Michael Hudson: GOP Cries Wolf on Debt Ceiling In Order To Impose Radical Pro-Rich Agenda

DemocracyNow.org - President Obama and Republican House speaker John Boehner are allegedly close to a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the deal is coming under fire from both Congressional Democrats and Republicans — part of it calls for lowering personal and corporate income tax rates, while eliminating or reducing an array of popular tax breaks, such as the deduction for home mortgage interest. Some Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage on Thursday because the Obama-Boehner agreement appears to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as Obama's promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich. Democracy Now! interviews economist Michael Hudson, President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of "Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire."

For the complete transcript, to download the audio/video podcast, and to see more Democracy Now! reports about the debt debate and global financial crisis, visit http://www.democracynow.org.

FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/democracynow
Twitter: @democracynow
Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/democracynow
Daily Email News Digest: http://www.democracynow.org/subscribe

Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit http://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• amy goodman
• democracy now
• democracynow
• juan gonzalez
• group of six
• group of 6
• obama
• boehner
• republicans
• democrats
• super imperialism
• gop
• debt
• michael hudson

[ADULTEDUCATION4U]

Obama the born again Neo Con, hahahahhahahaha yalll got bamboozlled...again Americans are the dumbest bunch of sheep on the planet.

[conquerorofbabylon]

Americans are dumb and passive. Good sheep.

[DavidByrne85]

We're watching a coup.

[911sc1982]

RON paul is everyone's LAST HOPE ! ! For truth and honesty in 2012 Go Ron Go ! ! !

[xudnoxaj]

@pretorious700 

do elaborate?

[nowaynohow26]

@jjlinert or he and the Democrats are bought out by the same people which is more plausible.

[pretorious700]

Interesting how someone as intelligent as Dr. Hudson can get something so wrong.

[jjlinert]

Obama is always giving in to Repubicans. No compromise - completely submitting to repubicans demands.

(Either he is afraid of them, or he is more conservative than we thought.)

[vechorik]

Who voted against raising the debt ceiling?

95 Democrats and 66 Republicans exactly - voted against the bill

The US credit rating was downgraded because the bill didn't contain enough cuts.

[MrFlashInvader]

The USA is spending an eye watering $2.5bn a day (Yes a day) on fighting wars when the USA is not even under attack but they don’t seem to put that on the table when they talk about debt spending and stopping people pensions who have paid for them all their lives.

See Full story on FlashInvader,com