President Obama has reached the second-stage of his presidency. Having largely put the main pieces of his administration in place and addressed the most urgent matters, he is moving on to implementing his campaign promises. He discusses this agenda in this morning’s weekly presidential address (the full text of which is below the fold). What’s most notable is that Obama has dropped the nonconfrontational, bipartisan language he used to open his administration. This is not a bug in the system. His early, conciliatory tone was necessary to teach the American people lessons that would allow them to accept the ambitious and uncompromising tone he is taking now. The Republicans did him a favor by slapping away the olive branch and adopting a harsh, paranoid, dishonest, and delusional stance in opposition. Few people can still see any merit in an inclusionary, bipartisan approach.
Obama’s tone is most striking in the section of this morning’s address where he talks about organized opposition to his budget.
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
Even before Obama delivered this warning, the Establishmentarian press was noting the change in Obama’s tone. David Sanger writes in today’s New York Times:
There is a boldness to the strategy — the kind of boldness that worked for Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign — that is breathtaking. He is gambling that the combination of his political capital and the urgency created by the economic crisis gives him a moment that may never come around again.
But along the way, he appears to have shed President Clinton’s fear of being labeled an old-fashioned liberal.
There’s not much old-fashioned about President Obama, but there is an element of return. It’s a return to an attitude about government that prevailed prior to the Reagan Revolution. Sanger expresses it this way:
If Johnson’s rallying cry was an end to poverty in the world’s richest nation, Mr. Obama’s is an end to the Reagan Revolution. With the proposed tax increases on couples making more than $250,000, Mr. Obama has declared that trickle-down economics — the theory that the entire country benefits as the nation’s richest amass and spend — was a fantasy. He denounced it in moral terms, declaring in his budget that “there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few.”
Another way of putting this is is that the era of saying Big Government is the problem is over. A new progressive era has begun. And, in this new era, the government has to do big things and it has to do them well. In the most recent progressive era (that of The New Deal), the country had to create a social safety net, create regulatory frameworks, build up a military-industrial complex capable of safeguarding our victory over fascism and against the influence of Soviet totalitarianism, create a system of international law and collective security, lay down our interstate highway system, and invest in technologies that would lead to advances like the internet and the global positioning system, as well as medical breakthroughs. And it had to advance civil and human rights for all our citizens without tearing the country apart.
Those were all jobs for a big government, and it functioned well so long as the government was led by people that believed in all of these tasks and not just the national defense component.
The main difference between Obama and Clinton is that Obama is not apologetic about being a liberal. And there is more than one reason for that, as Sanger notes in today’s article:
By contrast with Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton was far more cautious. He came to office only four years after Ronald Reagan left Washington, and the rise of the Republican “Contract with America” in the mid-1990s kept the Reagan philosophy alive.
Moreover, Mr. Clinton was, of course, more beholden to the wealthiest Democratic donors. Mr. Obama’s wildly successful campaign strategy of raising hundreds of millions of dollars over the Internet from small donations gives him more political running room. (It also raises the question of whether wealthy voters, who overwhelmingly supported him, will now begin to reconsider their support.)
Yes, the difficult times give Obama breathing room to do big things that Clinton did not enjoy. But Clinton was beholden to the ‘wealthiest Democratic donors’ and Obama is not because he organized a progressive army of small donors. Organization trumps rhetoric. That organization is now gearing up for a fight. And it’s a fight we’re going to win.
Two years ago, we set out on a journey to change the way that Washington works.
We sought a government that served not the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few, but the middle-class Americans I met every day in every community along the campaign trail – responsible men and women who are working harder than ever, worrying about their jobs, and struggling to raise their families. In so many town halls and backyards, they spoke of their hopes for a government that finally confronts the challenges that their families face every day; a government that treats their tax dollars as responsibly as they treat their own hard-earned paychecks.
That is the change I promised as a candidate for president. It is the change the American people voted for in November. And it is the change represented by the budget I sent to Congress this week.
During the campaign, I promised a fair and balanced tax code that would cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, roll back the tax breaks for those making over $250,000 a year, and end the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas. This budget does that.
I promised an economy run on clean, renewable energy that will create new American jobs, new American industries, and free us from the dangerous grip of foreign oil. This budget puts us on that path, through a market-based cap on carbon pollution that will make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy; through investments in wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient American cars and American trucks.
I promised to bring down the crushing cost of health care – a cost that bankrupts one American every thirty seconds, forces small businesses to close their doors, and saddles our government with more debt. This budget keeps that promise, with a historic commitment to reform that will lead to lower costs and quality, affordable health care for every American.
I promised an education system that will prepare every American to compete, so Americans can win in a global economy. This budget will help us meet that goal, with new incentives for teacher performance and pathways for advancement; new tax credits that will make college more affordable for all who want to go; and new support to ensure that those who do go finish their degree.
This budget also reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession. Given this reality, we’ll have to be more vigilant than ever in eliminating the programs we don’t need in order to make room for the investments we do need. I promised to do this by going through the federal budget page by page, and line by line. That is a process we have already begun, and I am pleased to say that we’ve already identified two trillion dollars worth of deficit-reductions over the next decade. We’ve also restored a sense of honesty and transparency to our budget, which is why this one accounts for spending that was hidden or left out under the old rules.
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people. I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead – change that will grow our economy, expand our middle-class, and keep the American Dream alive for all those men and women who have believed in this journey from the day it began.
Thanks for listening.