Forum Post: Re: The Debate

I hope everyone watched the debate because it was very important.

The outcome could decide which group of millionaires and corporate servants gets to #$!@ us for the next four years.

"...The 2012 elections are a travesty of genuine democracy, with the people given the "choice" of voting for one or another party financed by big business and committed to serving its interests at the expense of the vast majority of the population. Behind the spectacle of political mudslinging, mind-numbing attack ads and empty campaign rhetoric, class war is being prepared at home and military war is being prepared internationally, with Iran looming as the first target…"

Democrats, Republicans plot post-election assault on Medicare, Social Security

By Kate Randall

3 October 2012

Discussions are underway in the US Senate to forge a plan for sweeping cuts to social programs in the aftermath of the November 6 election. The New York Times reported Tuesday on moves by a bipartisan group of senators to come to an agreement so as to avert automatic spending cuts mandated in last year's deal to raise the debt ceiling. That agreement was signed by President Obama on August 2, 2011. Under the debt ceiling deal, Congress' failure in 2011 to produce a deficit reduction bill with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts triggered some $1 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts or "sequestrations"—including to social programs such as Medicare and to the Defense Department—to begin in January 2013 and extend over 10 years. These automatic cuts would coincide with the expiration in the new year of the Bush-era tax cuts as well as payroll tax reductions and federally funded extended unemployment benefits. The Obama White House and congressional Republicans agreed in December 2010 to extend the Bush tax cuts, including for the richest Americans, until the end of this year, while reducing the payroll tax and extending jobless benefits for the same period. The combination of these expirations and the mandated deficit reduction measures has been called a "fiscal cliff" that threatens to plunge the economy into a deeper slump. The "fiscal cliff" is being seized upon by the White House and both big business parties as a pretext to implement austerity measures of historic proportions. Cuts targeting Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, public education, food stamps and other vital social programs will mean impoverishment and suffering for millions of working class families…

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/cuts-o03.shtml