For the first two years of his administration, President Obama had no overriding narrative, no frame to define his policymaking, no way to make sense of what he was trying to do. As of his 2011 State of the Union Address, he has one: Competitiveness.
The competitiveness narrative is intended to serve a number of purposes at once:
Can Obama can make his competitiveness narrative fit sensible Republican businesspeople, the bi-conceptuals ("moderates" and "independents"), and his progressive base? Is it a narrative that will win his reelection? It may be.
But to really bring in the business community, he has to be convincing in what he does, not just what he says. Enter William Daley as chief of staff, and Jeff Immelt of GE running his jobs commission. Lowering the corporate tax rate (conservatives cheer), making up for it by cutting off oil subsidies and tax loopholes (progressives cheer), but evening the playing-field for most corporations that didn't get subsidies and loopholes (conservative). Working on the deficit: A five-year freeze on "annual domestic spending" -- red meat for conservatives (but not technically a "cut"). It's "only" 12 percent of the budget. Cuts in the defense budget (progressive) but not very big or significant (conservative).
This is Obama's old promise -- no red states or blue states, only red, white, and blue states. An economic cold war to wave the flag and declare unity of purpose.
Maybe.
The hard right won't buy it -- when Democrats say investment they hear spending. Of course, they are not really interesting in cutting deficits per se. It is for them a means to an end, and the end is making the nation and the world fully conservative, eliminating social responsibility in favor of personal responsibility alone, eliminating empathy, increasing militarism, establishing an unregulated purely laissez-faire free market, and maintaining a dominance hierarchy of western over nonwestern culture, Christian over non-Christian, white over non-white, straight over gay, male over female. The hard right talks jobs, spending and the deficit, but their economics is based on the culture war. That's why the culture war is back. Legislation to end any support for abortion, defund NEA, NEH, and NPR, end public education.
Will the sensible Republican business community split off from such ideologically based economics and government, and support a pragmatic Democratic president on a national commitment to competitiveness?
For progressives who are listening seriously, there is of course a dark side. The competitiveness frame excludes half of what progressives care about. Abortion rights, under attack nationally by conservatives, don't help competitiveness, nor does gay marriage, worker rights, clean air and water, saving species and preserving natural environments, public financing of elections, helping the homeless, ending the war in Afghanistan, arts and humanities education, helping immigrants who are not well-educated, and on and on. Can these be made to fit the competitiveness frame?
Maybe.
Can you have unity without equality? Can you have productive industries without fair wages and organizing rights? Can you have long-term prosperity while destroying nature? Can you be economically productive without good health? Can you maximize production without women's rights? Can you educate a population without educating them in empathy and introspection and a vibrant sense of the aesthetics of life?
Can these be made to fit the competitiveness narrative -- competing on democratic principles of equality, fairness, and empathy? Or should we have to make them fit a competitiveness narrative?
Think for a moment of what the president did not say.
He failed to say that Social Security has a two-and-a-half trillion dollar surplus and that it is earned, not given away. What is called a "cut" would actually be theft from those who have paid into it over a lifetime. He needs to go on the offensive on Social Security, not be defensive. The same on Medicare. He failed to mention that it works and has the lowest operating cost of any form of health care by far. He failed to say that pensions are delayed earned payments for work already done, and that the conservative move to allow states and cities to declare bankruptcy is really a move to eliminate pensions for public employees and eliminate as much of public service as possible. He failed to say that "privatization" doesn't eliminate government, but institutes government by corporation for corporate profit not the benefit for citizens. He failed to say that we should have gratitude for immigrants -- with or without papers, educated or not -- who work hard at low pay to make possible the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes. He failed to defend the right to unionize as the foundation of fair working relationships.
These omissions are disturbing, especially since they can perfectly well fit a competitiveness narrative.
On the positive side, Democrats should long ago have recognized that they should be the party of small business, and this may help get them there.
Unfortunately, the president's address puts progressive Democrats in a terrible position. They may agree on issues like Social Security, medicare, education, and infrastructure, but they have serious concerns about gun control, women's rights and abortion, the war in Afghanistan, the right to unionize, housing for the poor, art and humanities education, and many other issues that don't fit competitiveness as usually understood.
I think progressive Democrats should speak out on these issues and try to provide a movement the president can get out in front of. But with the economic war metaphor controlling the political discourse, Democratic candidates supporting these issues will have a harder time fitting the narrative if it catches on. Though there are sufficient issues to support the president on, progressive Democrats will most likely run into trouble on much of what they do, and should, care about.
It is crucial to have a progressive movement that is really progressive. But what will its narrative be if the president's competitiveness pre-empts it?
David Bromwich: Obama, Incorporated
Rick Hamlin: Passing Along Faith, Father to Son
"More Government....more government....bigger government....more government."
End SOTU.
Using the NFL as a model, not MLB.
Also, your numbers are wrong.
But you sound really, really scared!
I am, too. But I am scared by the legions of screaming amateur economists like you who are screaming wolf. Sure there are problems. Yes, it will take work to bring the debt back into a reasonable range. But we did it before and we can do it again.
Triggering a second Depression is not a solution.
Get a grip.
But I would make an observation for all of you 'progressives' out there who don't think BO is liberal enough for you: Get out and shout and be loud. Make a big stink. Picket anti-abortion rallys. Keep screaming about the plunder on Wall Street. Scream bloody murder about Social Security and Medicare. Start screaming about single payer medical insurance, public education.
All of these politicians will go only where they feel their constituents are dragging them. But they will respond, IF you give them something to respond to. So get out there and be LOUD!
The other side is...
It really IS a darwinian struggle, and we can compete or be passed by (or worse). We don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.
So, yes, we have to get competitive again. And, yes, ultimately, it can improve the lives of the average American. If we are competitive enough, then, yes, eventually our standard of living will rise again.
And, yes, third world wages are the going wage. There is no alternative. You can thank inexpensive communication and transportation for that.
The key is to get third world wages up to a level where we can start to move ahead, again, rather than fall back. Until that happens, we have no real choice. If we choose protectionism, we lose. If we choose isolation, we lose. Is our standard of living going to drop? Yes. How much? However far we fall before the rest of the world rises up to meet us, so the sooner that happens, the better. At that point we could still keep falling, if we don't get competitive.
It is our choice. The rest of the world doesn't really care.
So get over it.
But get competitive.
It was wholly rejected. November confirmed this. America doesn't accept "blame the other guy" as an excuse to underperform.
It wasn't the "right wing" whom abandoned Obama and the Dems. It was the middle-third.
Whatever role the Bushies played in the "crisis", the Dems policy prescriptions were wrong, ineffective, and rejected.
So, if that's what you want, maybe you could round up, say, two or three million unemployed people to go sit on the Mall and stay there until jobs are made available? I'm sure that would make an impression.
NO - we need TARIFFS -- you make it there - you sell it there.
YOU MAKE IT HERE>>> you get to sell it here.
Obama is Republican Lite.... all the war, all the corruption, all the tax breaks for the rich
AND DADT and the DREAM ACT..
Um... I'll vote NO
Obama CUT taxes for 98 % - Increased Pell grants so kids can get a job and PAY TAXES.-B O TOOK ON A 2008 GLOBAL CRASH - 700 BILLION TARP 28 YRS UNDER REAGAN BUSH GOP WEALTH FAVORING POLICIES- CUTS- COURTS- LIES- GREED. Kids w / Pre- existing illness are now covered- students to age 26 are covered- over time- that will save us loads of cash . News flash WE already pay for all the UNinsured- Under insured They go to emer rooms that costs us 100 X more. Now free clinics are more available to sick families. . GM - its jobs were saved BO prevented a long deep depression. Troops are leaving Iraq.
nats Reagan Bush - GOP gave huge Unfunded cuts
started war based on fear - lies- profits.
2. Long-term protectionism, even if it didn't kill the world economy up front, would kill OUR economy, because we would simply slip farther and farther behind the rest of the world.
3. Note that BO didn't support the tax breaks for the rich (he said so, very publicly - I heard it from his own mouth on national television), but held his nose and made that compromise, because that was the only way he was going to extract an extension of unemployment benefits from the Repugnut Right.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/425
I'd like to replace the 'war' to be fought on the competitiveness front by a war to be fought about the proper definition of competitiveness.
And there may well be some surprise victories (and some pyrrhic ones) forthcoming in that war.
and if they promise to make stuff HERE - they won't pay taxes.
NO
Make it there - sell it there.
Make it here... sell it here
easy... and highly competitive.
He keeps playing with the bad kids