Maybe that should have been the event's name: "I Got Mine 2012."
Can't Stop Won't Stop
The welfare "reform" which Clinton supported has swelled the ranks of the poor and separated mothers from their children while doing nothing in the long run to end poverty. That added special piquancy to the sight of the self-satisfied post-President silkily arguing that we should take the same "reform" hatchet to Social Security and Medicare.
If Bill Clinton had any moral perspective he'd be holding Jimmy Carter's hammer at a Habitat For Humanity building site somewhere, not pushing programs that would doom the middle class.
But he won't stop, of course -- not as long as billionaire Pete Peterson is able to entice Clinton and other "Summit" participants will all the flattery and free publicity money can buy. Peterson also spoon-fed them those predigested economic lies which served his agenda as Nixon's former Commerce Secretary: the downsizing or dismantling of any government programs that don't directly enrich corporations.
The Simpson/Bowles agenda which Clinton embraced today is the perfect example: It actually lowers the top tax rate for the nation's highest earners, while promising to raise taxes a little elsewhere (mostly by eliminating deductions that help the struggling middle class, like the mortgage interest deduction, and removing the employer health insurance deduction that provides millions of working Americans with at least a modicum of health coverage.)
Simpson and Bowles are two rich white guys, too: A retired Republican Senator and a Democratic insider turned hedge fund speculator. Under their plan the middle class would melt away like - how did the android put it? - "like tears in rain."
J'Accuse!
Former President Clinton wasn't the only wealthy and powerful white man to take the stage today. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, and Speaker of the House John Boehner joined Commerce Secretary-turned-hedge-fund billionaire Peterson. While they might have differed slightly on the details, they spoke with one voice about how our problems came about in the first place: It's your fault.
Yeah, you. Don't look to the right or left. You. As a non-rich and non-powerful American, you're to blame for all our woes. Too many of you chose to be born as baby boomers, says Clinton. Your grandparents are "greedy geezers," says the perennially unpleasant Alan Simpson. You took that bank loan, just because the bank told you a house was your best investment. (So did Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.)
As billionaires, Presidents, Cabinet secretaries, and leaders of Congress, what chance did they have against seniors, working people, and the disabled? It was never a fair fight.
So when they cut your Social Security check and dismantle Medicare, remember: It's your fault. Now it's time to pay the piper.
Money Talks
That's the kind of nonsense you can buy with a billionaire's money. Tax filings show that Pete Peterson put nearly half a billion dollars into the foundation that held this summit -- and that's just in four years. He's been trying to gut Social Security, Medicare, and other vital government programs for at least 25 years. Paul Blumenthal and Ryan Grim outlined some of the initiatives Peterson has founded or funded over the decades: the "America Speaks" town halls, the Fiscal Times, the "Indebted" series on MTV, the Social Security specialist at the Urban Institute, the "Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget," a politically biased high school curriculum ... the list goes on and on.
But Blumenthal and Grim missed a few organizations Peterson secretly formed. They overlooked the Daughters of the American Revolution, SDS (he wrote the Port Huron Statement -- but not the compromised second draft), the Quarrymen, the Royal Order of Buffalo, and the Shriners. (Hats and tiny cars? Brilliant! It's even better than Budgetball.)
Okay, maybe not the last few. The point is, a whole lot of politicians and policy wonks have benefited from Peterson's billions, which have been spread around a variety of organizations in order to create the illusion of consensus -- consensus which slowly became real in Washington, and which is diametrically opposed to the public's preferences.
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