Where to begin on President Obama's budget?

Is he daft to think that this will even begin to solve the economic and jobs crisis? 

It boggles the mind but he's being true to form: a corporatist, a triangulating Clintonite, and definitely not a real Democrat.

Robert Reich writes the following (excerpts) about this regressive austerity budget:  "President Obama has chosen to fight fire with gasoline.

"Republicans want America to believe the economy is still lousy because government is too big, and the way to revive the economy is to cut federal spending....  

"Today (Monday) Obama pours gas on the Republican flame by proposing a 2012 federal budget that cuts the federal deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years. About $400 billion of this will come from a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending – including all sorts of programs for poor and working-class Americans, such as heating assistance to low-income people and community-service block grants. Most of the rest from additional spending cuts, such as grants to states for water treatment plants and other environmental projects and higher interest charges on federal loans to graduate students.

"That means the Great Debate starting this week will be set by Republicans: Does Obama cut enough spending? How much more will he have cut in order to appease Republicans? If they don’t get the spending cuts they want, will Tea-Party Republicans demand a shut-down?

"It’s the wrong debate about the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"In 2011 most Americans are still in the throes of the Great Recession, which was caused by the bursting of a giant debt bubble.

"The Republican bromide – cut federal spending – is precisely the wrong response to this ongoing crisis, which is more analogous to the Great Depression than to any recent recession. Herbert Hoover responded the same way between 1929 and 1932. Insufficient spending only deepened the Great Depression.

"The best way to revive the economy is not to cut the federal deficit right now. It’s to put more money into the pockets of average working families. Not until they start spending again big time will companies begin to hire again big time.

"Don’t cut the government services they rely on – college loans, home heating oil, community services, and the rest. State and local budget cuts are already causing enough pain.

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000.

"It’s called progressive taxation.

"The lion’s share of America’s income and wealth is at the top. Taxing the very rich won’t hurt the economy. They spend a much smaller portion of their incomes than everyone else.

"The President has to reframe the debate around the necessity of average families having enough to spend to get the economy moving again. He needs to remind America this is not 1995 but 2011 — and we’re still in a jobs crisis brought on by the bursting of a giant debt bubble and the implosion of total demand."

It's doubtful that President Obama will change his corporatist tune or Hooverite policy, so don't hold your breath.

Thomas Ferguson at New Deal 2.0 is spot when he writes about Obama's budget speaking to Wall Street, not Main Street and the voters,  ",,,,,he’s kicking off a race to the bottom with the Republicans that will will wreck America’s future and further mystify the public. And don’t fool yourself with talk about appeals to “independent voters.” Almost no polls ask voters if they would like to tax the wealthy. The one poll that did found 61% opting for that. For the next two years, one number towers over all others: $1 billion. That’s what the President’s reelection campaign is going to cost. The real audience for the budget proposals is Wall Street, not any set of voters, and certainly not the popular movement that elected him."

And Robert Johnson at New Deal 2.0 concludes: "Unfortunately, the proposed budget appears more likely to contribute to the ongoing widening of wealth and income inequality. And it seems more likely to increase, rather than reduce, the idle resources in our society. This budget logic makes little sense, and the human costs are dreadful. Only the logic of power sheds light on our path of dysfunction in the USA. Andrew Mellon must be smiling."

It should pain Democrats to realize what a revolting situation the election of 2008 has become.   John McCain would have been an immediate disaster, but we selected the lesser of two evils, by electing a mediocre, corporatist, DINO, empty suit who ignores Main Street voters and embraces Wall Street.  Unfortunately, he appears to have hitched his wagon to the GOP train heading for eventual disaster anyway: a return to the Gilded Age and Great Depression of the 21st century, as severe economic inequality---the widening chasm between the wealthy few and the rest of us (pummeled by chronic, large scale unemployment and poverty)--- becomes the norm.