Deviousness At Its Best!

Since I am an acknowledged political junkie, I have been watching with a great deal of amusement all of the political posturing over the President’s proposed budget.  If you continue reading this, remember that the President cannot be reelected.

The political right is having a fit because the President got a significant tax “increase” the first of January.  They, of course, don’t mention that it is truly not an increase because the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire so the tax rates simply went back to what they were in 2003.  Hardly an increase.  The political left is having a fit because the President has proposed a “chained CPI” to Social Security, which would eventually lower the amount of payments seniors dependent on Social Security would receive. 

But stop to consider for a moment what is happening.  The right is saying they will not vote for the budget because of the added revenue from more taxes, while the left is saying they will not vote for the budget because of the “cuts” to the social safety net.  This budget hasn’t a snowflakes chance in the hot place of ever being passed, and I’ll bet the President knows that by putting in the “chained CPI”, he made sure it didn’t pass.  Why would he do that?

Easy, if you are a devious soul like me.  He took a terrible drubbing in the 2010 mid-term elections, and he would certainly not want to do that again.  What better way to give those candidates on the left who will be running against conservative office holders a campaign issue.  “My opponent was willing to let the sequester continue, damaging the economy of the country, because they wouldn’t raise taxes on the wealthy, but at the same time were willing to cut Social Security and Medicare, and make us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack by cutting the Pentagon budget”.  I, of course, would like to have the Pentagon’s budget cut, but it makes a great talking point in those states that tend to vote Republican.

And, the candidates on the left can pound their respective chests (yes, even the women) and proclaim how they “saved” Social Security and Medicare.  And then, one would hope, when he has a liberal majority in the House and Senate in 2015/16, they can finally get something done, including but not limited to: real immigration reform, real gun safety reform, an overhaul of our health care system, a revamping of the tax code to stop the wealthy and corporations from hiding their billions so they don’t have to pay taxes, and one that I think is absolutely vital, funding a massive country-wide infrastructure system that will last us into the 22^nd century, at the very least, while providing an enormous amount of jobs, and prosecuting Wall Street bankers to the fullest extent of the law. 

If this is in fact the President’s ploy, I certainly hope it works.