Obama Talks Down to Us; Boehner Just Lies.

President Obama at his press conference this morning, responding to a question by Ben Feller of the Associated Press (emphasis added):

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. Two quick topics. Given that you’re running out of time, can you explain what is your plan for where these talks go if Republicans continue to oppose any tax increases, as they’ve adamantly said that they will? And secondly, on your point about no short-term stopgap measure, if it came down to that and Congress went that route, I know you’re opposed to it but would you veto it?

THE PRESIDENT: I will not sign a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day extension. That is just not an acceptable approach. And if we think it’s going to be hard — if we think it’s hard now, imagine how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season where they’re all up. It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So we might as well do it now — pull off the Band-Aid; eat our peas. (Laughter.) Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?

We keep on talking about this stuff and we have these high-minded pronouncements about how we’ve got to get control of the deficit and how we owe it to our children and our grandchildren. Well, let’s step up. Let’s do it. I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. And I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing — if they mean what they say that this is important.

That’s pretty insulting. We’re not children after all. I guess the President was aiming his remarks at Congress, but really we serfs are the ones who will have to face the pain of these decisions aren’t we? That’s the real issue here.

President Obama has made some kind of proposal to the Republicans and hasn’t shared the details with us or with his fellow Democrats, as far as I know. All we know for sure is that two programs that we pay for with a separate revenue stream are on the table–Social Security and Medicare. Well, as of today, we know a little more. Sam Stein reports that Obama offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67.

According to five separate sources with knowledge of negotiations — including both Republicans and Democrats — the president offered an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, from 65 to 67, in exchange for Republican movement on increasing tax revenues.

The proposal, as discussed, would not go into effect immediately, but rather would be implemented down the road (likely in 2013). The age at which people would be eligible for Medicare benefits would be raised incrementally, not in one fell swoop.

Sources offered varied accounts regarding the seriousness with which the president had discussed raising the Medicare eligibility age. As the White House is fond of saying, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. And with Republicans having turned down a “grand” deal on the debt ceiling — which would have included $3 trillion in spending cuts, including entitlement reforms, in exchange for up to $1 trillion in revenues — it is unclear whether the proposal remains alive.

Social Security and Medicare are vital programs that no one should be talking about cutting, especially now when unemployment is at levels not seen in this country since the Great Depression. Furthermore, we pay into these programs with our hard-earned money–they are not “entitlements.” But that’s mostly what we’re hearing about from the President and his Republican buddies–they are just drooling over the prospect of slashing the social safety net.

This isn’t a joking matter, Mr. Obama. Show a little respect for the people who pay your salary. Actually, one group liked the President’s remark about eating our peas, The Peat and Lentil Council.

A spokesman for the pea council said it wasn’t interpreting the remarks in a negative context.

“We take President Obama’s comment on the need to ‘eat our peas’ as a reference to the first lady’s push to get all Americans to eat a more healthy diet as part of the Let’s Move campaign,” Pete Klaiber, the council’s director of marketing.

“We know that if tasty and nutritious meals featuring peas are served more frequently in the White House and in the cafeterias of both Houses of Congress, it will contribute to a balanced diet, if not a balanced budget.”

Klaiber added, “Eating more lentils couldn’t hurt, either.”

If the President is really serious about “sharing the pain,” perhaps he should tell the White House chef to serve split pea soup and lentil loaf at his next dinner party.

Now to House Speaker John Boehner’s remarks.

Boehner claims the Democrat’s aren’t “serious” about making a deal because they insist on throwing in a few paltry revenue raisers along with the massive cuts.

“This boils down to two things,” Boehner told reporters, after Mr. Obama gave a White House press conference regarding negotiations to lower the deficit and raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before August 2. By that date, the administration says, the United States will no longer be able to pay its bills without an increase in the amount it can borrow.

“The president continues to insist on raising taxes, and [Democrats] are just not serious enough about fundamental entitlement reform to solve the problem,” Boehner said. “It takes two to tango, and they’re not there yet.”

And then Boehner told the biggest wopper of all:

“Our disagreement is over raising taxes on the very people that we’re asking to create jobs in our country,” he said. He added, however, that allowing tax rates to go up has never been part of the discussion.

If keeping taxes low on the richest of the rich and giant corporations resulted in job creation, we wouldn’t have nearly 10% (official) unemployment right now. The Bush tax cuts have been in place for a decade, estate taxes are low, and yet job creation is almost nonexistent.

As Dakinikat has repeatedly explained, these cuts in federal spending are going to make unemployment much worse. Paul Krugman explains it all very clearly in his latest column.

The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing. Yes, there are huge political obstacles to action — notably, the fact that the House is controlled by a party that benefits from the economy’s weakness. But political gridlock should not be conflated with economic reality.

Our failure to create jobs is a choice, not a necessity — a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses.

Krugman lists four big excuses and destroys them with facts and logic. I particularly like this response to excuse #4: We tried to stimulate the economy, and it didn’t work.

Everybody knows that President Obama tried to stimulate the economy with a huge increase in government spending, and that it didn’t work. But what everyone knows is wrong.

Think about it: Where are the big public works projects? Where are the armies of government workers? There are actually half a million fewer government employees now than there were when Mr. Obama took office.

So what happened to the stimulus? Much of it consisted of tax cuts, not spending. Most of the rest consisted either of aid to distressed families or aid to hard-pressed state and local governments. This aid may have mitigated the slump, but it wasn’t the kind of job-creation program we could and should have had.

So what are we being offered now? Cuts in Federal spending, which amounts to an anti-stimulus and cuts in programs that help the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Our government is controlled by greedy, lying, moronic psychopaths.