One of the biggest lies being told in Washington has to do with the federal debt and the consequences America faces if we don't cut it and cut it now. What they mean of course is how can we cut taxes on the rich and hurt the poors?
The Can Kicks Back kids will learn that there's a price to be paid for signing up with a dead end "centrist"* organization. The wingnut welfare career ladder ends there.
*It's only "centrist" because The Villagers pretend that cutting the deficit by cutting taxes for rich people** and starving your granny is unambiguously good policy and only "partisans" disagree with it.
That about sums up the beltway obsession with fixing the debt. And would anybody believe that the millennial generation's biggest concern is the federal debt? Only the rubes would believe that. Obviously they are not a grassroots organization and I'm glad they're almost bankrupt.
Everyone is having a bit of a laugh today at the expense of “The Can Kicks Back,” the youth-oriented affiliate of the group known as “Fix the Debt,” which is yet another of the many organizations funded by single-minded deficit hawk billionaire Pete Peterson, along with a few of his similarly wealthy peers. The Can Kicks Back, which was supposed to nurture a youth movement to support Peterson’s goal of social insurance cuts and tax reform, now finds itself “nearly broke,” according to various internal documents obtained by Politico’s Byron Tau. As of November: “The group’s cash reserves were down to $70,000, with more than $75,000 in outstanding donor commitments….” And they’re having trouble with the fundraising.
One fundraising problem The Can Kicks Back has faced is the entirely accurate perception that it is not actually a grassroots organization of young people deeply concerned with reckless entitlement spending and unsustainable long-term debt, but rather yet another front group — and in this case a particularly ineffective one — for the small network of billionaires who have spent decades advocating tax cuts and the rolling back of Social Security and Medicare benefits, in the name of fiscal responsibility.
It turns out that most young Americans, being members of a generation that has had some trouble with the job market, don’t care about the federal government’s 30-year debt projections as much as they care about “having enough money for food and rent.”
Can a group that has on its advisory board Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson, Evan Bayh and David Walker ever be considered grassroots that supports millennials, ever? Of course not. They simply are fu*&ing liars.
They haven’t had a huge amount of success on the diversity front since then. As for the “old white guys,” please note that The Can Kicks Back’s advisory board includes Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson, Evan Bayh and David Walker.
That’s the story these documents tell over and over again: an organization struggling to prove that it is not what it very clearly is.
In response to a 2012 Slate piece by reporter Dave Weigel linking The Can Kicks Back with the billionaire anti-debt activist Peter Peterson, Eisenstadt argued that the group should request a correction — saying that the perception that they are Peterson-funded was hurting their credibility, according to an email thread.
“Technically one can make an argument that we are …,” Parent wrote back in an email. “We receive most of our money from [Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget], which has received large amounts of funding from Peterson.” Slate never appended a a correction to the piece.
Good riddance, you freaks.
