One of the most coyly ambiguous lines in President Obama's Inaugural Address was his pledge to "end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
That sounds high-minded, but you can read the promise two ways. Some heard it as a reproach to Republican ideology and to President Bush, who was seated nearby. Others heard it the latest reiteration of Obama's desire to move beyond dogma per se and to achieve a new synthesis.
We will soon learn which it was. Obama, the president who would be post-ideological, is at last having his first encounters with the realities of polarized politics. Exhibit A is the stimulus package.
Obama has been more than generous in offering the Republicans far more tax-cutting as part of the recovery program than sound policy warrants. Will they reciprocate and support the rest of the package?
At Obama's meeting last Friday with Congressional Republican and Democratic leaders, Republican Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia was making the case that more tax cuts would be more stimulative than public spending. Obama replied in a jocular way according to those present, that the issue had been settled by the election, and "I won."
Nothing post-ideological about that assertion.
More important, perhaps, was Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's reported statement that Senate Republicans would not filibuster against the stimulus package. But this may have been short-lived. In the official Republican response to the President's remarks Saturday urging passage of the plan, House Republican leader John Boehner scoffed that the plan would "spend a whopping $275,000 in taxpayer dollars for every new job it aims to create, saddling each and every household with $6,700 in additional debt."
On the Sunday talk shows, Republicans turned up the rhetoric. Even John McCain, who Obama went out of his way to court, called for more tax cuts and indicated he would vote no unless they were included.
The bill can squeak through without Republican votes, assuming no filibuster. But a more difficult balancing act may come within the Democratic Caucus. Obama needs not only some Republican backing or at least a Republican agreement not to filibuster. He also needs the support of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Their mantra has been that deficits are far too large. They were calling for spending cuts (and some tax increases) back when the deficit was less than 3 percent of GDP.
Even without Obama's proposed $820 billion recovery program, the Congressional Budget Office's latest budget projection shows a deficit of $1.2 trillion this year, or 8.3 percent of GDP. The sharp increase in the deficit is the result of the recession, which reduces economic activity and hence tax receipts. With enactment of the stimulus, the deficit temporarily rises to over 10 percent of GDP--the biggest deficit since World War II.
Most of the Blue Dogs, who include House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina, acknowledge the need for a temporary increase in public spending. Spratt's opposite number, Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), warned at a recent hearing that the United States was headed for a fiscal catastrophe. Conrad acknowledged "the need to have an economic recovery package that will add to deficits and debt in the short-term." But he went on to sound the alarm about the "unsustainability of our current fiscal condition."
This also suggests an ideological division that will be hard to paper over. After four decades of bipartisan assaults on government, many progressive Democrats (this writer included) hope to use the stimulus as a down-payment on an expansion of government services such as affordable housing and early childhood education that have been chronically under-funded, as well as long term investments in green energy and smart infrastructure.
But the 49-member Blue Dog Coalition in the House and Senate fiscal conservatives such as Conrad see the stimulus as a one-shot. They want sharp spending cuts as soon as the immediate crisis is past, to pay for the fiscal sin of a temporary deficit hike.
If you look at the details of the Obama recovery plan, however, it includes a lot of outlays that don't look like one-shots: laying more than 3,000 miles of electric transmission lines; installing 40 million "smart" utility meters to help reduce energy use; weatherizing 2 million homes and most federal buildings. Among the other infrastructure investments are improving security at 90 major ports and modernizing the nation's water system. These needs and others like them don't end after two years.
Obama said Saturday in his first radio and video address, "This is not just a short-term program to boost employment. It's one that will invest in our most important priorities -- like energy and education, health care and a new infrastructure -- that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century."
Sounds good to me, but he will face ideological qualms from the fiscal conservatives within his own party, as well as from most Republicans. So the bipartisan honeymoon is unlikely to last, and I'd say, good riddance. Obama's real challenge is to mobilize public opinion--not just to win general approval ratings but to make it very hard politically for anyone in either party to oppose his recovery program or to demand crippling budget cuts down the line as the quid pro quo. That's what leadership is all about.
It's show time. Call me out of date and ideological, but it's reassuring when President Obama reminds himself and his opponents that "I won."
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His best-selling book is "Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency."
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Obama To GOP: "I Won"
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House Stimulus Bill (FULL TEXT) UPDATED
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Obama Offers Proposals In Stimulus Plan That "Appear Designed Specifically To Attract Republicans"
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Warren Buffett: "Nobody Knows" If Stimulus Package Will Work
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McCain Not Satisfied With Stimulus, Wants "Major" Rewrite (VIDEO)
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Rush Limbaugh Opposes Stimulus Package Because Success Could Hurt GOP's Electoral Chances
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Obama's Right-Wing Dinner Friends Blast Stimulus Plan
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GOP Leaders, Including McCain, Reject Stimulus Plan
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Businesses Lobby For Their Cut Of Stimulus Pie
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Obama's Fifth Day: GOP Signals Opposition To Stimulus, Obama Announces New Environmental Policy
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Krugman: Obama Should Ignore "Huffing And Puffing" Stimulus Opponents
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Stimulus Includes Tax Cuts That Obama Economists Panned As Ineffective
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Obama open to compromise on $825B stimulus bill
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Boehner To GOP: Oppose The Stimulus
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Will the Environmental Movement be a Job Creator at Last?
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Making Sense of CBO's Stimulus Projections
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Now Is the Time to Bail Our Poor Children and Families Out of Poverty
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Where's A Good Earmark When You Need It?
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So Now They're Fiscal Conservatives
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A Rush to Bad Judgment
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Economic Stimulus Bill: Sound Policy vs. D.C. "Bipartisanship"
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Rush Limbaugh Is Hot Under the Collar
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Stimulus and Energy
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Retro-Hooverites All
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Obama's Economic Recovery Plan Is Almost As Pure As Ivory Soap
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Taking Responsibility: Republicans Continue Recovery Obstruction
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A Hole Worth Digging?
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The Audacity of Rush Limbaugh's Hope: Standing Up to the Hubris of a Bully
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Ignore Limbaugh
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Condoms and Art are Stimulating (to the Economy); Corporate Tax Cuts Not So Much
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Nothing post-ideological about that assertion."
Nothing particularly ideological about it, either. He's stating a fact: I was chosen by the people and I'm going to do what the people want and expect.
Why exactly do we fund deficits with debt--money we borrow at interest, money we allow the banks to create from nothing? (Like the counterfeiters they are, albeit legal ones, they own the money we allow them to create by issuing loans. And then they also own the interest they collect on the money they create from thin air.)
Why not do what Lincoln did: finance necessary deficits with Treasury-issued Greenbacks. Non-interest bearing Greenbacks. Yes, fiat money issued by the government.
Inflationary, you say? Why is fiat money issued by the government more inflationary than fiat money issued by banks? The Fed is there to protect us from inflation? Then why does a 3 cent stamp cost 42 cents?
And isn't the Fed now trying to induce modest inflation to counter feared deflation? And failing to do so--"pushing on a string", they call it.
Actually, as has long been known, issuing new money to employ otherwise idle resources does not produce inflation. And that is precisely what the stimulus package is all about.
So why not fund it with Greenbacks?
The other thing these boys and girls need to understand is the difference between ideology and rationality. The first may get you elected, but you need huge doses of the second to get the job done that you were "hired" to do. If the Government was a corporation and Obama was the newly elected CEO, i believe that many in the house and the senate would be reading their letters of dismissal right about now, considering the performance of the last eight years.
To all those, both in and out of the present government, I have one simple message: PUT YOUR IDEOLOGY AWAY AND GET TO WORK!!
R-i-ght, we should BORROW FROM THE CHINESE COMMIES like we've done the past eight years. That's worked out so much better for us.
And FYI, "taxing and spending our way into prosperity" is EXACTLY what FDR did. Look it up.
Japan was in a recession from '92 to '97 because their housing market went bust. Peddle your Republican propaganda elsewhere. You lost.
FDR prolonged the suffering by 6-7 years why you ask... because he raised the taxes after Hoover cut them, he left office in 1933)... look it up.
Japan did keep taxes high and they stagnated till they lower them for everyone... look that up while you're at it.
Go ahead and give on example where increased Gov. spending = economic recovery? Even 'slick-willy' cut taxes to grow the economy...
Schooled...
Under Reagan, that unemployment rate was 3/10ths of a point better in Nov. 1984 than it was the month he was first elected. George W. Bush came close to being the first President since Hoover to have fewer people employed when he was up for reelection than at the first election day. Of course, the deficit shot up under both presidents.
Supply Side Economists had argued that there is a point beyond which increased tax rates burden the economy so much that cuts will spur more economic activity and revenues will actually increase. The experience of the 1990s show that the tax increases of George Aitch Bush and Bill Clinton did not push us to that far side of the Laffer Curve. Supply Siders don't address that fact, but dro the Laffer Curve from their rhetoric--they reduce themselves to the absurd position that we should just abolish taxes and more money will just drift into the government's nets than they'll know what to do with it.
Obama giving in to tax cuts is similar to when Bush had Kennedy over for the weekend at the very beginning of his first term to work out the "no child left behind" agenda. That turned out to be a big flop because I don't think many liberals remember that Kennedy was a major sponsor of that bill. Oh well.
Early childhood education programs - the only thing a toddler needs is a caring parent. Read to your child and talk to them. That should be free by my standards.
I will agree with you about the infrastructure concerning a new grid and the water supply system. That's an investment that I think is worth the price tag. I've never understood why the government didn't reach out to the refineries and plants and invest in cleaner technology. Every government building should be the model for energy efficiency and then move that technology to inner city housing.
Affordable housing - Isn't that what caused the bubble and bust. The government and banks did what they were suppose to do, well except collect payment from the new home owners.
The Republicans demanding tax cuts is just plain stupid. TAX CUTS DON'T WORK.
By "reaching across the aisle" I suppose you mean "Reid-Pelosi bipartisanship" (appeasement). Since 2001, the Republicans have learned that they yell and scream loud enough, Democrats will cave in. So I suppose you mean that Obama should ignore the 52 percent of Americans who voted AGAINST McCain, who voted AGAINST tax cuts to "fix" our economic problems -- all so Washington Republicans don't pout. Well, BLEEP Washington Republicans!
They will stonewall until every business is shut down. The PRESIDENT can go over their heads, and that's what he needs to do. The RNC just wants him to fail. Rush has already given them their orders.
His gushing friendliness towards the right wing comes off as a bit needy to me, and I still cannot imagine what would make him (among other things) select a bigot from the other side to do his inaugural invocation. Well, a "friendly" bigot, anyway.
Whenever Reagan didn't get what he really wanted from congress (Democrats), he made a charming and forceful public broadcast, winning enough of the public over to knock off his opponents. While it really isn't that hard to emasculate Democrats -- whose fortitude seems to fall away like overripe fruit -- Reagan's leadership style was especially effective when bushwhacking the Dems. Couldn't stand the guy, but had to give him credit.
I'm curious whether Obama has anymore in him than a terse little "I won."
People have been hoodwinked into believing that business should regulate itself in order for our economy to thrive. Put that B.S. into hyperdrive, like Bush and his cronies did, and we end up like this.
There was a political party -- last time I remember -- that was supposed to work to keep the robber barons at bay and protect the average citizen...oh yeah, the Democrats. As I said, they seem to drop their fortitude like overripe fruit. And their integrity has been for sale over the past couple of decades. Seems like any drug company, bank, or oil company that wanted to own either party simply had hand over a wad of cash.
Neither do I see his ovations to the republicans as needy. He stated in one of his speeches before the election that those in power were not going to relinquish it without a fight. I believe he is capable and willing to engage them in their opposition which does not mean a knock-down-drag-out fight.
Funds should go to infastructure and green energy development. New jobs and eventual self-sufficiency. Good for everyone.
and it will not impede their standard of living one bit. Those making much less - say 40- 50 K - have less after taxes to live on and still pay the bare necessities. And why give social security payments to those making 1 mil a year / would they even miss it- I wouldn't. OR How about if we ask those making 1 mil a year- if they still need / want their SS check. That seems fair. Am I being unreasonable ?
Virtually all economists agree that the only way to stimulate an economy is by cutting (all) taxes. The results also include more Gov revenue. Last recession, W cut taxes and we have 52 straight months of economic growth.
Gov. is an expense... the current $1 Trillion is full of ideological waste and the only thing really being created here is bureaucracy, welfare and deficit... Huge deficit.
The biggest obstacle involves the Republican filibuster and the Senate procedural rule. While Obama's attempt to gain bi-partisan support is admirable, we need to demand that once we have a stimulus package together (which will involve compromises with certain Blue Dog Democrats), the Democratic majority needs to resort to the nuclear option if necessary to get this package passed by February 15.
We also need to demand that the Senate reform or streamline its procedural rules. We need to abolish the filibuster and to eliminate the 60 vote procedural rule. Eliminating these two props will eliminate a lot of last minute amendments and earmarks. It will actually force Republicans to behave in a bi-partisan manner.
We cannot expect Obama to carry this load himself. We must actively support his plans every inch of the way,