Super Congress is more like it. No one elected this Committee making it's Constitutionality in question. They don't have to confer with any other committee in the House or Senate. All its recommendations will be fast tracked with no amendments or filibusters allowed.

And no I don't trust "I hate single payer advocates and have them thrown out" Max Baucus, "the MIC are my top donors" Patty Murray or "I'm eager to cut SS and Medicare" John Kerry not to slash our social safety net like Peterson wants. Including these sorry pics, there will only be 9 Representatives making decisions like this for the whole country, so I don't see how my title is incorrect or over the top at all.

ol·i·gar·chy [ol-i-gahr-kee] Show IPA

noun, plural -chies.

1.

a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

This legislative oligarchy is the equivalent to a Zombie Catfood Commission 2.0 that keeps coming back from the dead and this time with teeth. My friend joanneleon outlines the beginnings of all of these recent developments that came from the minds of Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg.

They brought these anti-New Deal ideas back to life over the years, but before Conrad and Gregg, there was an early Catfood Commission President Bill Clinton created called the Kerrey-Danforth Commission:

On November 5th 1993 President Bill Clinton—by Executive Order #12878—created the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement Reform. The Commission—which began work in February 1994—was co-chaired by Senators Robert Kerrey (D-NB) and John Danforth (R-MO). The Commission was comprised of ten U.S. Senators, ten members of Congress, and twelve members of the public, along with a professional staff of 27. In their approach, the Commission went well beyond the topics of Social Security and Medicare and lumped together everything that might be considered an “entitlement”—from welfare programs to the home mortgage interest tax deduction to the cost of federal civilian and military retirement. Its goal was to devise a package of proposals which would reduce the overall cost of all of these programs. snip The two co-chairs of the Commission developed their own Social Security proposal, which featured raising the retirement age to 70, a cut in the Social Security payroll tax, with the money redirected into mandatory private accounts, and adopting price-indexing (among other changes). This was perhaps the first advocacy of “carve-out” private accounts, and of price indexing, by a prominent mainstream group.

Luckily there was inefficient support for the Kerrey and Danforth Commission but guess who was a member?

BIPARTISAN COMMISSION ON ENTITLEMENT AND TAX REFORM FINAL REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT December 1994 Frontmatter Reform Proposals of Commissioners

Reform Proposal of Senators J. Robert Kerrey and John C. Danforth

Reform Proposal of Senator Alan K. Simpson and Congressmen J. Alex McMillan and Porter J. Goss

Reform Proposal of Commissioner Peter G. Peterson

Reform Proposal of Commissioner Robert Greenstein

Reform Proposal of Commissioner Richard L. Trumpka Additional Views of Commissioners

Statement of Congressman Michael N. Castle

Statement of Congressman Christopher Cox

Statement of Commissioner Robert E. Denham

Statement of Congressman John D. Dingell

Statement of Commissioner Thomas J. Downey

Statement of Commissioner Robert Greenstein

Statement of Commissioner Peter G. Peterson

Statement of Commissioner Richard L. Trumpka

If you read Peter Peterson’s Proposals and statement it sounds eerily like a lot of what’s in this debt ceiling deal and this whole stupid debate(we also see the President's dear SS hating friend Alan K. Simpson who he appointed as the head of the last Catfood Commission). The more damaging stuff is on the line in the near future to be fast tracked because Peter Peterson and his Wall Street buddies basically own our legislature and this whole debate. The Obama 2012 campaign is campaigning on Peter Peterson’s proposals.

Does that bother you? Are you OK with this? Even if you’re a big supporter of the President and can overlook most of what he does, you shouldn’t be. It’s economic illiteracy and it hurts people, especially the most vulnerable suffering from this jobs crisis we’re in.

I really can't find a better word for the President and Democratic leaders in Congress and their economic or budgetary acumen than stupid. It is stupid. I expect stupidity from Republicans and their child like ideas, but I blame the supposed adults in the room. No one can excuse this pathetic sham of a debate and self induced crisis in an intellectually honest way.

What is it about the failed policies that are melting down the Eurozone, causing riots and fires in the U.K., and hurting the unemployed in this country that are so attractive to this administration? Perhaps those that say the president doesn't really believe in Keynesian economics or any real progressive policies are right. After all, is it that hard to listen to those like Krugman, Reich, and Stiglitz who know what they are talking about?



Economists Agree: Failed Policies 'Making a Total Mess of a Solvable Problem'

I'm pretty sick of the tone deafness all around in Washington D.C and of anyone who defends this or excuses this failure in any way at this point.