Do you want to know how the Beltway Villager elites feel about our safety nets? Just watch this segment and be horrified. Bob Woodward, a Grand Wizard among the beltway villagers was interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper about the bad relationship President Obama has with Speaker John Boehner and he uses his book, The Price Of Politics to explore the idea. Woodward blames the stalemate between the two parties mostly on their frayed relationship which is in of itself a thoughtless argument to make because Boehner is not in control of his members any longer.
WOODWARD: No, no, but you don't. But what you learn is that the person on the other side of the table is your best friend because that's the person who can give you what you want and what you have to have. But to get to that point, you need to spend lots of time and, unfortunately, they have not spent the time on this.
If Woodward was paying attention he'd know that Speaker Boehner couldn't even pass his own Plan B bill right before the fiscal cliff hit which made him look weak and ineffective which has been his trademark ever since the tea Cruz wing was established. And the tea party have shut down any wish he had to cut a deal before a government shutdown occurred. Remember, he took Obamacare off the table himself after the 2012 election.
BOEHNER: It's pretty clear that the president was re-elected. Obamacare is the law of the land. If we were to put Obamacare into the CR and send it over to the Senate, we were risking shutting down the government. That is not our goal.
So Woodward's arguments about the two men is a moot point since no matter what Boehner wants, he can't get it done. But the real wankery starts when he begins opining on the current state of the social safety nets, which he will never, ever need to use.
WOODWARD: In this book, you can see there are some ideas that they both have, believe it or not, that would be good for the country, be good for everyone. For instance, entitlement cuts.
TAPPER: Right. Everybody agrees that the current state of these social safety net programs is on an unsustainable path.
WOODWARD: Totally unsustainable. When I interviewed the president about this for the book, he said, oh, yes, it's bad politics for Democrats but then he went on to say it's untenable to not do this.
Now, how much have we cut or reformed entitlements in the Obama presidency? Zero. They need to get on with that task. This is where Paul Ryan, maybe has come up with a good idea.
TAPPER: Big bargain, yes.
WOODWARD: Yes -- well, at least do some reform on entitlements and do something that's really serious about tax reform. That's what needs to be fixed.
Notice he asks how much we've cut or reformed our entitlements under Obama? ('Reform' is just another word for 'cut.') And he just loves Paul Ryan's destructive Any Randian ideas. Banging-head-against- desk. Why does he feel we have to cut entitlements? Because most of the villagers do since they love them some PP. You know, Pete Peterson. He has spent over 450 million dollars since 2007 convincing the beltway elites that America needs to cut the poors benefits.
Peterson's millions have done next to nothing to change public opinion: In survey after survey, Americans reject the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare. A recent national tour organized by AmericaSpeaks and largely funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation was met by audiences who rebuffed his proposals.
But Peterson has been able to drive a major shift in elite consensus about government spending, with talk of "grand bargains" that would slash entitlements, cut corporate tax rates and end personal tax breaks, such as the mortgage deduction, that benefit the middle class.
His cash has done nothing to say the American people to his point of view, but it certainly has influenced the Bob Woodwards of the beltway.
This shows, once again, just how dangerous it is to have this .001% that is richer than God deciding they'd like to buy themselves a government. They can, literally, afford it. Just as we are seeing obscenely wealthy people write checks for millions to Super PACs without blinking an eye, ideologues like Peterson are willing to put up even more over time to completely change the basic structure of government for their own gain.
With the Bob Woodwards of the beltway willingly spreading propaganda against our social safety nets for the decade it's only a matter of time until the
