I’m glad to say the budget speech met my criteria from the last post. Here’s a transcript if you missed it. I like that he called out the Ryan plan —
Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.
The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan. There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.
I especially liked this part —
In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.
“I refuse to renew them again” — I hope he realizes he’s going to be held to that.
Paul Krugman said he was mostly pleased with the speech and said he could live with it, although he added —
I should probably say, I could live with this as an end result. If this becomes the left pole, and the center is halfway between this and Ryan, then no — better to pursue the zero option of just doing nothing and letting the Bush tax cuts as a whole expire.
This is the big joke on all of us — with all of the talk of sacrifice and what not, the truth is that if Congress does absolutely nothing for the next few years, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, this would close the budget gap by 40 percent over the next 20 years. All by itself.
Some of the bashbots are using this to argue that the President shouldn’t address the deficit at all; I think that would be politically stupid. And I don’t think Obama wants to eliminate the tax cuts on the middle class, not only because of politics, but because this is not the time to slow consumer spending.
Krugman also notes that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that the President’s proposal is still too weighted toward budget cuts instead of revenue increases. The President is vague about where some of these cuts will come, but defense is on the table.
There are lots of good comments already, but I was taken with this one by Hendrik Hertzberg. It begins:
One of the mysteries of the Obama Presidency has been Obama’s inability—or disinclination, I’m not sure which—to give sustained emotional sustenance to a certain slice of his supporters. I don’t mean the “Democratic base,†especially the institutional “interest group†base. And I don’t mean the disillusioned left, which is easily, almost perpetually disillusioned because it has such an ample supply of illusions. (A lot of lefties, notwithstanding their scorn for “the system,†seem to have an implicit naive faith in the workability of the mechanisms of American governance. Hence their readiness to blame the disappointments of the Administration’s first two years mainly on Obama’s alleged moral or character failings—cowardice, spinelessness, insincerity, duplicity, what have you.) Mainly, I guess, the slice I’m talking about is of people like me: liberals who continue to respect and admire Obama; who fully appreciate the disaster he inherited and the horrendous difficulty of enacting a coherent agenda even when your own party “controls†both Houses of Congress; who think his substantive record is pretty good under the circumstances; who dislike some of the distasteful compromises he has made but aren’t sure we wouldn’t have done the same in his shoes (etc.—you get the idea); but who are puzzled that our eloquent, writerly President seems to have done so little to educate the public about his own vision and to contrast it with that of the Republican right—which is to say, the Republicans.
I’m keeping that bit in parentheses about the illusions of liberals and repeating it for all the Obamabashbots. But I agree with the part about not educating the public. I think that may be the President’s biggest failing.
Hertzberg gave the speech high marks, even comparing it to FDR’s fireside chats. Clive Crooks, on the other hand, found the speech “a waste of breath.” But Crooks seems to take the Catfood Commission seriously, so … so much for Crooks. His opinion is a waste of keyboarding.
I also agree with Steve M. that Glenn Greenwald is, um, confused. I’m sorry, but I’ve had it up to here with the hysteria that Obama is actually succeeding by losing to the Right deliberately, because it was the plan all along. See Hendrik Hertzberg above.
See also Ezra Klein.
As I said in the earlier post, I really liked the speech a lot.
And I love that he mentioned that 10 years ago, we were heading to being completely debt free until the son of the Don of the Bush Crime Family took over.
But I wonder why he didn’t go on TV during prime time hours? FDR didn’t do his ‘Fireside Chat’s’ at 1:45pm when everyone who was working worked.
I also like how he kept harping on Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton being able to work in a bipartisan manner with opposing Congesses to resolve the deficit.
All that being said, I can’t see this Congress cooperating one bit. Theybe invested 2+ years in trying to see him fail, and doing everything short of shooting him to see that he does.
The deficit (of their own creation) is now their signiture issue. They ran on it last year. They wail, and moan, and rend their garments when talking about it in public. They came out with Ryan’s Randian monstrosity. Obama basically bitch-slapped Ryan’s plan and them yesterday. Does anyone think they’re going to do a lick to help him succeed on the issue that they’ve determined is theirs, and their alone?
Hertzberg’s snip above sums it up for me.
Gulag: actually they ran on “where are the jobs” with a side of deficit fear-mongering. They immediately pivoted when they got elected. Hard core R’s have the issues so conflated they think they’re one and the same, so they think they’re fulfilling their promise. Independents, I suspect, know they’re not the same: deficits are something you’ve been told you should worry about; unemployment actually hurts.
Boehner should be followed by cat calls of “where are the jobs” everywhere he goes.
[Deleted. I hate people who misrepresent what I wrote in order to whine at me. Either learn to read or find someone else to annoy. — maha]
Gordon,
Thanks, I forgot.
The only thing they care less about than the deficit, is creating jobs.
Now, creating serf’s, well, that’s a whole other ball game! 🙂
What we all have to remember is what george w bush did to this country, but not only him,the repugs gave him everything he wanted, and george never vetoed anything thing repugs wanted, it was like they had some kind of agreement. By not vetoing anything the repugs went crazy getting as much pork barrel spending as they wanted, and they loved it, and want to keep doing it. When I saw all the havock his policies were causing, I thought,my God it will take 20 years to fix what this evil little boy is has done to us, and one the worst things he did was to divide this country like no other president.
As KK said,
I thought it was a magnificent speech, but the proof is in the pudding.
I think you paint an exaggerated picture of Obama’s critics. Certainly, this parenthetical from Hendrick Hertzberg doesn’t describe the main thrust of the criticisms:
Obama is primarily being criticized from the left for failure to vigorously defend fundamental liberal ideas like the New Deal. Obama’s rhetorical marshmallow provides the Republican Party a huge door to walk through.
We’re facing major class-warfare from the right-wing. Obama has provided a weak response, and the losses in 2008 came from a disheartened Democratic base. I’m not even talking about the liberal base; independents and average middle class voters are not finding rhetoric to give them faith and sustenance– let alone a reason to vote.
Tom — there are different sorts of critics. There are people bringing up thoughtful criticism, and there are people screaming hysterically that Obama has sold us out and is a stooge of the Right. The quote describes the second group, and it is no exaggeration. I run the bashbots off here all the time. I had to ban a guy from commenting just this week who believed Obama has all the power he needs to do anything he wants, and if he hasn’t accomplished as much as we’d like it’s because he doesn’t want to or isn’t trying.
I almost always appreciate your point-of-view, and your blog is on my daily list.
I suggest paying less direct attention to the “bashbots” as that just gives them oxygen. Children respond well to diversion; shift the discussion each time to the class warfare agenda proposed by the Republicans, and point out the defenses being arrayed by the Democratic Party.
I contend Obama could have been much stronger at leading and much more vocal on defending the New Deal principles. In the face of people whose criticism of Obama seems unduly harsh, I would pivot by suggesting he strategy all along has been to rope-a-dope Rep. Privatizing Ryan, and that the Republicans have been pwned into over-reaching.
True or not, it gets us back to where we need to be, namely confronting the Republicans in 2012.
I thought it was a good speech..now all Obama has to do is start hammering it home ad nauseum. The truth of what he is saying will resonate with the American people if they can hear it more that once.
It would be nice to see a greater emphasis placed on the cost of our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan..I think the consensus is that we’ve had enough spending on wars and we don’t see a value for our expenditures( even if it’s on the cuff).. I know for me personally I’m experiencing the greatest financial stress in my 40+ years in our job market and economy, so the idea of fighting a holy war against radical Islam doesn’t sit well with me, and I’m certain there are millions of Americans who share the same anxieties. I see the whole issue of our involvement in wars being a weak point in the repug stranglehold.
To be fair, GG doesn’t claim to be an expert on domestic politics the was he’s “expert” on civil liberties.
GG can go whole hog on the media bias and national security issues, but because he doesn’t seem to remember anything that happened before George Bush II, his arguments about domestic politics are going to be … stilted. His intellectual justification of Citizens United was the ultimate proof of that.
I very much appreciate Glenn’s expertise on civil liberties issues, and I don’t mind at all that he has been critical of the Obama Administration in those areas. And I like Glenn; I’ve met him a couple of times. In person, he is soft-spoken and gentlemanly. But no, he doesn’t “do” domestic politics well.
“I very much appreciate Glenn’s expertise”
Well, that makes one of us, lol.
Maha said:
I especially liked this part –
In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.
How convenient that this won’t be an issue until 2013. Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for two years rather than one, which means the issue won’t reappear until Obama’s second term (if any), or possibly Sarah Palin’s first term.
And should Obama get re-elected, I predict that he’ll renege on this promise as he has done on so many others. Unfortunately, I don’t have a time machine, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Color me skeptical.
Candide -please re-read the Hendrick Hertzberg quote, about ten times. It’s speaking to you.
Candide …Put on your empathy cap if you got one. I’m no big fan of extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, but Obama did the right thing by throwing a lifeline to millions of Americans. It takes a big man to be willing to appear impotent and out maneuvered in order to show mercy.
“Never does a man stand so tall as when he stoops to help the helpless.” 🙂