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November 14, 2009 (LPAC)—In the wake of public statements by OMB head Orszag, and in the midst of the buildup of new hysteria about the U.S. budget deficit, Washington leak sheets have begun to put out the line that President Obama is going to shift his focus to "solving the deficit" by the time of the 2010 State of the Union. This is a recipe for not only total incompetence, but genocidal austerity.

A precursor was given at Senate Budget Committee hearings held on Nov. 10, where numerous Senators voiced their commitment for Congress to, politically speaking, commit suicide. The hearing involved both Senate and House members, and outside "experts," to plot using the necessity for Congress to extend the national debt limit (which must be done in the near term-December), to force through Congressional approval of a special Commission which would dictate brutal cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and veterans' benefits. The Commission would dictate budget cuts and tax increases which an emasculated Congress could only vote up or down as a package—no amendments, no adjustments, no exercising of Congress's constitutional role to deliberate and legislate on matters of taxation and expenditures.

In other words, an IMAC for all national vital services.

Also raised at the hearing, and enthusiastically welcomed, were reports that President Obama and his economics team are considering including a demand for an entitlements commission in Obama's next budget submission.

Speaker after speaker at the Nov. 10 hearing declared that the Congressional "regular order" is broken, and that a "special process" is needed. Sen. Conrad, and former head of the GAO David Walker, who now heads the Peterson Institute, both complained that none of the current health bills, even the Baucus bill, slash costs enough. As Joe Lieberman, a co-sponsor of one of the commission bills, put it, "We need an irregular order... to take it out of the political process." Sen. Evan Bayh called what they are doing "an institutional insurrection."

We call it fascism.