Why is Obama praising massive spending cuts?

[Ramulux]

Maybe I am missing something, but why are Obama and Harry Reid acting like what just happened tonight is a good thing? I could understand coming out and saying that its good there was no shutdown and that they disagreed with them but could live with the cuts. But no, they come out and praised what happened.

Obama is bragging about "making the largest annual spending cut in our history" and Harry Reid is calling the cuts "historic". Why are they doing this?

[leftstreet]

1. To get to the other side

Get it? It's like a chicken joke

:beer:

[EFerrari]

19. LOL

Ftw. :toast:

[whatchamacallit]

43. of the aisle

:fistbump:

[Name removed]

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[Shiver]

3. How did they sound when they said it?

Historic doesn't always mean they think it's good. It just means it hasn't happened in recent history.

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. Because it polls well enough....

...with enough voters to elect a government.

And there's no rule saying you have to mean or believe it.

Like when Republicans praise small business, or minorities.

[Hannah Bell]

5. they're talking to their owners, not to you.

[emilyg]

7. ....

[Hannah Bell]

18. .....

[cutlassmama]

28. +1

[Jakes Progress]

6. When you get beaten like they did,

you have to brag about something. Sort of like, "Boy. Look at this black eye he gave me. I think he done knocked out half my teeth. Whoo was I ever tough?"

Actually, the real reason is that they like the same things the neocons do. Because they are a bunch of rich guys living off the poor and middle class, just like the neocons.

[Newest Reality]

8. That may be like collectively asking ourselves,

"Why am I the brunt of the joke?"

Obama is in a club that the rest of us are not invited to join, nor are we able to. He has moved on up.

We get to experience the results without representation or even a bona fide process for grievance. We get to stew in our own cognitive dissonance and it is hoped that we will continue -- hopefully forever -- to be expecting something else while we illustrate our shock or find our catharsis in the safe habit of bitching and moaning about our impending subjugation and sudden immersion in the political acid of our undoing.

Never before has tyranny and Fascism been so sleek and well-scripted as if where only a movie that you are watching in a comfy seat that you don't own. This is a time to live in the Greatest Story Every told and try your best to confuse it with what is actually happening.

[cutlassmama]

29. +11ty quadrillion

[ProSense]

9. Because $38 billion in cuts

from a $3.7 trillion budget is the "largest spending cut in history."

Democrats own it.

[avaistheone1]

22. lol

We'll remind you that "Democrats own it" as it takes it toll on the working class and poor.

[Modern_Matthew]

10. Until "defense" spending is on the table, any discussion about the budget is not serious. nt

[dkf]

11. Because independents aren't interested in bankrupting this country.

And that is who he is playing to.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[Critters2]

15. One would like to hope so, but alas...

Welcome to DU, by the way! :hi:

[TBF]

33. Class warfare has been around since the beginning of time -

and we are doing a piss poor job of fighting them off right now.

Welcome to DU!

[immoderate]

14. Is he running for something?

:shrug:

--imm

[Blue_In_AK]

16. For a different perspective,

read this post at The Mudflats. http://www.themudflats.net/2011/04/08/shut-it-down-mr-president/ The Democrats compromised much more than they should have. It's ridiculous that they voted to continue the outrageous tax breaks for the wealthy corporations and individuals just a few months ago, and now they feel the need to cut benefits for the rest of us who have been living modestly. How can they claim budget shortfalls when people making a million or more a month pay a pittance in taxes? Do they think we're stupid?

We are well and truly fucked, I'm afraid.

[Nevernose]

17. Because all they know of the outside world...

...they learn from lobbyists and political hacks. For the Republicans, it's not such a big deal. For the Democrats, it makes them sell outs and frauds, but of course they don't see that, because all they see of the outside world is what lobbyists and political hacks show them. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum. There's not a lot of folks in DC saying, "most Americans favor raising taxes on the wealthiest one or two percent instead of cutting services for the poor and other services that go to all Americans, like schools and national parks."

Their bubble is like that giant glass dome from The Simpsons movie. Impenetrable, totally cut off from the real world, and largely filled with self-serving morons.

[TomCADem]

20. Easy - Gallup - 64% Of Americans Are Worried A "Great Deal" About Federal Spending and Deficit

President Obama and Harry Reid would be foolish to complain about spending cuts, and let Republicans claim that they are the party that is fiscally responsible:

<>

I sure hope no one is advocating that Democrats should sit on the sidelines and let Republicans spread the false narrative that they are the only party concerned about federal spending and the deficit.

[Ramulux]

24. WTF?

You are aware that there are other ways to reduce the deficit other than massively cutting social programs, right?

These are conservative cuts that go after the poor and middle class. I don't understand what you are trying to say. None of this has anything to do with being serious about cutting spending.

[okieinpain]

31. i understand what he is saying, makes sense to me. n/t.

[jillan]

21. To make the republicans like him? It won't work, but he sure keeps trying.

[TomCADem]

23. That's a lie.

President Obama and Democrats held out and fought for the EPA, Planned Parenthood, and Health Care Reform, and you suggest that President Obama is just trying to please his Republican bosses?

Insulting.

[markpkessinger]

26. "Held out on health care reform?"

Would that be when he too single payer off the table before the debate even began? Or was it when gave away, as an opening serve in the negotiations, the second-best shot at reigning in costs (the public option) while continuing to speak in public as though it were still a real possibility? Or maybe you mean when he caved in to Big PhRMA on the issue of negotiating for lower drug prices? Is that the kind of "holding out" you mean?

[area51]

27. +1

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people.

Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"Employer-based health insurance has always been a bad idea. Your life should not depend on who you work for."
-- T. McKeon

"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America

[Bluebear]

45. +

[jillan]

41. That's a lie. Title X was defunded in DC and PP is still on the chopping block.

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/04/obama-painful-cuts-part-budget-deal

[Kablooie]

25. They are desperate for the Republicans to like them. They don't care so much about the Dems.

[no_hypocrisy]

30. Like Pee Wee Herman falling off his bike and exclaiing,

"I meant to do that".

[okieinpain]

32. no, i think he meant what he said. n/t.

[timtom]

34. Wait...wait!

What happened to "Everybody chill the fuck out. I've got this."? Surely, he is nearing endgame with a brilliant chess strategy learned at the feet of Jose Capablanca.

Isn't he?

[davidthegnome]

35. I don't know

I honestly don't get it. Is this better than the alternative? Is what we have negotiated on better than a shutdown would be? I'm asking because, frankly, I don't know. Tens of billions of dollars in cuts... can someone, anyone, start a thread or point me to a thread that breaks these cuts down in a way a dummy like me can understand please? I don't know what's been given up and lost, I just know that it's a lot and that the poor and working class will be paying for it.

I've read a lot of about what a government shutdown would mean and it scared me. I'm glad we avoided it... I think, I hope this isn't a rope-a-dope. But what are we losing? What is the price of these negotiations? Maybe I'm dumb and uninformed, but I've been reading tons and tons of threads and I just don't get it.

[fasttense]

36. Because we live in a fascist state and the corpoRATe aristocracy

have just been told that the federal government will roll over and play dead while the nation's citizens are raped.

[xchrom]

37. Because Grover Norquist won the debate: now they're arguing over the size

Of the bath tub.

[northernlights]

38. because they wanted massive spending cuts

Nobody, but nobody could be as lousy negotiators as they are. When are people going to figure out that Obama was a trojan horse and is getting *exactly* what he wanted all along?

Either he personally believes in and wants massive cuts (and enforced subsidies of pharma and health insurance, plus the right to off Americans without due process, and the end to civil liberties, and to gut the public school system, endless war, and so on).

Or he doesn't give a flying fuck and will do whatever his Bosses bid to ensure he continues to get his.

Earth cannot support 6 billion, never mind 9 billion, at all, let alone in "style." The culling of the "useless eaters" has begun.

:shrug:

[_ed_]

39. He just loves to shit on his base

and praise Republican ideas.

[emilyg]

40. Right to the point.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. CYA

[creon]

44. Republicans won

There was an election in Nov 2010 and the GOP won it.

This is what happens when you lose an election.

Draw the proper conclusions. And proceed as indicated.

[Rex]

46. So that the Repukes cannot.

They take away that talking point, by making it their own and leaving nothing for the Boner crowd to crow about...and it works! Right now FR is in full meltdown and the Tea Party is calling for blood!

I don't agree with it, but can see the strategy at work...5 dimensional chess and all that.