| inbluevt | Date: Wednesday, 2013/10/09, 6:23 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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In a SPIEGEL interview, political economist and icon of the American left Robert Reich urges President Obama to stand his ground on the country's budget crisis. He also calls for drastic tax increases for the rich to fight growing inequality.
SPIEGEL: The world is mesmerized by the spectacle of the government shutdown in Washington. To you, however, this must seem like déjà vu.
Reich: When I was secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, we lived through the last shutdown of the US government, in 1995. I had to tell 15,000 people that they had to go home, and I didn't know when they would be paid. It was terrible, and we didn't know how long it would last.
SPIEGEL: Since then, the political culture in the US has become even more radicalized.Reich: The members of the Tea Party are much more radical and extreme. Some of them really have contempt for the entire process of government. They're followers of people who say that we ought to shrink government down to the size that it can drown in a bathtub. They hate
government viscerally. They're not in Washington to govern; they're in Washington to tear it down.
SPIEGEL: The shutdown is hurting the entire country, and there is no telling how this will
effect financial markets and still-shaky economic growth. Will President Obama ultimately have to aim for a compromise?
Reich: This bill passed both houses of Congress, was enacted by the president, signed into law by the president, certified as constitutional by the Supreme Court. But instead of going through a
normal legislative process of amending a piece of legislation to delay it or change it or even repeal it, the Republicans simply say: "We are going to hold the entire government of the United States ransom unless we get our way." You can't negotiate with extortionists.
SPIEGEL: Clinton won re-election after the last shutdown because the American public largely blamed the Republicans. Could Obama eventually end up the big winner in all of this, as well?
Reich: It's much more difficult. Today, you have many more Republican members of Congress in safe districts, so they're not worried about the voters being angry with them. And many of them are bankrolled by some of the richest Americans, often billionaires. They have the resources to support the demand to shrink the government. America has become the most unequal society among advanced countries, and rich people are now free to spend as much money on political campaigns as they wish.
More
Here, Reich prepares to speak to protesters with the Occupy movement in Los Angeles in 2011. Occupy petered out because it wasn't able to develop a political strategy and organization, he says.
Message edited by inbluevt - Wednesday, 2013/10/09, 6:26 PM |
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