Between The Lines - Norman Solomon: Progressive Caucus Yields to Obama Concessions to Tea Party GOP (Week Ending Jan. 25, 2013)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

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"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
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Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

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2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

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House Progressive Caucus Enables Obama's Concessions to Tea Party GOP Demands

RealAudio MP3

Posted Jan. 16, 2013

Interview with Norman Solomon, author and columnist, conducted by Scott Harris

Some of the feared consequences of going over the “fiscal cliff” were averted in the early hours of 2013, when the House and Senate agreed on legislation that increased taxes on families making more than $450,000 annually, while extending unemployment benefits, earned income tax credits, child tax credits and tuition tax refunds. The deal, however, came without addressing future sequester budget cuts, raising the debt ceiling or funding the government beyond March 27.

And while many progressive legislators complained about elements of the deal, such as limiting tax hikes on the wealthy while permanently taking $3.9 trillion in future revenue off the table, all but seven members of the 75-member House Progressive Caucus voted for the fiscal cliff tax bill. According to author and activist Norman Solomon, this is part of a pattern of behavior by Progressive Caucus leaders and members who routinely support concessions President Obama has made to the Tea Party-controlled Republican Party.

Now with uncertainty over whether the GOP-controlled House will raise the nation’s debt ceiling, President Obama has vowed not to negotiate with what he describes as Republican hostage-takers in this fight. But given the president’s record of surrender to past Republican demands, Obama has little credibility when it comes to standing by his pledges. The same holds true for the Progressive Caucus, which could, if it doesn’t back down, be in a position to block any future Obama concessions on benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Norman Solomon, a primary candidate who fell less than 200 votes short of competing for California’s 2nd District congressional seat in November’s general election. Here, Solomon examines why the House Progressive Caucus repeatedly yields to Obama administration concessions made to the GOP, and how public pressure could reverse that pattern.

NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, this has become a very chronic pattern over the last four years and I think less and less defensible. There is no longer the threat of Barack Obama being a one-term president. And so, during the earlier abdications – you might say, or cave-ins however you want to put it – at least there was that rationale that push comes to shove, it's important to back up Obama because the threat of a Republican president being elected in 2012 was real. It's no longer real. And so, what we saw on New Year's Day of this year is a replication of a pattern that goes way back to 2009, when the health care reform debate was ranging in Washington. And, at one point in that year in the early fall, the chairs of the 70-plus member progressive caucus on behalf of the entire caucus – which is the largest one on Capitol Hill, composed of Democrats – sent a letter to President Obama saying that unless there was a "robust" public option included in the health care bill that those members of the progressive caucus would vote no.

And in fact, by the early part of 2010, when health care legislation was passed by Congress, not only was there no robust public option in the bill, there was no public option at all. And yet, every single member of that progressive caucus voted for it. So one of the big problems is, if you promise something publicly or threaten something publicly – depending on how you look at it – then you got to go ahead and do it. And if you don't intend to follow through on your promise or threat, you shouldn't make that promise or threat to begin with.

And, we've seen this replicated most recently two weeks ago here as we speak in the middle of January 2013 - on New Year's Day, members of the progressive caucus, with only 7 of those 75 caucus members voted against this fiscal cliff that really backtracked on some major promises coming from the White House, including refusing to approve continuation of tax cuts for those over a quarter-million a year.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Again, we have this discourse in our country where a lot of who are commentators on politics in Washington talk about extremes on both sides and certainly cast aspersions at anybody who takes a principled stand on any issue and basically, they'll accuse the right and left and the Democrats and the Republican parties as being mirror images of each other. And, I'm wondering how you respond to the idea that folks who stand on principle are somehow blocking progress.

NORMAN SOLOMON: Yeah, part of the problem is the sort of implicit assumption that there's something moderate about so-called moderates, when you have the threat to Social Security, when you have this tremendous military spending, when you have inaction on climate change, when you have the abrogation now under two administrations of basic civil liberties like habeas corpus. What is moderate about shredding the Bill of Rights, increasing the gaps between rich and poor, threatening those elderly and others who depend on Social Security with cuts even when they depend on Social Security to keep them out of poverty. That so much indicates that so-called moderate or centrist politics are not moderate in the sense that we would maintain or advance our humane values.

And I think it's so important for us to reshuffle the deck and not simply internalize the language the mass media throw at us.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Norman, in your view, what's at stake in the coming debt ceiling negotiations, where previously in talks, President Obama has actually offered increases in the eligibility age for Medicare and has more recently proposed something called chained CPI, which in effect is a benefit cut for Social Security recipients over time. What should activists be doing here? What can activists do and what's the urgency?

NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, I think it's crucial for activists and really – anybody concerned about Social Security, Medicare and spending priorities – to insist there must be not only no rise in the eligibility age for Medicare, but also that there be no cuts whatsoever in Social Security. The chained CPI provision is an effort that President Obama has embraced and said he's willing to go with, which would cut the cost of living allowance for so many millions, tens of millions of recipients of Social Security.

And Scott, I think of it similar to the integrity of an egg. If you crack an egg, you have done something to its structural integrity. And in a similar way, if, for the first time, to whittle down Social Security benefits or raise Medicare eligibility age, this is really a rubicon that's politically socially we need to make sure isn't crossed.

I think now is the time in January of 2013 to say to members of the Senate and the House representing us, "No, we won't accept any of these cuts whatsoever."

Norman Solomon is the author of “War Made Easy, How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death.” Find Solomon's articles at NormanSolomon.com.