Robert Reich: Impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far

[johan helge]

Robert Reich (http://robertreich.org/post/4467669419):

When I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they’d beat me up. After a close call in the boy’s room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They’d demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I’d have a take a stand. The fight wasn’t pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.

I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning — the equivalent of my cupcake.

Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich — $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending — basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor — has been slashed.

(...)

All the while, he and the Democratic leadership in Congress refuse to refute the Republicans’ big lie — that spending cuts will lead to more jobs. In fact, spending cuts now will lead to fewer jobs. They’ll slow down an already-anemic recovery. That will cause immense and unnecessary suffering for millions of Americans.

The President continues to legitimize the Republican claim that too much government spending caused the economy to tank, and that by cutting back spending we’ll get the economy going again.

Even before the bullies began hammering him his deficit commission already recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Then the President froze non-defense domestic spending and froze federal pay. And he continues to draw the false analogy between a family’s budget and the national budget.

He is losing the war of ideas because he won’t tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now — not less — in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

(...)

It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far.

[lib2DaBone]

1. Domestic Service cuts and $4 gas... I hope they know this is the end of the economy as we know it?

Does no one in Congress read history? In Great Depression #1.. Herbert Hoover and the repukes cut domestic spending and plunged the country into the disaster depression.

They are doing the very same thing now.. stepping on the brakes when they should be stepping on the gas! It's really not that hard to understand.. (except if you are a Republican)

[Nancy Waterman]

3. Exactly right!

They are repeating the mistakes of 1938 and will push us into a double dip.

stepping on the brakes when they should be stepping on the gas! It's really not that hard to understand.. (except if you are a Republican)

Bingo!

[bluerum]

4. Exactly. This is a national wtf moment.

[high density]

6. They don't seem to care

Our economy requires strong consumers to keep it going. Corporations don't want to pay out any money to workers and the government keeps enacting things to redistribute additional wealth upward.

[jwirr]

12. All the tax breaks in the world will not give the consumers more money

to spend. Even good jobs will not make it happen right away because we need to pay off the personal debt that many of us have before we can start spending again. But the worst thing they are doing is shutting down government programs (Fed. State & local) and creating more unemployed who cannot buy anything. Why aren't the small local businesses seeing this? It is not about taxes - it is about jobs - good paying ones.

[Nancy Waterman]

2. Unfortunately, a better metaphor

would be if the bullies in Reich's childhood had threatened his little sister with harm. That is what the GOP do, they threaten the things we think are valuable or vulnerable with harm fi they don't get their way. That is the source of their power over the Dems. They don't care if people lose their income, their houses, their education, their healthcare. The Democrats do and the GOP use it against them to extort concessions.

[johan helge]

5. Well said! (nt)

[OwnedByFerrets]

15. IF they dont get their way? They harm them EVEN when they

get their way. These budget cuts will HURT.

[msongs]

7. I know let's stock the Presidential cabinet with repubs & wall street pirates from companies who

caused the meltdown. maybe that will work. oh sorry Mr. Reich, you were and are not wanted. :-(

[johan helge]

8. I read Krugman's and Reich's blogs

and I don't understand how it is possible for Obama etc. to think that their silly tactics are better than just telling the truth about the economy. The Repubs are so vulnerable to the truth!

[ncteechur]

9. Where was he when Clinton passed NAFTA--why didn't he stop it? He was fucking there.

Throwing peanuts from the cheap seats is all Robert Reich can do.

[totodeinhere]

11. Good point. n/t

[SheilaT]

10. Most bullies are cowards. they can dish out, but

they can't take it. Often they are deflated the very first time someone stands up to them.

I absolutely don't understand why Obama has let this bullying from the GOP, the Tea Party, and the right go on so long.

[hay rick]

13. K&R

[RBInMaine]

14. The votes and support in and out of Congress aren't there to do what you want.

[Keith Bee]

16. K&R

Truth.

[Lorien]

17. The analogy between a family’s budget and the national budget only works if

the family has four children, two in College and two in grammar school, but only one parent works and the other stays home to build the family compound and spend more than half the family income at gun shows every weekend. If they take the kids out of college and no longer pack lunches for the younger ones to save money it won't do that much to help the family budget. If the second parent gets a job instead of shopping for guns and building bunkers, then things will begin to balance out. Hell, there's no way to make a good comparison between the two because one can't figure in the wealthy and large corporations who take from the family but give nothing in return!