By now we all know the story of how corporate execs routinely crank out short-term profits to inflate both quarterly earnings and their executive bonuses while crippling the long-term health of their hosts (the company's they work for). We all know how BP took short-term savings in cut-rate Halliburton concrete instead of investing in the long-term health of the Deep Horizon well.
Unfortunately the Obama Administration has also made similar, corner-cutting short-term decisions at the expense of long term, systemic change. Where those chickens are coming to roost most destructively is with his short-term coddling of the deficit hawks. However the deficit chimera is only the latest in a string of similarly self-destructive moves.
THE STIMULUS
Even the most obstinate (though long discredited) supply siders agreed that the government needed aggressive short-term spending to defibrillate the economy. Hardly anyone felt that the administration's initial investment would be enough to pull us out of a recession strongly enough to encourage significant job growth but the young administration decided against making the case for the long-term fix and instead cut a quick deal for short-term political gain. They won an immediate political victory but the still-fragile economy (and the President's popularity) is now paying the price. The President didn't make the case for the right-sized fix.
HEALTH CARE REFORM
Health care reform was breathtakingly ambitious and long-term, but even here instead of leading with his demands for the best possible systemic solution he ended up having to settle for far less.
THE DEFICIT
Conservatives crow incessantly about deficit-reduction along with their near-anarchic disdain for every non-military government institution. They sing the same song whether the sky is blue or gray, through Clinton surpluses or Bush/Obama deficits. For them, deficit reduction and the concomitant reduction of government into something they could "drown in a bathtub" is a matter of religion and not rational economic thought.
Unfortunately, the president's religion is finding common ground no matter how shaky. He has been so determined to prove to his implacable enemies that he's not a "tax and spend" Dem that he has echoed their deficit hawkishness even though he knows that their policies would drive us into only more misery and persistent unemployment.
As Harold Meyerson wrote last month (and Krugman for over a year now), "The problem with this [aggressive deficit reduction now] is twofold. First, it conflates short-term deficits needed to stanch the recession with long-term issues of fiscal sustainability. Such thinking risks turning a short-term recession into long-term stagnation, much as Japan did in the 1990s by failing to stimulate its economy sufficiently."
The right, whether in the back seat or behind the wheel, wisely boil their messages down to simple mantras like "deficit reduction" or "drill baby drill" and the White House and congressional democrats rarely if ever forcefully push back until it's too late. They sit back while these wrongheaded, short-term ideas take root in the public imagination.
He's a brilliant man and understands the task at hand but his past deficit-hawk rhetoric cripples his ability to truly turn this economy around. As he wrote last week in a letter to congressional leaders: "We are at a critical juncture on our nation's path to economic recovery. It is essential that we continue to explore additional measures to spur job creation and build momentum toward recovery, even as we establish a path to long-term fiscal discipline. At this critical moment, we cannot afford to slide backwards just as our recovery is taking hold."
The problem is, he's making this case a year too late. The deficit hawks have already taken the hill. He will need much more than a letter or two to dislodge them. He will need a ruthless and concerted campaign.
Instead of taking America's pulse and reacting, the president will have to lead Americans into changing our minds.
He will have to win us over again with rhetoric, charm and bold, surprising actions. He needs to explain exactly how much short-term money needs to be spent where and how to get how many back to work. He needs to show us safeguards that the money will be spent wisely. The money needs to be more than just the short-term extended unemployment benefits and aid to states to keep existing workers from being laid off that he's talking about in this letter. He needs to lead with much, much more innovative ideas. He needs to swing the narrative around from their truth to his, through force of will and the moral leadership we crave.
The cynicism and malaise that plagued the country during the Bush years went utterly into remission when Obama was elected. Unfortunately a year later it's back in our bones. We need the medicine that cured it the first time. Inspiration from a leader. Sure, maybe we really are the ones we've been waiting for, but sometimes we need a spark from a transformative leader to remind us that the small-minded and the fearful do not always rule the day.
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Obama reminds me of a deer frozen in the headlights.
Or perhaps he is so afraid of making another mistake, he manages little else.
He is a sad disappointment daily proving sadder to behold.
At least Jon Stewart, perhaps foremost among Obama's more prominant supporters, had the courage to remind Obama he used to be an encouraging leader but now only horrifies.
...when the person we have elevated to lead us actively works to water down the goals that we set, and instead jumps into bed with the very same Big Money forces that have been running the show for decades... it might not MATTER that we are the ones we've been waiting for.
Americans are fed up, but the people in the white house are convincing him that things are good.
Need to assemble a group that Obama respects to go and tell him.
Or maybe one million Americans should go and stand in front of the WH.
As of today he will go down in history as a failure. And we will all suffer.
Ok is everyone ready to admit that the American people are the problem. We have the leadership we have because its what we deserve. President Obama is doing a great job-he's finding out its not easy to clean up 28 years of corruption and neglect left by both bushies and a cow towing Clinton.
That would be my answer to the deficit hawks. Accusing them of hypocrisy on deficits, taking the waste of each agency to pay down the debt, cut the rich's tax breaks ....
Use that Executive pen for a national emergency and TELLING Republicans and Americans to get ready to spend whatever it takes to put people back to work, so they, through their taxes and buying of goods, is the only way of lowering the deficits.
He needs to point this out to people, strongly. Or we will still be swimming in unemployment and stagnation long after he is gone from office.
It will only happen if...he cleans out the WH and gets some savvy and smart people around him who knows the ways of Washington and gets rid of Rahm, Summers and Geithner. He needs a great chief of staff who can play politics to his advantage, and advocates for him, not cause fueds within this advisors.
It will only happen if.....gets more REAL Democrats elected in November, because if the Republicans increase their numbers, then real Obstruction will begin, and there will go his agenda, for sure.
I would say, Mr. President, go for broke. The way you are going, you are not getting any bipartisan support and you are being crucified by the wing nuts with their snazzy talking points to the ones who would do you harm, anyway.
Go big and go strong.
~James Freeman Clarke, Sermon
Most infuriating, and yes, team of rivals sounded good on paper.
Mr. Ellis, it seems to be a problem of deficits, not monetary, but that of courage and vision beyond the box of indoctrination and politician whisperers.
Hallelujah, and in that church is there any room for modification of modus operandi, or must we...how do they put it..."keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result"?
By now we all know..how corporate execs..crank out short-term profits..while crippling the long-term health of..[their] companies..Unfortunately the Obama Administration has also made..short-term decisions at the expense of long term..change..
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation. - James Freeman Clarke
..For [conservatives], deficit reduction and..reduction of government..is a matter of religion..Unfortunately, the president's religion is finding common ground..he has echoed their deficit hawkishness..
At least he's no longer a catacomb Mammonist.
..The right..boil their messages down to..mantras like.."drill baby drill".. democrats..sit back while these..ideas take root..
Nobody likes getting out of a comfortable chair.
..Instead of taking America's pulse and reacting, the president will have to lead Americans into changing our minds..
Perhaps he could practice first with leopards' spots.
..He will have to win us over again with rhetoric, charm, and bold, surprising actions..
That doesn't work so well once you're married...
He needs to lead with..more innovative ideas..
Unfortunately, he has no idea that I even exist.
..sometimes we need a spark from a transformative leader..
Please see my comments page.
As a result of his weak response to the economic response through the choosing out of touch advisors and his misguided healthcare reform objectives, we get half measures that amount to nothing more than handouts to corporations and nothing for the average American.
Except the bill, the average American gets to pick up the tab.
The narrative Obama needs is a long term narrative, the story line of how we get from here to there - there being a more economically stable world for all. It begins with rekindling a sense of community. For a former "community organizer" that should be easy. The hard part will be to refashion business so it again becomes a member of community instead of it's predator. That's going to require legislation, which in turn will require a "no" proof Senate.
If Obama is the man we thought he was when we elected him, he needs to start that narrative now, and go into this election cycle committed to winning a workable majority based on re-building the American community.
That's a big improvement over the public sadism of the Cheney years.
In Canada, it's Cheney time under Harper's dictatorship. He just spent 1 billion dollars on (security)repression for the G-20 and G-8 summits.
Democracy has been killed in Canada. The leader of the opposition, Ignatieff, is incompetent.
In 1947 we had just fought and won WWII, which necessitated government deficit spending unheard of since the Civil War. There is no similar situation today.
Point #2
They are called "The Greatest Generation" for a very good reason. They are the greatest generation. They knew hard work, and self sacrifice, and citizenship, and patriotism, and sacrifice, and hardship, and early death, and disease, and famine, and drought, and utter despair with hope still shining in ways that today's generation cannot even begin to imagine. We watch a movie about The Depression and we think, "Oh, yeah, that's us!" and that is an utter delusion. 6,822 American died in five weeks month on Iwo Jima. Then they came home, and went to college, and started businesses, and never made an excuse, and never asked the government for health care, and never bemoaned their fate, and built America.
Don't invoke the talisman of The Greatest Generation until you are ready to walk in their shoes. And don't talk about cowards or cowardice.