Bill Clinton and Steny Hoyer: The ‘Wall Street Democrats’ Fight Back

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/bill-clinton-and-steny-hoyer-wall-street-democrats-fight-back-1396013681

It’s rather stunning: A former president addresses members of a generation that has been saddled with record student debt and which faces the worst job market for graduates in modern history, and he talks, not of jobs or debt or decent wages, but about deficit reduction.

And people wonder why Gallup reports that millennials are at or near record levels of alienation from both political parties? When leaders of both parties emphasize deficits over jobs, their disaffection becomes easier to understand.

Ever-sensitive to shifting political tides, President Clinton apparently shied away from his past support for Social Security cuts in his “extemporaneous riff.” He complained instead about Republican intransigence over tax increases. He was wise to shy away from the spending cuts he has supported in the past, but the basic message was unchanged: It’s the deficit, stupid.