Austerity American Style, Part 2

http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3976
Date Written:  2013-09-01
Publisher:  Against The Current
Year Published:  2013
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX20083

An article on American ecomony and politics.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

In signing the "fiscal cliff" deal on January 2, Obama declared that more tax revenue hikes would have to be negotiated in future deals. No doubt he and Democrats believed that the March 1 date would put pressure on the Teapublicans to compromise on more tax hikes in exchange for avoiding the approximate $500 billion in defense spending cuts that were part of the sequestered $1.2 trillion.

There was also the March 27, 2013 date when the Federal government would run out of money to pay its bills. Surely, the Teapublicans didn’t want to get blamed again for that fiasco, as they had been in the past? And thereafter there was the May 18 revisiting of the debt ceiling extension. Obama undoubtedly believed that somewhere along this line the Republicans would give him the token tax hikes he needed as cover to agree to his massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid he was always willing to make in the "grand bargain."