wingnut waterloo

Dean Baker says we need to celebrate the final defeat of the gimlet-eyed granny starvers -- our political foes who were not so long ago determined to cut and/or "privatize" social security and medicare.

This latest attempt by the owning class to sabotage the social safety net was led from the outset by one Pete Peterson, who "has used the billions of dollars he earned as a Wall Street investment banker and private equity fund manager to finance a whole slew of Washington-based outfits for this purpose over the last two decades" (Dean Baker).

The idea was to whip up hysteria over a deficit crisis. They wanted to paint a picture of out-of-control government spending that could only be addressed by major cuts to the country’s two most important and popular social programs. While they got the cooperation of much of the national media, who consistently put the CFD’s views and spokespeople at the center of the budget debate...

But the deficit got smaller, the economy slowly and painfully has  begun to stir, and when news media yielded to public pressure and began to emphasize that social security has nothing to do with the deficit, and the noses of the deficit-hysteria crowd grew longer. Then came Reinhartd-Rogoff, and it was checkmate, lights out.

Along with the current intestine discord among Republicans and the objects of universal ridicule it has spawned, this is something we need to at least breathe a sigh of relief for. I'd bet that even a good number of ex-teabaggers in the picture, considering the demographic are relieved and grateful.