Taking Chained CPI off the table was good. But we need a larger Course Correction

I think taking CCPI off the table for now is a good step....But rather than being part of a brilliant strategy, it is simply correcting one aspect of an ineffective approach to politics and governing.

Some on DU and elsewhere have lambasted "hair on fire progressives" for getting too worked up over President Obama's original willingness to use the Chained CPI for Social Security benefits as part of the larger process of negotiating a "grand bargain" with the GOP....."Don't worry," they said. "President Obama knows the GOP cant accept that offer. He's just using it to make them look inflexible."

The premise seems to be that this is all about creating perceptions among "swing" voters of the Democrats as the reasonable party compared to those hardheaded Republicans.

IMO the fallacy of that is mixing up perceptions of behavior with philosophy.

Sure, the GOP has not been doing themselves any favors with their sociopathic insistence on slash and burn and their stubborn resistance to negotiation. They look like a combination of jerks and spoiled crybabies.

However, ultimately they are succeeding in their goals by pushing the agenda ever farther to the right, because the centrist Democrats are echoing their message, instead of presenting an actual alternative to their Paul Ryan/Grover Norquist/Ayn Rnd vision of the world.

The basic fact of the matter is that ultimately, the problem our nation faces right now is not the result of wild government spending on "entitlements" and other public needs. It is the result of the reckless and destructive financial behavior of the private sector over the last 30 years coming home to roost.

The economy did not crash because people were getting too many SS benefits or the government was too generous with food stamps.

Let's stop advancing the GOP lies that claim such things. That is what we do when we say "Yes government spending is the problem. The first priority is to join with te GOP to reduce government and bring spending down."

Rather than looking like the responsible party, the Democrats have become perceived as the weak sibling because of that.

By agreeing with the GOP on the wrong thing, all we are doing is making the GOP's point in the mind of the public.

Although the GOP is harming their own image with antics like the shutdown, etc. the Democrats do not look like a good alternative in the eyes of the low-information apolitical voter. They simply lump in the Democrats as part of the problem.

And, worse, yet, the vacillating behavior of the Democratic leadership advances the goals of the GOP.

Up until the last few years, even the GOP had better sense than to screw around with even the perception of tampering with Social Security benefits.

Sure, they tried to do that in other ways such as pushing "private investment alternatives" and by broad scare tactics about how "Social Security is going broke!" But they knew that they had to be evasive about it, and always promised to leave benefits alone and pretending to want to "save" SS.

But, since 2008 especially, the Democrats participated in advancing the overall GOP agenda by echoing the Republican claims that government was in deep financial shit, and the only way to stave off the disaster was "austerity, cut,austerity,cut."....But at the same time the Democrats have also given lip srvice to the position that taxes also needed to be raised.

So on one hand here has been the GOP saying -- "Cut and No Taxes" while Democrats, under the "centrist" Obama faction saying "Cut and More Taxes."

By doing so we are giving voters the choice of the worst of both worlds. The Democrats become the Castor Oil Party. And, worse, the ineffectual party.

And worse, by offering up an "adjustment" in the form of CCPI, Obama opened that door that even the GOP was afraid to open before.

I believe instead, it would have been (could be) totally possible for the Democrats to be a Party of Strong Principles (defending an advancing SS and other public services) while also being the party of Responsible Adults -- by both standing up for our own principles but being willing to actually compromise -- but NOT by starting out accepting the wrong premises and terms of the GOP.