How Pro-Austerity Groups Lost the Deficit Wars
t’s debt ceiling time and the US economy is once again on the brink, held hostage by extremists hell-bent on forcing cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
Oh wait. That was last year.
In 2014, for the first time in three years, the vote to extend the nation’s debt ceiling did not bring the US to the brink of default in a high-stakes game of slash and burn.
Last week, the House voted to raise the government’s borrowing limit until March 2015 without any conditions. In fact, if the Speaker had his way, he would have tied the vote to the repeal of cuts to military retirement pensions. The Senate concurred, sending a clean debt ceiling bill to the President’s desk.
It was a striking turnaround for the forces of austerity. One of the biggest losers? The Campaign to Fix the Debt, the $40 million AstroTurf austerity group, financed by Pete Peterson and other Wall Street big wigs, and fronted by Maya MacGuineas, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.
Call it Alan Simpson’s last harrumph.
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In August, National Peoples Action kicked off the “CEO Summer” (Corporate Evil Outing) in fifteen cities and towns. Take Action Minnesota dropped a huge banner across from a Fix the Debt gathering, while in Chicago, clergy, IIRON, and ONE Northside targeted General Electric for its failure to pay taxes and urged Senator Dick Durbin to stiffen his spine and do more to support Social Security. Vocal New York descended on the home of Verizon board member Hugh Price, calling on Verizon to pay its taxes and stop lobbying for harmful budget cuts.
