Please add your name to the petition available on the link below and stand with the President against the flawed fiscal policies of the Obstructionists. Our priority needs to be to put Americans back to work.
"Stand your ground, Mr. President."
"[S]tanding up to hostage-taking is the right thing to do for the health of America's political system. So stand your ground, Mr. President, and don't give in to threats."1 -Paul Krugman
Last week Democrats won big at the ballot box, with President Obama crushing Mitt Romney and Democrats winning more seats in the Senate.
But Congress is still headed for a major showdown over federal spending before the end of the year.
And as Paul Krugman noted this weekend, once again Republicans are "threatening to tank the economy unless their demands are met."2
We need President Obama to stand up and draw a line in the sand to reject any deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits, or cuts taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Tell President Obama: Stand up to Republican hostage takers. No benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and no tax cuts for the top 2%.
Let's be clear, there are any number of crises that demand urgent action by Congress -- the foreclosure crisis, the unemployment crisis, the climate crisis to name just a few -- but reducing the deficit isn't one of them.
Furthermore, while politicians and the punditocracy in Washington are issuing dire warnings in an effort to generate a crisis atmosphere, the only concrete thing they can point to in order to support their Chicken Little routine is the so-called "fiscal cliff," the automatic cuts and tax increases that go into effect in the beginning of the year.
But these cuts and tax increases are themselves the result of pre-emptive caving by President Obama and others to the Republicans' earlier (successful) attempts at hostage-taking.
And if you take the danger of spending cuts to heart, the policy prescription should be stimulus spending, not cutting Medicare or Social Security benefits or giving away unneeded tax cuts to the wealthiest.3
As Krugman aptly points out:
"Contrary to the way it's often portrayed, the looming prospect of spending cuts and tax increases isn't a fiscal crisis. It is, instead, a political crisis brought on by the G.O.P.'s attempt to take the economy hostage. And just to be clear, the danger for next year is not that the deficit will be too large but that it will be too small, and hence plunge America back into recession."4
Tell President Obama: Stand up to Republican hostage takers. No benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and no tax cuts for the top 2%.
The best thing President Obama can do is stay strong.
It's hard to imagine that President Obama could cut a better deal in the lame duck than what he could accomplish in the next Congress, with more Democrats in the House and the Senate.
But there are deeply worrying signs that President Obama, after overwhelmingly beating Mitt Romney, is intent on cutting a deal with Republicans before the end of the year.
We can't afford to take anything for granted.
It has been widely reported that President Obama has offered up benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in previous deficit negotiations. And while President Obama has said he'd veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he has caved on important issues in the past.
So we need to keep pushing and tell President Obama to draw a line in the sand.
Thank you for speaking out.
1. "Let's Not Make a Deal," New York Times, 11-08-12
2. Ibid.
3. "Hawks and Hypocrites," New York Times, 11-12-12.
4. Ibid.
2. Ibid.
3. "Hawks and Hypocrites," New York Times, 11-12-12.
4. Ibid.
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