via:Naked Capitalism/Yves Smith

More Proof That Obama is Herbert Hoover

Posted: 11 Jul 2011 01:01 AM PDT

Not only is Obama assuring that he will go down as one of the worst Presidents in history, but for those who have any doubts, he is also making it clear that his only allegiance is to the capitalist classes and their knowledge worker arms and legs.
You don’t need to go further than the first page of today’s New York Times for proof. The Grey Lady has realized rather late in the game that automatic stabliizers and emergency programs have been propping up the economy, and the fact that they are soon to disappear will be more than a bit of a downer. Apparently it is now OK for Pravda to make that shocking revelation from Moody’s (the source of the key data in the article) because the budget debate is so far advanced that the executioner has already started the downward swing of his axe; the only question is whether he will get a clean kill of the average citizen’s economic wellbeing or whether it will be a protracted, messy death. From the New York Times:

An extraordinary amount of personal income is coming directly from the government.
Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. In states hit hard by the downturn, like Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, residents derived even more of their income from the government.
By the end of this year, however, many of those dollars are going to disappear, with the expiration of extended benefits intended to help people cope with the lingering effects of the recession. Moody’s Analytics estimates $37 billion will be drained from the nation’s pocketbooks this year.

The article also points out that people who are on the verge of being broke typically need to spend the money they get from the government as quickly as they receive it, which leads to a high multiplier effect, estimated at 2:1. Duh!
Other self inflicted wounds are just as bad, however:

In terms of economic impact, that is slightly less than the spending cuts Congress enacted to keep the government financed through September, averting a shutdown.

The other front page article, appallingly, shows Obama, rather than the Republicans, pushing for $4 trillion in deficit cuts:

Mr. Obama, meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, bluntly challenged Republicans a day after Speaker John A. Boehner pulled back from a far-reaching agreement aimed at saving as much as $4 trillion over 10 years, officials briefed on the negotiations said. The meeting ended after an hour and 15 minutes with little progress, but the two sides agreed to resume talking Monday, and every day after that, until a deal is done.
White House officials said Mr. Obama was still determined to pursue the boldest package possible — one that would require new tax revenue as well as cuts in Medicare and other entitlement programs — but he faces steadfast opposition from Republicans and growing qualms among Democrats.

And per Politico, suddenly the Republicans are looking comparatively sane:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer is likening the current battle over whether to raise the debt ceiling to the 2008 bailout of Wall Street.
Though he conceded that it may be a “bad analogy,” the No. 2 House Democrat said the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program under President George W. Bush was an instance where Congress came together to act amid an economic crisis.
“It was a Republican president, a Republican secretary of the Treasury, and a Republican-appointed head of the Federal Reserve asked a Democratically led Congress to act because the administration said we had a crisis and the alternative of not acting would be catastrophic,” Hoyer said Wednesday to reporters.
“My suggestion to my Republican friends is that they do the same,” he added…
Congress needs to act with that same urgency now, he said, to raise the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling.
“If Congress has the will to do so, we could pass a debt limit extension within 24 hours,” he said. “We need to come to an agreement … Republicans need to put everything on the table.”

Even knowing how dedicated to bad ends Obama is, I still feel like I’ve walked into a parallel universe. He’s now determined to make these horrific entitlement cuts a sign of his manhood. This is “Change” for sure, to a more brutal, grasping, dog eat dog society, all administered by self serving elites. They will in the end reap the whirlwind they are creating, but not before it mows a path of destruction through our social order.