Shakesville

President FML and His Brilliant Strategy to Alienate His Base: Now With Bonus Corporatocracy!

Because where else ya got to go, suckers?

President Obama opened [last] week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising Republicans for forging a compromise to cut spending this year and avert a government shutdown.

The juxtaposition made clearer than ever the more centrist governing style Mr. Obama has adopted since his party's big losses in November and his recapture-the-middle strategy for winning a second term.

But in agreeing Friday night to what he called the largest annual spending cut in the nation's history, the president further decoupled himself from his party in Congress, exacerbating concerns among some Democrats about whether he is really one of them and is willing to spend political capital to defend their principles on bigger battles ahead.

Spoiler Alert: No, he's not. To do that would be partisan, which is just unseemly in Obama's fantasy world of bipartisan civility, where he's so high on unicorn farts that he still hasn't noticed that the opposition party doesn't share his interest in compromise.

The question of where Mr. Obama's bottom line is on Democratic priorities will be that much more urgent to his party as House Republicans, energized by their success in resetting the terms of the debate in Washington, press an aggressive conservative agenda in the coming months that includes deeper spending cuts and a fundamental reshaping of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Awesome. Speaking of which...here's a word from one of the assholes to whom Obama's pandering, at the expense of marginalizing his own base:

[O]n Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) support for a [healthcare] plan in which Americans "pay more out of pocket." Defending the proposal, Cantor argued that [Medicare and Medicaid] sometimes provide a "safety net" for "people who frankly don't need one."

Cantor: We are in a situation where we have a safety net in place in this country for people who frankly don't need one. We have to focus on making sure we have a safety net for those who need it. ... We believe if you put in place the mechanism that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned, as well as the programs in Medicaid, that we can actually get to a better resolve and do what most Americans are learning how to do, which is to do more with less.
As the Wonk Room's Igor Volsky points out, Ryan's block grant idea would actually "destroy Medicaid" because the annual federal appropriation would be less than projected growth.

...The Ryan plan does, however, provide a "safety net" for one specific demographic. Ryan's plan will reduce the top marginal income tax rate and the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent — a move that, as the Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo notes, shifts the tax burden down the income scale onto the middle class.

Meanwhile, in other news, "profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent [in the fourth quarter last year], the fastest growth in more than 60 years." And not only that! "The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6 million last year. That was a 12 percent increase over 2009." Yay for Corporate America! Can't wait for that stupendous wealth to TRICKLE DOWN!

So far, this recovery has not trickled down. After two relatively lean years, C.E.O.'s in finance, technology, energy and beyond are pulling down multimillion-dollar paychecks. What many of these executives aren't doing, however, is hiring. Unemployment, although down from its peak, stood at 8.8 percent in March. And few economists predict the jobless rate will drop substantially anytime soon.

Oh.

Well, how about some good news? "Not only is BP still in business, it has more cash today than before the spill. Earlier this year the company negotiated massive energy deals in India and Russia. And, despite opposition from some in Congress, it has even resumed exploration in the deep waters of the Gulf."

Huzzah!

UPDATE: In an address later this week, President Obama will appeal to Republicans to "join him in writing a broad plan to raise revenues and reduce the growth of popular entitlement programs... Mr. Obama will urge bipartisan negotiations toward a multiyear debt-reduction plan... [Obama] envisions a more comprehensive plan that would include tax increases for the richest taxpayers, cuts to military spending, savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and unspecified changes to Social Security." How bipartisan.

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