Obama Packs Debt Commission With Social Security Privatization & Benefit Cut Supporters

By Jane Hamsher
FireDogLake
Monday May 10, 2010

President Obama has packed the Debt Commission (also known as the cat food commission) with members who have an overwhelming history of support for both benefit cuts and privatization of Social Security.

The “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” is operating in secret over the objections of both parties. John Boehner and John Conyers have both raised concerns that the commission will make recommendations in December that could be passed by a lame duck Congress that doesn’t have to worry about being reelected. They requested that the commission report its findings prior to the election so that the public can have a chance to factor in the recommendations into their voting decisions in the election. The commission denied the request.

As we are seeing with Audit the Fed, it is falling to Judd Gregg — who doesn’t have to worry about being reelected — to raise concerns about “populist pandering,” and he is likely to be the one to refuse unanimous consent and force a cloture vote that will impose a 60 vote hurdle. (The transpartisan support for Audit the Fed we’ve built over the year makes it difficult for anyone with re-election worries to play the Joe Lieberman role, even Joe Lieberman.) Though they have different agendas with regard to the outcome, the concerns of both Boehner and Conyers and the commission’s lack of transparency are well founded.

As we reported at the time, the Obama White House has been interested in cutting Social Security right out of the gate. David Brooks reported that three administration officials called him to say Obama “is extremely committed to entitlement reform and is plotting politically feasible ways to reduce Social Security as well as health spending” in March of 2009. The neoliberal TNR/JournoList set who cheered on the Iraq war and the corporate-friendly health care bill are already lending their support: Privatizing Social Security, No, Cutting Social Security, Si! says Jon Chait.

Chait conflates and confuses two separate statements. Obama has dismantled liberal opposition to many of George Bush’s policies, and whatever he wants to do with Social Security will be accepted by many just because they like him. Matt Yglesias had this to say about Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court: “Clinton & Obama like and trust [Kagan], and most liberals (myself included) like and trust Clinton & Obama.” To which Glenn Greenwald rightly responds, “In other words, according to Chemerinksy and Yglesias, progressives will view Obama’s choice as a good one by virtue of the fact that it’s Obama choice. Isn’t that a pure embodiment of mindless tribalism and authoritarianism? ”

What Wall Street wants is to wind up with a good chunk of the Social Security trust fund in its own coffers. Where that intersects with the objectives of the commission remains to be seen, but the fact is that Obama has packed it with people who have a strong history of supporting both reducing benefits and privatization. Even the token “liberals” like Jan Schakowsky have a history of abandoning their strongest principles when the President asks it of them, and Dick Durbin is now telling “bleeding heart liberals” to be open to benefit cuts for the sake of the fiscal responsibility.

Brad DeLong indicates liberal objections may well be overcome by the government guaranteeing any Wall Street losses, but that will irk the libertarians.