I use "Cat Food Commission" when I write about the Obama/Peterson deficit reduction commission (which Obama set up by executive order after the Dems in Congress refused to vote for it, and Obama stacked it with deficit hawks, Austerians (those who favor auterity measures to manage the current economic situation), and those who favor "fixing" SocSec, most by making cuts to benefits and moving the age for full benefits to 70.
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So -- many in the blogosphere write "catfood." Why? Whassup with that? Easier to avoid the space and thus having to capitalize "Food"?

Given that the name comes from the notion that poor seniors may be reduced to eating cat food, shouldn't the generally recognized spelling be used?  

Of course, the only cat food seniors on reduced SocSec rations will be able to afford will be the large cans of the cheap canned cat food, the stuff that really smells awful.

If I were in Germany, before this entire financial crisis, there would be a chance I'd have voted for Merkel because she puts climate change at the forefront of her policy. To steal David Roberts' word, I am a climate hawk.

If I were in Sweden, I would probably swing between both major parties (SSDP and MP).

So I guess with respect to the world, I'm center-left. With respect to the US, I'm pretty much a Commie.

The killer app here is the spending and revenue cap. This is what will basically stop progressive governance permanently. Instead of saying "We as a society want to do certain things for our citizens, and we want to pay for them," this says that you can only do so much, up to about 21% of GDP, before you have to stop. This commenter at Josh Marshall's place noted it right away:

Doesn't that exceed the mandate here? We are looking to these guys to tell us how to bring the budget into balance, not what the role and size of government ought to be. I would think liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree in saying, who the hell are these guys to put their finger arbitrarily on the number 21% and tell us that's where it should be (I'd assume conservatives would like to see it lower, and I don't necessarily disagree with the number, but don't know why we'd set it in stone)? Its like my accountant telling me how much my income should be, in addition to how I should balance my family budget.

[snip]

That's the real goal here: to permanently shrink government. You could not run the Affordable Care Act under the proposal of capping revenue and the growth of federal health expenditures at GDP+1%/year after 2020. You certainly couldn't run anything improving upon it. You could not run a cap and trade system, even if like health care it was paid for. If revenues are capped, you wouldn't be able to take in money from a carbon tax or a financial transaction tax without reducing income tax revenues, effectively defeating the purpose.

Some would say that there's no enforcement mechanism for the cap, and that one Congress cannot be bound by another in terms of budget levels. But the enforcement mechanism would be the announcement of the numbers themselves, and the Village self-policing that would go on if any Congress dared exceed it. There would be enormous pressure to stay within the confines of a report passed by Congress and signed by the President.

And that's why, contrary to those world-weary types who think this thing cannot pass, we should fear this proposal. Sooner or later, Republicans will come around to the fact that this deficit reduction plan uses 75% spending solutions and 25% revenue solutions, and then locks those in over time to make any increases impossible. You can already see this in the initial reviews. In fact, they've already started the pivot to saying that 21% of GDP for spending is too high. And then you have willing dupes like Kent Conrad saying that he'd be willing to sacrifice a political career for this plan. He'd be sacrificing a political party.

I hadn't focused on this part at all, although I do remember it bothering me in the background - when I read this, I understood why.

As for labels, I'm an unabashed liberal, for all that that matters, and I admit to getting more defiant about it over the last couple of years; I don't run from it, I'm not afraid of it.

The Vermont Independent said that he will work with members of Congress, labor unions, seniors' organizations and others to develop alternative suggestions. And while he didn't get into the weeds, he did offer a few general areas that he hopes to target, including ending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, chopping off Cold War-era Pentagon programs and eliminating of tax credits for big oil companies.

The likelihood that a progressive alternative for deficit reduction would get a vote in the Senate, let alone a hearing, is slimmer than the chances of Simpson and Bowles' recommendations making it to the floor unscathed. But Sander's effort isn't necessarily about getting a vote. Rather, there is, currently, one blueprint being offered for the task of deficit reduction and it's largely anathema to the progressive community. Having a second proposal out there serves the purpose of giving the negotiations a bit of bearing.

"We all know that there are a number of fair and progressive ways to address the deficit crisis that would not harm the middle class and those who have already lost their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college," Sanders writes, in a letter to those he's inviting for discussions. "The time has come to put these proposals into a package so that the progressive view becomes a part of the national discussion." LINK

It's NOT a part of the budget.

The budget, the one that's in deficit is based on appropriations.  Social Security is not an appropriation it is a self supporting program.