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While discussing America's current economic situation and whether voters think it's going to improve or not on CNN's Your Money, panel member Candy Crowley made this bizarre statement as to how our political leadership should react to the recommendations from the Catfood commission's co-chairs, Simpson and Bowles.

CROWLEY: Well, they're going to try next year. I mean, here's the problem. Everybody talks about reducing the debt and reducing the deficit, which are two separate things. But nonetheless, we've had this debt commission come and say, well, here's how you do it. And there's just three big ticket items, right? Federally funded health care, the Pentagon and Social Security. Well, you know, what you need here are three politicians, the Speaker, the Majority Leader in the Senate, and the president who don't care about re-election to kind of try to lead this. Because when you look at all the polling, the public is not for cutting any of those or changing the benefits.

MARTIN: There you go.

CROWLEY: And you can't get to it any other way.

First of all, since when do any politicians not care about being reelected? Sadly it seems to be all they care about too often and raising money to do it rather than looking after their constituents. Second, the "everybody" that's obsessed with deficit reduction are not the American voters, but our beltway Villagers and the politicians who have decided to use this opportunity for some good old Shock Doctrine type changes to our social safety nets.

Next we get Crowley saying we need to address "federally funded health care", by which I assume she means Medicaid. Of course no mention there that the reason it is so expensive is the government is paying for the oldest and sickest patients while the insurance companies get to make a profit off of the rest of us and how opening that system up to everyone would make it viable and allow the rest of us to quit making the insurance company CEO's rich.

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I'm glad we've had a few liberals to stand up for the working class on that deficit commission like Jan Schakowsky since it looks like their recommendations are going nowhere for now. During her interview on CNN's Parker/Spitzer, Schakowsky explains to Parker fill-in Will Cain that out in the real world, there is not this obsession with deficit reduction or entitlement cuts that we're seeing out of our beltway Villagers chattering class. She also does a good job of explaining that Social Security does not reduce the deficit, despite being called unserious by Cain.

The bad news is, this is just a preview of what's yet to come. Here's more on that from Chris Bowers -- What happens next on the Deficit Commission.

Full transcript via CNN.

SPITZER: Let me ask you very simply, is this commission becoming a train wreck? I mean, it just seems hard to imagine, there are going to be 14 votes for any plan or any even piece of this plan as it's been rolled out it's been met with derision and opposition. What do you think? Fourteen votes in the cards for this plan?

SCHAKOWSKY: I don't see 14 votes for this plan, but I do think that if we would trim back our ambitions and make more of a laundry list of things that we could all agree on, and I think there would be some that point us at least in the right direction, that we could make a powerful statement, nonetheless. It seems, however, that Bowles- Simpson have done sort of Bowles-Simpson 2.0 that they're going to introduce -- we may even get a copy of it tonight that will be discussed tomorrow and then voted on Friday. If it still has a lot of the things that hurt the middle class, I'm an old-fashion Democrat and think we ought to stand up for middle class people, that cut social security benefits, that add to the cost of Medicare for the elderly that put very tough caps on discretionary spending which is mostly programs that help ordinary people, then I don't see how I can vote for this plan. And also, it doesn't have any kind of investment in the economy, helping to create jobs, which really does promote deficit reduction through growth.

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Chris Matthews asked his panel on his weekend bobble-head show if this is "the perfect storm to actually reduce the federal debt over time" by which I'm sure he means some Shock Doctrine style cuts to Social Security and privatizing Medicaid by turning it into a voucher system. The panel doesn't think it's going to happen because of course the un-serious liberals don't want any cuts to our social safety nets.

This conversation by our beltway Villagers is becoming tiresome, but they keep having it. Rather than talking about having single payer so that Medicare is not dumping the sickest and most expensive patients onto the government while the insurance companies profit off of the rest of us and instead of talking about lifting the cap on taxable income for Social Security to keep it solvent far into the future and make it a less regressive tax, we get treated to this nonsense.

And if any Democrats are taking Anne Kornblut's talking points seriously that making cuts to Social Security is going to win them any points with independent voters, they're going to find out the hard way that they're sadly mistaken. George Bush thought it would work out for him as well with talk of privatizing Social Security and the more he talked, the more he just pissed off the electorate.

If President Obama and any "moderate" Democrats decide to make cuts to Social Security or raise the retirement age, rather than win anyone over I think they're more likely to completely destroy the party. I also think you'll see liberals moving to third parties and looking for primary challengers in droves.

I just let my Senator know that's how I felt and I hope the rest of you that have Democrats representing you in the House or the Senate who look like they might be promoting the Catfood commissions' co-chairs' recommendations do so as well. They need to hear from their constituents that it's not acceptable to balance the budget off of the backs of the elderly, the middle class and what's left of it and the poor.

Transcript below the fold.

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Looks like David Gergen isn't done pimping for Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson yet. Gergen uses what's going on in Ireland right now as as excuse to tell Americans that we had better get ready for some "tough medicine" once the deficit commission comes out with their report next week and of course that "medicine" should start with going after Social Security. Heaven forbid the rich should have to pay back the government for those tax cuts. Gergen apparently thinks the peons should be paying for their excesses.

MALVEAUX: On Wall Street, investors did not buy into the excitement over Black Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial average was down 95 points when the closing bell rang earlier at 1:00 p.m. today. Now, I'll explain the slight in stock prices on worries about Europe's growing debt crisis. We're going to see new action next week to try to slash the federal deficit in this country. I want to bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen, to talk a little bit about that.

Happy Thanksgiving, David. The president's bipartisan deficit commission are going to be releasing their formal recommendations next week. A lot has been leaked already and people are not happy about hearing the retirement age going up, Social Security benefits going down. One of the co-, Allen Simpson, said this. He says, I've never had any nastier mail or had been in a more difficult position in my life, just vicious.

People I've known, relatives saying, you son of a bitch, how could you do this? His language not ours, but clearly, I mean, to tackle the deficit here, if you can't tackle Social Security, I mean, how are these guys going to do this without just being slammed all around?

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of President Obama's deficit commission, talked to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell about her alternative to the proposal by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.

Schakowsky Offers Alternative to Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Plan:

Plan Would Close Deficit without Forcing the Middle Class to Pay the Bill

WASHINGTON, DC (November 16, 2010) – Today Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, offered a comprehensive proposal to reduce the federal deficit without making middle class Americans foot the bill. Schakowsky's plan is an alternative to the Bowles-Simpson plan and would reduce the deficit by $426.95 billion in 2015, surpassing President Obama’s $250 billion target. Critically, the Schakowsky plan accomplishes deficit reduction without making cuts to essential federal expenditures that benefit the middle class. In unveiling her proposal, Schakowsky made the following statement:

“The President’s Fiscal Commission has been given a concrete goal: to achieve primary budget balance in 2015, ensuring that all spending is paid for except for interest on the national debt. Last week, co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson laid out their plan, which they presented to the Commission and to the public. Their proposal would have serious consequences for lower and middle class Americans, and that is why I cannot support it.

“I am releasing my own plan today because I believe that there is a better way to achieve our goal – one that protects the poor and the middle-class.

“Lower and middle class Americans did not cause the deficit.

“Just ten years ago the federal budget was generating a surplus as far as the eye could see. That surplus was turned into a deficit due to massive tax cuts – mainly to wealthy Americans; two wars paid for by borrowed money; and a major recession caused by the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks.

“Over the last decade the incomes of middle class Americans have actually shrunk, while those of the wealthiest two percent of the population have exploded.

“The middle class did not benefit from the Republican economic policies that led to the current deficit – they were the victims – they should not be called upon to pick up the tab.

“Fixing the Federal deficit is not an end in itself. The goal of budget policy should be to assure long-term, widely shared economic growth. Economic growth is not just good for businesses and families – it will reduce the deficit. Sustained, long-term economic growth requires that we end the trend of concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the rich and less and less in the hands of a middle class that can then afford to buy the products and services that will sustain economic growth.

“The proposals included in this plan are aimed at bringing the federal deficit under control using policies that will put Americans back to work and strengthen middle class incomes: the foundation of long-term economic growth.

Go read the rest for more details. It's good to see some pushback against Simpson and Bowles. I'm sure we'll be hearing most of the Beltway Villagers (unlike Lawrence O'Donnell) dismissing it as not being "serious" since it doesn't inflict enough pain on the working class, which needs to be ready to take their medicine so the rich can keep their tax cuts. We'd hate to ever do anything to hurt those "job producers" now, would we?

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I missed this portion of CNN's The Situation Room during the week but caught the reair this weekend. I know our politicians have to be careful with their words because they don't want anything they say used in some political ad against them later, but I really wish Jan Schawoksky had felt she had the freedom to tell David Gergen to stick his “political cowardess” remark where the sun doesn't shine during this segment. I'd like for Gergen to explain how our budget being balanced off the backs of the poor and the middle class and elderly is somehow responsible instead of asking the rich to pay their share and balance the budget.

Nothing like seeing three on one from our supposed “liberal media” ganging up on someone who's trying to do the right thing as a member of President Obama's Catfood commission. David Gergen and the other "serious" Villagers in our sorry excuse for a mainstream media are never going to have to worry about whether the sacrifices they're asking other Americans to make are going to make any difference in their lives. Gergen and his ilk could care less if some coal miner, or janitor, or electrician, or carpenter or garbage collector has to work until they drop dead. Nor does he care that they drop dead because they don't have a job and no one will hire them because they're too old if they're unemployed and they're too young to collect Social Security if the age gets jacked up.

Raise the rates on the upper earners and your problem with Social Security is solved. I'd like to see the cap lifted completely and the rate reduced for everyone. We'll never see that happen as long as the wealthy are controlling our political class and our talking heads in the corporate media.

BLITZER: We're joined by Democratic congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, of Illinois, along with our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger and David Gergen. Congresswoman, let me start with you. You hate these proposals, and you're a member of this commission, why?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I'm a member of the commission. We were told from the beginning that nothing would be done to Social Security that would affect current beneficiaries. And, of course, the proposal does exactly that. It changes the cost of living adjustment, the way we calculate it. That would affect current beneficiaries. And of course, in addition, does raise the age of retirement that will effect future beneficiaries as well.

That's a non-starter. It's just not going to happen. And in terms of Medicare, which takes an increasing bite out of Social Security, we see that the proposal increased cost sharing for seniors who are already spending about 30 percent of their income on health care. So, you're going to see absolutely a firestorm of opposition from older and near-older Americans against this proposal.

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Here's the PBS Newshour's idea of a "fair and balanced" debate. Two Villagers telling the rest of us how wonderful the Catfood Commission's co-chairs preemptive strike with their recommendations they knew the majority of the full debt commission would never approve are; and how the working class in America had better be ready to take their medicine and listen to the "serious people" who are ready to debate their findings.

David Brooks thinks that Bowles and Simpson didn't go far enough with the pain they want to inflict on the elderly, the middle class and the poor. And Mark Shields thinks we haven't had enough "shared sacrifice". Sorry Mark, but the ones who haven't sacrificed anything are the rich. Everyday Americans have seen their pay go down, their jobs outsourced and their homes go under water. The working class in this country have sacrificed enough already.

JIM LEHRER: Sure. All right, what do -- speaking of tension, what do you make of the debate -- the deficit commission chairmen's proposal for how to solve the deficit problem in the United States of America at the federal level?

DAVID BROOKS: First, I thought it was an excellent start to a discussion. It had a wide range of options, many of which are extremely painful. Those of us who own homes don't want to give up our mortgage interest deduction. I'm sure people in their 60s don't want to postpone the retirement age.

But the fact is, we're facing a national disaster, and we're going to have to do some really terrible things. In fact, they probably underestimated how many terrible things, because they have some rosy scenarios in there.

But they took the serious things that have to be done, and they threw them on the table. And so I think they did a great service to the country. I think the second thing they have done is, they have smoked out who is willing to have this conversation and who isn't.

You saw people on the right, like Grover Norquist, and people on the left, like some of the public sector unions, say: Hell, no. We are not talking about this. This is dead on arrival.

But then you had a lot of people, both Democrats and Republicans, saying: We hate this stuff, but we have got a real problem. We have got to talk about it.

And so I thought they have smoked out who is really serious about this thing. And then the final quick thing I will say, all these things are very painful. The idea that, politically, with this country where it is right now, could pass any of this stuff, it's fantasyland. The country has to change first.

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This had to be one of the more irritating segments I've had the unfortunate circumstance of watching on Morning Joe in a while. First they went about trashing the students protesting tuition fee hikes in London and those silly Socialists in Europe who are all just used to sucking off of the government teet. Then they proceeded to trashing anyone who's dared to speak out against the early report released by the president's Catfood Commission co-chairs Bowles and Simpson.

How dare those reactionaries Nancy Pelosi, Paul Krugman and Richard Trumka speak out against those good reasonable adults who want to raise the retirement age and balance the budget off of the backs of the elderly, the middle class and the poor. The nerve of them!

Update: And just one last word on this panel discussion as an afterthought. Did anyone else feel like they were watching a bunch of high school kids debate policy when it came to their reaction on the protests in London? Yeah Mika, destroying the social safety net and the government's former position that education matters beyond high school if you want to retain a middle class and those students being angry that the government has decided that doesn't matter any more and protesting is just like your brother pulling a stunt where he imitated a cop and got in trouble for it. That's exactly the same thing and just kids being kids who need to be disciplined for their bad behavior. Jebus these people make my head hurt.

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As Susie already noted, this release by the co-chairs of President Obama's Catfood Commission that don't look like they have any chance of being approved by the entire panel is nothing but a political ploy designed to warm us up for the "reasonable compromises" we're likely to see proposed next. And the Villagers haven't wasted any time getting started. Here's Gloria Borger and Wolf Blitzer telling us how important it is that this got "the conversation going."

Too bad that "conversation" is a completely dishonest one about what really should be done to take care of our deficit instead of lying about Social Security.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the political realities of this proposal.

We'll bring in our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger -- Gloria, how likely are these proposals going to be to move forward?

It's by no means a done deal.

BORGER: No. And as you pointed out, Wolf, this is a chairman's mark. They wanted to get this out there, to put this on the table. And I think we should give the two chairmen, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, some credit here for putting some really bold, serious ideas on the table.

But it -- but you do need 14 out of 18 members to approve of this in order to get this proposal before the Congress. Given the fact that this has both large spending cuts in it and a change in the tax system, I'm not sure, Wolf, that they can get there. But it's in everyone's interests right now to try and get something before the Congress. So I won't say no. You know, we just don't know at this point.

BLITZER: We're -- we're already, though, hearing loud complaints...

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: -- from liberals and from conservatives. I don't think this should be surprising.

BORGER: No, it's not surprising. You know, Wolf, we've been debating these issues for years. They're the same issues. Nancy Pelosi just put out a statement -- I just got it on my BlackBerry -- that called it "simply unacceptable." A lot of the spending caps are going to be unacceptable to Democrats. And the changes in the tax system, particularly eliminating sort of the deductions on mortgage, for example, are going to be unacceptable to Republicans.

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David Gergen joined the set of John King USA to praise the "courageous" Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson for their recommendations to balance the budget off of the backs of the elderly, the working class and the poor in the United States. Sorry David but the "grown ups" in this country need to push back against the type of fear mongering we just saw on display here.

KING: David when you listen to a conversation like this, the left and the right essentially saying before the ink is dry, no way, dead on arrival, do you have any confidence at all that even after this election where spending and deficits are a huge concern that the leadership in Washington is prepared to have a grown up conversation about how to deal with it?

GERGEN: John I have hope but not confidence. I think that last conversation where people continue to be dug in in the face of massive deficit this country is running up. A country on the road to bankruptcy and people can't get out of their sandboxes and get serious about this and to say look, we've all got to come together and figure out a constructive solution to this.

You know we'll condemn this country to second class status. You know we're all worried about decline. They will put us there if they do not come to grips with the fact that we've got these huge deficits and to get there what Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, these two chairmen courageously proposed is that we balance the budget at 21% of GDP for taxes and 21% for spending.

That's what we did when Erskine Bowles was Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and negotiated with Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in the House as you remember John, when that first major balanced budget was achieved back in the 1990's, it was exactly at 21% spending, 21% taxes and we had three balanced budgets in a row and we had great prosperity and jobs in this country and we're going to have to do both.

Now the fact is we've got deficits over the next ten years of ten trillion dollars... ten trillion dollars. This deficit commission is only proposing that we cut four trillion out of the ten trillion. We're still going to have big deficits but at least it gets us on the road to sanity. And if we can't do four, we are just... count on it. We will be a second class country.

From Paul Krugman -- Unserious People:

OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent. [...]

Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.

Still, I guess this is what it takes to get compromise, if by compromise you mean something the center-right and the hard right can agree on.

Update: It’s here. And it really is that bad. The idea that co-chairs of a commission whose charge is fiscal sustainability should take it upon themselves to (a) declare that federal revenue must not exceed 21 percent of GDP — that’s right, putting a cap on receipts and (b) call for reducing the top rate from 35 to 23 is just awesome.