt limit battle just in time for another round of sequester cuts. As we wrote at Teamster.org:

...our government will be funded at a significantly reduced level than it should be... because of sequester cuts that went into effect last year.

For now, we’ve avoided default, reopened the government and hundreds of thousands of locked-out government workers are back to work. That’s definitely a good thing. But now anti-worker zealots in Washington are hoping that sharper austerity measures won't seem so bad compared to the pain caused by the shutdown.

Don’t be fooled.

The truth behind the "Grand Bargain" hoax

The so-called Grand Bargain that we should all be afraid of may be looming as a solution to the government shutdown. The Grand Bargain is more of a grand betrayal, really, and would involve Democrats agreeing to cut Social Security and Medicare. Not something we care for.

Here's an excellent video that exposes the truth behind the Grand Bargain, aka the drive to shrink the U.S. government and destroy the middle class. It's masterminded by greedy old billionaires like Pete Peterson and the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers. They get their kicks lecture the rest of us on living beyond our means.

These people are even worse than the robber barons of the Gilded Age. At least their 19th-century forefathers didn't shut down the government.

Today's Teamster News 11.05.12

New York region struggles to move on a week after Sandy  Reuters   ...Hundreds of thousands of commuters faced a frustrating journey into the city as public transportation remained spotty. Service on many rail lines was reduced and the subway was running at about 80 percent of its normal service. The challenges were more severe for tens of thousands of people unable to return to their homes and many more than that living without power or heat...
China's economic destiny in doubt after leadership shock  The Telegraph   ...If reports from the Hong Kong press and China's blogosphere are correct, a remarkable upset has occurred on the eve of the ten-year power shift next week -- the greatest turn-over of top cadres since Mao's revolution...
Too Big To Fail Remains Very Real  Baseline Scenario   ...the government is providing a form of insurance that encourages financial institutions to become even bigger – and thus even more likely to be protected by some combination of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and other agencies. This is an unfair, nontransparent government subsidy that encourages excessive risk taking and creates a very large potential downside for the nonfinancial side of our economy...
Pete Peterson and the Deficit Hawks Teach Lawmakers Deep Fiscal Irresponsibility  New Economic Perspectives   ...Utilizing strategies reminiscent of the mid-20th Century American Communist Party, Peterson’s overall tactic has been to found and/or fund a number of front organizations to create the illusion of a broad consensus arrayed in favor of his personal views, which are shared for the most part by a wealthy few within the financial and political elites.  These views in turn are extremely unpopular with the electorate, particularly as regards cutting or partially privatizing universal social programs like Social Security and Medicare...
A voting debacle in Doral causes chaos and confusion  Miami Herald   ...Elections officials, overwhelmed with voters, locked the doors to their Doral headquarters and temporarily shut down the operation, angering nearly 200 voters standing in line outside — only to resume the proceedings an hour later... (and this: Judge orders early voting extended in Florida's Orange, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties)
Eleventh-Hour GOP Voter Suppression Could Swing Ohio  The Nation   ...Any provisional ballot with incorrect information will not be counted, Husted maintains. This seemingly innocuous change has the potential to impact the counting of thousands of votes in Ohio and could swing the election in this closely contested battleground...