Robert Reich Points Out Potemkin Village On Top Of Capitol Hill

It is amazing to watch how quickly Congress can get together to act on a particular issue. For the most part, specifically on legislation that counts, the process gets bogged down nearly every single time. Yet when there is something out there that where Congress can get on a soapbox and passes a law that is extremely popular yet does nothing to get at the crux of the problem. Robert Reich knows the system well, and is not hesitant at all to expose what is going on here.

From The L.A. Progressive:

When the public isn’t looking, Congress reverts to its old ways. The Obama-supported plan to allow distressed homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages under the protection of bankruptcy has run into a Wall Street wall. Although Citigroup temporarily broke ranks a few months ago when it was receiving one of the most generous bailouts, the rest of Wall Street has remained adamantly opposed, and apparently Democratic leaders have decided not to push back.

Meanwhile, Obama’s plan to limit itemized deductions for the richest 1.2% of taxpayers (including the top 1.9 percent of small business owners) to 28%, starting in 2011, is also in trouble on the Hill. Wealthy contributors and friends of congressional leaders involved in setting tax policy have balked. So Congress is telling the White House to look elsewhere for the $320 billion it needs over 10 years to finance half of the tab for health care reform. Congressional leaders have also informed the White House that they don’t have the votes to pass Obama’s proposal for treating the earnings of hedge-fund and private-equity managers as income rather than capital gains.

Angry populism thrives on stories about the rich and privileged who use their influence to get cushy deals for themselves at the expense of the rest of us. AIG’s bonuses provide a perfect example. It’s too bad the same populist outrage doesn’t extend to issues involving far more money, affecting many more people, and entailing far more insidious abuses of power. Congress’s potemkin populism over AIG’s bonuses disguises business as usual when it comes to the really big stuff.

The "really big stuff" is exactly what counts and what Congress is desperate to avoid. This can also be said about who we prosecute for grand economic crimes. A diarist at OpenLeft discusses why Bernie Madoff gets life in prison while the other titans of finance are allowed to be free and keep their dubiously acquired money. Too often, we allow our leaders to pick (guilty) scapegoats while the majority of those responsible for the mess we are let off scot free.

Obama Asks McCain, Who's Country Do You Put First?

Barack Obama took the gloves off yesterday when addressing John McCain. For a while now McCain and Palin have viciously attacked Obama by making things up out of thin air, such as the lipstick on a pig craziness and accusing him of wanting to teach kindergardeners the same sex-ed as a seventeen year old when the bill in question was designed to go after pedophiles. Obama has weathered this barrage of culture war punches with grace and dignity, now he's delivering solid upper cuts to the increasing desperate McCain campaign.

From ABC News:

A pretty scathing charge from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., this morning as he spoke to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and assailed Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., position on free trade.

"Just ask the machinists in Pennsylvania who build Harley-Davidsons," Obama said of McCain's record. "Because John McCain didn’t just oppose the requirement that the government buy American-made motorcycles, he called Buy American provisions 'disgraceful.' Just ask the workers across this country who have seen their jobs outsourced. The very companies that shipped their jobs overseas have been rewarded with billions of dollars in tax breaks that John McCain supports and plans to continue.

"So, when American workers hear John McCain talking about putting 'Country First,'" Obama said, "it’s fair to ask –- which country?"

Jake Tapper of ABC spins this as an attack on McCain's patriotism, but that is highly off the mark. Obama is finally getting into full swing with his attacks on McCain's dedication to keeping jobs in America and not sending them overseas so corporations can pad their bottom lines. It isn't a question of patriotism, it is a question of economics and a question from someone that is tapping into the economic populism of this country. That sentiment has been buried several times over by conservative wedge issues and outright lies told to the people in order to hold onto power at all costs.

No one is questioning McCain's patriotism (actually the traditional media hardly bothers to point out when McCain questions Obama's patriotism, often in very subtle ways), we just refuse to highlight it anymore for him. There are seven weeks and three days to go in this election season and it is time to get down to business. Obama is going to fight hard to show the people that he is working for them and that McCain is working hard for the same wealthy few that Bush favored for the last eight years.