My Own Bipartisan Deal: Vote it Down, Everyone

I've been doing some reading and some listening on the so-called "Bipartisan Debt Deal".
This morning I read the "Fact Sheet". It seems to me that if you have to call the deal "bipartisan" no less than 13 times in the "Fact Sheet", you're admitting that there is no bipartisanship and there are no facts in the sheet. Take a look at it and tell me it's not a creepy and Orwellian read. "A Win for the Economy and Budget Discipline (Insert happy face here.) Aren't we lucky that most of it goes into effect after the 2012 election."

The bottom line on this plan is that it completely and unquestioningly accepts the notion that spending cuts are the cure to the economy, temporarily saves Social Security and Medicare from cuts, but allows an unconstitutional Super Committee cut the programs later to avoid automatic cuts across the board. The Super Committee is made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, setting the two party system in stone and ensuring election nullification if only one Democrat agrees with the Republicans. It codifies political hostage taking by creating economic armageddon if the Super Committee fails to come to a consensus.

It also seems to me that putting Social Security on the table only to "save" it, is a bit Orwellian in and of itself. Obama put Social Security on the table in the first place, so I'm not impressed that he saved it.

Like the fake health care reform, this deal mostly kicks in after Obama's re-election election, ensuring mostly that it will have minimum effect on his re-election. The claim is that the delay in the deal makes sure that the cuts won't adversely affect the recovering economy, a subtle and meaningless nod, but a nod nonetheless to the hidden truth that this deal is bad for the recovery and consequently bad for the economy in general, and over the long term. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman explains that better than I can here.

Last night, my dad explained further. He was a successful small businessman for over 30 years and worked in corporate American for a few years after he sold his business. Dad told me that taxes are actually good for business and that he experienced the benefits of taxes in his own business, and again working for a big company in the same industry. When he paid taxes as a small business owner, he made less on each unit sold. Making less on each unit sold may sound bad, but it serves to push the business to increase volume. Increasing volume increaseed my dad's need for sales people and increased his orders to suppliers. He hired and his suppliers hired and the whole thing became an upward spiral of employment, wholesale and retail spending and again more employment and so on. Dad believes that was how Clinton succeeded during his presidency. Clinton's tax increases heated up the economy.

In his corporate job, he and all of the other store buyers and managers were encouraged to cut spending in their respective territories. My dad told me that he knew that was bad for business, so he went on spending amounts he felt were right based on his past experience in his own stores. The stores in his territory outdid the other territories every time.

Spending is not bad government and is not bad for business; it's good for business and it's good for innovation. Big corporations can make acceptable profits by saving, and can argue that it's better because they have to take fewer risks to make the same money, but they won't be looking for more and better sales, won't be innovating and won't be heating up the general economy. That Obama and the Democrats failed to make their case for spending, agreeing that the debate was not whether to spend or cut, but how much to cut, is there biggest failure in this matter.

My final read on the subject included the comments of Democrats on the deal. Most of my Facebook friends were disappointed in the deal, but there are a few Obama-or-bust die-hards. They are clinging to this post by Ezra Klein, a Cubs fan's lament about better luck next year and so on, giving the same reason to believe the Ricketts family has given Cubs fans--nada.

My read of Klein's comments are that taxes will eventually go up because the only way they won't is if Obama stands with the Republicans to prevent tax increases. That presumes tax increases on their own are the goal which of course is nonsense. We don't want to raise taxes for fun. We want stimulus and jobs to heat up the economy and spark innovation to keep the USA competitive. It also presumes that Obama won't stand with Republicans to extend the costly Bush tax cuts, but he already has over and over again.

I stand by my earlier comments that Obama failed early on in his administration when he failed to make the case for real economic stimulus and allowed tax cuts to overtake the stimulus. What we got was too little and too short term stimulus and a stage set for the present perceived emergency. Creating an emergency, created false urgency to make further cuts. The grand bargain fix codifies further false emergencies, false urgencies and further concessions to the hostage takers. It's a bad deal and it should be bipartisanly voted down.