Corporate Lackey In Populist Clothing

Obama's Anti-Populist Budget

"Despite its flaws and failures during America's Great Depression, FDR's New Deal was remarkable for what it accomplished. It helped people, put millions back to work, reinvigorated the national spirit, built or renovated 700,000 miles of roads, 7,800 bridges, 45,000 schools, 2,500 hospitals, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 1,000 airfields, and various other infrastructure, including much of Chicago's lakefront where this writer lives. It cut unemployment from 25% in May 1933 to 11% in 1937, before declaring victory too early and letting it spike before early war production revived economic growth and headed it lower.

Moreover, his key legislation included:

-- the landmark 1935 Social Security Act - to this day, the single most important federal program keeping millions of seniors from poverty or easing it for those already poor;

-- unemployment insurance in partnership with states;

-- two "Soak the Rich" revenue acts to make high earners pay more, another targeting tax cheats, and one taxing undistributed corporate profits;

-- the landmark Wagner Act, letting labor, for the first time, bargain collectively with management;

-- Glass-Steagall, separating commercial from investment banks and insurance companies, among other provisions to curb speculation;

-- public housing and low financing measures;
-- other initiatives to reform and revive the economy; and

-- had he lived in good health, perhaps a second bill of rights, an economic one he proposed, but died before able to fulfill it.

Saying the first one fell short, he wanted guarantees for:

-- full employment with a living wage;

-- freedom from unfair competition and monopolies;

-- housing;

-- medical care;

-- education; and

-- greater social security, providing more than his landmark act.

Obama's No FDR

His agenda lets Wall Street loot the treasury, rewards other corporate favorites generously, ignores vital people needs, does little to create jobs or help homeowners facing foreclosure, and spends over $1 trillion annually on unbridled militarism and imperial wars at a time America has no enemies.

Now the latest - his proposed anti-populist FY 2012 budget, Republicans and right wing pundits say doesn't go far enough.

On February 14, New York Times writer Jackie Calmes headlined, "Obama's Budget Focuses on Path to Rein in Deficit," saying:

It "address(es) the deficit and the best path to long-term economic success....(H)e laid out a path for bringing down annual deficits to more sustainable levels over the rest of the decade," saying he'll reduce it "over the next decade by $1.1 trillion, or about 10%," and it's only for starters.

Much more is planned, targeting entitlements once thought untouchable, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They're heading for the chopping block toward elimination along with public pensions, robbing millions of vital protections and futures to do more for America's super-rich and facilitate imperial global rampaging.

That's Obama's real agenda - soaking working households and the poor, transferring greater wealth to America's super-rich already with too much, and continuing lawless imperial rampaging for unchallengeable global dominance.

Whatever the reasons behind rich boy Roosevelt's New Deal social programs, and there are a lot of voices claiming they single handedly were designed to save capitalism from being overthrown, they genuinely helped people and have enduring legacies to this day.
Obama seems absolutely fucking hellbent on destroying the people, infrastructure and future of this country to enrich corporate interests and further the putrid ziofascist agenda.