Thank God the Congressional Super Committee failed to reach an agreement.
It was a bad idea in the first place, and Obama and the Democrats should never have pushed it.
It focused too much attention on deficits, which aren’t the biggest problem we’re facing right now. High unemployment is the real crisis, and the more obsessed we all are with deficits, the less room there is to address unemployment.
The Super Committee also was a bad idea procedurally as it bypassed the usual way Congress makes laws. In this sense, it was an end around democracy.
And that was intentional because the vast majority of the American public wasn’t in favor of the one item that both parties and Obama seemed prepared to agree on—and that was monkeying with the way the cost of living adjustment is calculated for Social Security.
This so-called technical change would have cost the elderly and the disabled several hundred dollars a year in the short term, and $1,400 a year after a decade or so.
Not surprisingly, 72 percent of the American public opposed this change, according to a new poll by Celinda Lake, including 70 percent of Republicans.
The Democrats should learn something from this: Don’t touch Social Security. Leave that to the likes of Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "Police Use Excessive Force against Occupy Movement."
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