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Extending Bush era tax cuts is just the beginning. Watch for vital social program reductions, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid especially targeted. In addition, implementing Obama's deficit cutting commission's proposals are prioritized to slash government payrolls, tax employer provided health insurance, impose a national sales tax, perhaps end home mortgage deductions, and more regressive harshness.
Yet selling those ideas may prove near impossibly challenging without deceitfully clever slights of hand, trying to convince people that less is more for greater prosperity. The economic equivalent of "war is peace, freedom is slavery, (and) ignorance is strength." Perhaps those ideas will follow.
Moreover, expect less help for the unemployed, none for 99ers (workers who've exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of benefits), and foreclosed homeowners, as well as little in the way of job creation to put people back to work and stimulate economic growth.
Economist David Rosenberg mentioned another red flag:
"One of the most pronounced macro risks is another leg down in US home prices," that's already underway but gets little attention. Along with high unemployment and weak job creation, the distressed housing market is a major economic achilles heel. He also calls the full Obama deal a "neutral economic force in 2011," offset in part by higher mortgage costs, gasoline and heating oil prices, plus whatever other bad news surprises during very unsettling times.
A Final Comment
For American workers, harder times are coming, austerity and deficit cutting taking precedence over job creation, stimulating economic growth, or addressing popular needs when the urgency to do so is vital.
Calling him hard-right, an elitist, a corporatist, pursuing anti-populist policies, an earlier article addressed the real Obama, not the myth too many still believe, accessed through the following link:
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