Obama, Just So Negative

When Barack Obama starts to affix blame, he pulls back and dilutes his message. It's part of being even-handed,refusing to vilify enemies of the nation or to back his supporters, all the more to fashion a compromise or at least some deal which doesn't offend his opponents. Barack Obama does not hate.

In his extraordinary piece in Sunday's New York Times, Drew Westin drew (pun intended) a contrast between Obama 44 and Ronald Reagan hero Franklin Roosevelt, who thundered "never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me- and I welcome their hatred." The President, Westin noted, differs dramatically from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, though Obama is fond of paraphrasing Dr. King's incomparable metaphor "the arc of the moral universe." Instead,

when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

More than an observation, Westin describes what is clear to all who have been watching. That wouldn't, however, stop Rush Limbaugh, who on Tuesday ranted

Hate the insurance companies, hate the oil companies, hate coal companies, hate corporate jet owners, hate corporate jet manufacturers, hate yacht companies, hate yacht owners, hate credit card companies, hate student loan companies, hate mortgage companies, hate millionaires, hate billionaires, hate anybody who earns $200,000 a year, hate McDonald's, hate Fox, hate me, hate the Koch brothers. How many people even know who the Koch brothers are? Hate the Supreme Court, hate Bibi Netanyahu, hate the state of Arizona, hate the state of Texas, and on and on. Have you noticed Obama is at war with an endless list of enemies? He is at war with all aspects of our country, and particularly with the aspects of our country that generate wealth and success.

Confronted by a President who, as Frank Rich observes, "falls hard for the best and brightest white guys," he sees someone who is loathes "all aspects of our country,and particularly the aspects of our country that generate wealth and success." Some of these very interests "gamed the economy to near devastation" (as Rich terms it) and are let off the hook by Obama and venerated by Limbaugh, who pretends the former is "at war" with all that is pure and good.

Fortunately, Rush Limbaugh, who has referred to the leader of the Free World as "this little boy, this little man-child President," is no hater. Well, except for on his program and on the cover of August's "The Limbaugh Letter":

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Pining For Tax Reform

Oh, for goodness sake. He's doing it again.

On July 9, Paul Krugman wrote

One striking example of this rightward shift came in last weekend's presidential address, in which Mr. Obama had this to say about the economics of the budget: "Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs."

That's three of the right's favorite economic fallacies in just two sentences.

No, the government shouldn't budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump.

Spending cuts right now wouldn't "put the economy on sounder footing." They would reduce growth and raise unemployment.

And last but not least, businesses aren't holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they're holding back because they don't have enough customers -- a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts.

That's three of the right's favorite economic fallacies in just two sentences. Whether President Obama believes it or not- it's hard enough to believe a half-aware human being hasn't noticed that families borrow and go into debt- he does parrot Repub talking points. And he's doing it again.

After defense secretary Leon Panetta argued that additional revenues should come from higher taxes and cutting entitlements rather than by reducing defense spending, a peturbed Barney Frank (D-MA) asked the President to repudiate the Secretary's position. Instead, the President on Monday maintained

What we need to do now is combine those spending cuts with two additional steps: tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share and modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare.

The good part- relatively speaking of this two-pronged approach is "tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share."

But not really. In March, he lamented that consensus on "fundamental tax reform will take time." In early July he asked, and answered, his own question: "Do we believe tax reform is necessary? I would say absolutely." Soon after that, he called for "sweeping tax reform that creates a level playing field" and was promptly attacked because "It's not tax reform."

The "he" would be, respectively, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Texas Senator Jon Cornyn, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and the spokesman for Americans for Tax Reform. All Republicans- and all demanding "tax reform," as does President Obama, although (characteristically) in his case, it's a polite request. (Presumably, the spokesman for Americans for Tax Reform is a Republican but in either case, you get the point.)

Again, President Obama spouts GOP talking points, trying to build consensus for "tax reform," which means something very different to most of the individuals- Republicans- employing the phrase. The most least unreasonable on taxes of that group, Coburn, is the same guy who (temporarily) walked out of the Gang of Six negotiations because the group opposed slashing Medicare benefits but voted for the Ryan budget plan, which would have slashed tax rates for the wealthy.

Tax reform might end up looking more like most Democrats, and perhaps Obama would like than what practically all Repub politicians would like. Tomorrow, Orrin Hatch might become a Democrat, it may snow in Texas, and the sun may rise in the west. But the President is Barack Obama, who in his inaugural speech, Drew Westin brilliantly wrote in Sunday's New York Times, could

have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit- a deficit that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.

And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.

But there was no story- and there has been none since.

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Sort Of Immigrant-Friendly

The Repub Party "base" encompasses two elements, the mass core and the corporate core. And if Benjy Sarlin writing in Talking Points Memo is right, Rick Perry may have trouble with one. In 2001 (obviously before September 11), the Texas governor stated

We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, "we don't care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there." And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That's why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.

A decade later pro-immigration forces were fed up with Perry, largely because of his attempt to crack down on sanctuary cities. And, Sarlin reports, the Governor "toed a careful line during the 2006 immigration debates, supporting a guest worker program to legitimize illegal aliens, but never backing Bush's call for a path to citizenship, a provision conservatives derided as 'amnesty.'

A careful line- and one particularly clever, even though opposition to the path toward citizenship is somewhat inconsistent to his other stances. Although the path toward citizenship was supported by President Bush and Senator McCain, most of its support was among Democrats and opposition to any form of "comprehensive immigration reform" had become nearly a litmus test for congressional Republicans.

But pushing in-state tuition at public universities for children of illegal immigrants and a guest-worker program really are of a piece with one another. Keeping the offspring of illegal immigrants in the state of Texas encourages the entire family to remain in Texas by offering those (usually) young people a better rate than the children of U.S. citizens living, say, in Lawton, Oklahoma, a mere 48 miles from Wichita Falls, Texas. It gives an opportunity to that undocumented/illegal family to remain in the state of Texas, laboring for substandard wages, few if any benefits, understanding that fealty to its employer may be the only barrier between it and deportation. Compassionate, indeed.

There is no need to belabor the vile nature of temporary worker programs, nor to dwell on the favor shown them by business groups- and by European nations which have managed to promote a subclass of angry immigrant workers despised by much of the population.

Weep not for Rick Perry. If he gets flack from GOP voters for some immigrant-friendly policies, he can always shout "no to amnesty!" and "secure the borders first!" (Those statements are akin to the statement "God is good," with which almost everyone agrees while meaning something different to everyone.) Meanwhile, that corporate core of the GOP base, which- contrary to the party's mass base- pushed for raising the debt ceiling rather than risking default, knows it would be able to count on a President Perry.

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Not Solely The Tea Party

To the Obama administration, a valiant John Boehner stood tall against the tea party nutcases. The House Speaker might as well have been part ML King, part Gandhi, part Nelson Mandela, the way top Democrats pictured him resisting the tea party and its Panderer-in-Chief, Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

But the real obstacle to financial sanity, as observed Sunday on The New York Times editorial page, was

the Republican Study Committee, 178 fiscal hard-liners who make up two-thirds of the entire caucus (including many of the Tea Party members). Its chairman, Jim Jordan of Ohio, was one of the biggest obstacles to a deal and refused to support it.

It is this larger group that Mr. Boehner and his lieutenants fear the most. The Tea Party alone could not topple the speaker. But the Republican core could.

The demonization of the tea party is understandable, perhaps an effort to divide the GOP, setting its far right majority against its extreme far right. And maybe Democrats, recognizing growing dissatisfaction in the nation with the movement, believes it can marginalize the tea party out of existence.

But that is misplaced anger. Most (32 of 60) members of the Tea Party caucus put aside their ideological extremism to vote with a majority of their party and side with corporate America in supporting the debt agreement signed a couple of days later by the President.

And now, albeit a bit late, comes some common sense from some of its members outside the Beltway. The day before The Times' editorial, Politico reported

For tea party activists, the super committee smacks of everything they railed against in the last election cycle: Concentrated power in the hands of lawmakers who might be inclined to make closed door deals involving trillions of dollars.

Organizing a rally at his congressman's office, a 35-year-old tea party member complained "The super Congress is antithetical to what America is supposed to be.....small elite group having override powers for the rest of Congress … is anti democracy. It’s anti-American.” Similarly, a leader in a 9/12 group in Florida, uncertain whether the super-committee will " be accountable to us or to Congress," remarked "it's Congress' job to deal with this. There's enough committees."

Sunday, Senator John Kerry and presidential adviser David Axelrod, both justifiably angry about the debt ceiling negotiations and Standard and Poor's disgraceful downgrading of U.S.A. debt, pressed the case of tea party omnipotence. On Meet the Press, Kerry argued “I believe this is, without question, the tea party downgrade," about the same time Axelrod on Face The Nation maintained "The fact of the matter is that this is essentially a tea party downgrade. The tea party brought us to the brink of a default."

If they want to believe this, O.K. Politically, it might even be a winner. But it's not accurate. Though the tea party is more an Astroturf, than grass roots, movement, Democratic leaders and the mainstream media rarely so identify it and their efforts to finger it for blame deflect attention from the role of the Republican Party itself in tearing down the economy.

Somehow, President Obama has been able (unfortunately) to resist the left of his party and back a program antithetical to the latter's wishes. Speaker Boehner, however, has been pictured as willing- but unable- to resist the right of his party. But as The Times explained

Through a combination of fear and fervor, Republican leaders in Congress and in the presidential campaign have lined up behind a radical new strategy in which all major decisions are made under threat- to shut the government in April, to implode the economy in July, to cut off money for the Federal Aviation Administration in August. Party leaders have said they will do this again and again, in perpetuity.

It would be comforting if it were just a minority of a minority. Instead, it is a major political party, aided and abetted by its big donors.

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A Nice Thought, An Ignorant Response

Now that the deficit mania has subsided, the other day President Obama commented

The problem is that right now we spend months preparing our men and women for life in the military, but we spend much less time preparing them for life after they get out. So we'll devote more time on the back end to help our veterans learn about everything from benefits to how they can translate their military training into an industry accepted credential. In addition, we'll make it easier for veterans to go to their local one-stop career center and get help pursuing a career that fits them best.

There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about Obama's proposals, including a study, a "reverse boot camp," and $120 million in tax credits. Perhaps it should be applied to all citizens in hard-hit groups e.g., minorities, single mothers). Maybe it is unrealistic given the current cuts in discretionary spending recently legislated or is an inherently ineffective strategy. Or it might be more structural: with "free trade" deals, privatization, outsourcing, offshoring, immigration (though slowed in the economic slump), and companies deciding to cut down on their workforce to maximize profits, jobs just aren't there and veterans' benefits expendable.

But you knew- didn't you?- that Rush Limbaugh would come up with one which demonizes Barack Obama, fails to acknowledge economic reality, and which appears to have been pulled from planet Uranus:

The one-stop career center. Where is the one nearest you? Wendy, do you know where your one stop career center is? Snerdley, where's the one stop career center? The first thing Obama said that the returning veterans needed to learn about was benefits. Benefits. The assumption is that these people are so stupid and unqualified that they don't know how to get a job when they get home from service. What an insult. You military veterans, you're such idiots that you need Obama teaching you about benefits and how you can translate your military training into industry accepted credentials. Join a drug cartel! Well, what do we train people to do? Kill people and break things. That's the credential. He's so full of it.

The employment picture, benefit levels and qualifications, and government and corporate processes themselves, are hardly static. Even Rush Limbaugh changes, so as to be able to criticize whatever Democrats advocate. Here, he implies that if individuals come out of the military uninformed about the job market and the benefits to which they're entitled, they are regarded as "stupid and unqualified."

President Obama's proposal may be among what Krugman expects to be the "minor measures that would be more symbolic than substantive." But there is a need to assist veterans to adjust to a society undergoing rapid transformation. Rush Limbaugh- who stereotypes all veterans as killing machines- is against it, presumably because all veterans can do is "kill people and break things."

Why does Rush Limbaugh hate the troops?

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Manipulating, Again

So one of the three major ratings agencies, Standard and Poors, has downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+. The White House moved quickly, The Hill reports

to say, in essence, "I told you so."

"Over the past weeks and months the President repeatedly called for substantial deficit reduction through both long-term entitlement changes and revenues through tax reform, with additional measures to spark jobs and strengthen our recovery," press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

"That is why the President pushed for a grand bargain that would include all of these elements and require compromise and cooperation from all sides."

It may be no surprise that the most powerful, albeit not the most ardent, supporter of Wall Street lost no time bolstering the credibility of one of the firms most responsible for the financial meltdown of 2007-2008. On April 13, as Kerri Panchuk reported

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released findings from a two-year study this week, saying "inaccurate triple-A credit ratings" from Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service introduced risk into the financial system and "constituted a key cause of the financial crisis."

The report went a step further alleging that massive downgrades made by the credit ratings agencies a few months before the financial meltdown "precipitated the collapse of the residential mortgage backed-securities and CDO secondary markets" since the changes were "unprecedented in number and scope." The report added that "more than any other single event (the downgrades) triggered the beginning of the financial crisis."

Joan Hamsher, in one of Firedoglake's recent analyzes of the political underpinnings of S&P's decision-making process, notes

Two days later, David Beers reached out to Undersecretary Goldstein to let Treasury know that the Standard and Poors committee has changed its outlook to “negative.” On April 18 Standard and Poors issued press release downgrading the outlook for US sovereign debt from stable to ngative and giving a 30% chance of a ratings downgrade from AAA to AA.

In another blow to the prima donna industry, on May 18, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to propose what it termed "new, tougher regulations for credit agencies." And just last Tuesday, Hamsher adds, "the SEC unanimously approved a plan to erase references to credit ratings from certain rulebooks. They also adopted alternatives to the credit ratings."

The sordid, recent history of Standard & Poors suggests that the agency was motivated not by economics, but by politics and self-interest. As the story unfolds, it should become clear, as Paul Krugman summarized

S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don’t have that right.

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Lost Opportunity, Turned Against Them

The Republican National has already begun exploiting the opportunity handed them by Senate Democrats and, especially, Barack Obama. Its blog "For The Record…It Was Obama Who Offered To Cut Hundreds Of Billions In Medicare During The Debt Debate," includes the headings

Obama Agreed To Medicare Cuts In Debt Ceiling Deal

Obama Put "Major Changes" To Medicare On the Table During Debt Ceiling Negotiations

Obama Said He Was Open To Mans Testing Medicare

Obama Admitted That The Democrats’ Do-Nothing Plan On Medicare Will Result In Medicare’s Bankruptcy

White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe Said Cuts In Medicare Are Necessary

Obama And Republicans “Were Not Apart At All On Medicare"

White House Official Claimed That Obama And The Republicans Were “Identical” On Medicare, Agreeing On “Eligibility, Cost-Sharing, Premiums, And Other Facets Of The Program"]

"Other General Areas Of Agreement Included Extending The Payroll Tax, Extending Unemployment Benefits And Altering The Consumer Price Index On Social Security"

"Some Of The Figures Being Discussed Would Cut $150 Billion In Healthcare Provider Payments, Raise $150 Billion In Premiums And $125 Billion In Medicaid Reductions"

Top Senate Democrats Oppose Making Any Cuts To Medicare Because It Robs Democrats Opportunity To Demagogue Republicans On The Issue;

Democrats Frustrated With Potential Cuts To Medicare Because “Protecting Medicare And Social Security Was A Defining Democratic Value, And That Agreeing To Cuts Would Be A Gift To Republicans If Not Political Suicide “

The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins Explains

The plan wrought by the debt ceiling negotiations, and endorsed by Obama, makes no cuts to Medicare in the first round, leaves it up to the super committee to do so in the second, and forces a trigger cut to Medicare on the provider side if no resolution can be had in committee or in Congress. Make no mistake, though, massive cuts on the provider side will have consequences for recipients.

The opportunity lost by the Democratic Party can be summed up by the most telling subheading on the RNC post:

Democrat Operatives Worried That They Have Lost Their Political Advantage On Medicare.

It's not like we weren't warned. When the Ryan budget plan ending Medicare was proposed, the political advantage was clear. Juan Cole pointed out "There is no public outcry to voucherize Medicare, it’s a sure political loser, and it will die a short and quiet crib death without any Democratic intervention in the form of a counter-proposal." Brian Beutler, noting that if the "grand bargain" pushed (and temporarily abandoned) by President Obama" includes Medicare benefit cuts that both parties buy into, it will further expose the shambolic nature of the last two years' politics. But more to the point, it will blunt Democrats' ability to run against the House Republican vote to privatize and, yes, slash Medicare. And it will hurt Senate Democrats, many more of whom will be up for re-election in 2012 than will their Republican colleagues." Heather Digby Parton understood

This should be a slam dunk for the Democrats but only if they take an exceedingly hard line and don't waver. If they start capitulating and wavering, they'll lose the most valuable political advantage they've built up over 60 years. Dems should just say "we created social security and Medicare, we protected it when the Republicans tried to end them over and over again, and you can trust us to keep them strong now." Seniors are old enough to remember that history.

The willingness to cut payments to Medicare providers ran hand-in-hand with Democratic timidity over the Ryan plan. Republicans in the House voted unanimously in favor of the Ryan budget plan turning Medicare into an unpopular voucher system. But instead of charging Republicans- accurately- with trying to destroy Medicare, Democrats accused the GOP of attempting to end Medicare "as we know it" and echoed the President's promise not to "slash" benefits.

In a separate post, Digby warned that if Democrats

are willing to sacrifice their own people in the name of Austerity, then the party will have pretty much talked itself out of it's raison d'etre. The fact is that people over 50 are the ones who have been financially destroyed in this economy and..... (when) you get older, you get a little concerned about things like Social Security and Medicare and worry when the whole damned government seems on a crusade to get rid of it.

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