But in the Truth Zone we can call them cuts.

Hi, I’m Barack Obama, and I’ve popped into the Truth Zone for a few minutes. I’m told you’ll remember nothing, so as an exercise in reality and mental health, a quick run-down of the truth.

First, we Presidents feel we work for our campaign contributors – rich folks, big corporations — and not for voters. We bond with, get to know our contributors personally, party with them, and get tuned into their needs. So, they matter, you don’t. Okay, there is the technicality that you get to elect either a Democrat or nearly identical Republican every four years. About that: we look at campaigns as a PR exercise, and with a suffocating blanket of cooperative media, elections and such don’t push us off course.

So, even in a tight spot, a month before the 2008 election, me, McCain, Bush and Congress took care of our guys with the largest bailout in history, of our very important financial sector contributors. Two-thirds or more of you angrily opposed that (despite our ‘sky is falling’ PR blitz), but like I said you don’t matter. At the time a lot of you actually learned that.

But then you forgot, partly because you wanted to but mainly because we, the political-media complex, made sure you did. It’s suffocating: advertising, celebrities in your face, potted Time Magazine ‘histories’ for the pseudos, we’ve even got your college profs co-opted. Hey, we’ll sell it as long as you buy it: part of you wants to be reassured, you _wanna_ escape. Let’s throw in too that I was a helluva salesman for forgetting what you now knew and instead jumping onto Hope; sold a lot of that while we sold you out to the banks and Wall Street.

Anyway, if you’d been reading instead of hoping, it’s been plain since 2007 that I was hired – elected, whatever – to cut Social Security and other social programs. So here I am in mid-2011, putting Social Security on the table like I said I would back in October, 2007. I want a reputation as someone who keeps his promises to those who matter (many of whom are now my good friends, by the way).

Recently the contributors started  saying  they want austerity for you people. The Euro bankers and financial — well, _their_ campaign contributors – had gotten out ahead on austerity and now our American elite wants to catch up, I guess. And no, 9.2% unemployment ain’t austerity, not that easy. They say something a little closer to the Great Depression is what they’re looking for.

The Europeans and now my contributors say austerity definitely raises corporate profit levels and — I _think_ they’re serious — that it eventually produces prosperity. ‘The markets’ gradually get all confident or something, with finances on a firmer footing and the rich and the corporations getting taxed less. I _think_ that’s their rap, or maybe it’s just ‘rich get richer, poor get poorer’, which works too. Whatever.

When I do occasionally glance at the international headlines I notice – never say anything, just quietly notice — that imposing austerity so far has made things, uh, even more austere in places like Ireland and Greece. Eventually prosperous, okay, that’s what they say.

Shouldn’t be thinking about that stuff, gotta stop that. I was hired more as a sales guy, a talking head, and the goal is to get done what they want done. The contributors want austerity and, of course, lower taxes. Oh, and no cuts in defense and similar excess-profit sectors. So that leaves Social Security, Medicare, and anything that doesn’t have any money in it for them. A perfect two-fer, I get to keep my 2007 Social Security promise and make the economy worse, I mean more austere.

As for the ‘debt deal’ melodrama and wooden acting we’ve had to put you through over the last couple weeks, I apologize. Little time or effort is put into the script or rehearsals, because the PR apparatus, the mainstream reporters and pundits, are all bought off and play along no matter what. Otherwise they’re fired. But, yeah, I was in high school theater productions better than this. I’m a showman at heart, and mildly embarrassed being associated with amateurishness and low production values.

And, sorry in general for what’s about to go down. You know how it is, you’ve had horrible bosses. Mine pay well, but I know that’s no consolation for you.

Okay, this was refreshing but gotta go. When I snap my fingers you’ll feel a slight cramp in your stomach but remember none of what I’ve said.