Critiques of President Obama’s negotiating style are certainly warranted, but the most boring thing in the world is the suggestion that the president is really a moderate Republican who wants to move the Democratic Party to the right and gut entitlements. We have control of half of Congress, and any suggestion that we can get 100% of what we want if only we are more inflexible is moronic. The only real debate is over what we are willing to give up, not whether or not we have to give anything up. So, progressives should put themselves in the shoes of a negotiator and ask themselves honestly what they are willing to sacrifice and what they want in return. This talk of rainbows and ponies needs to end.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
If I never hear utterance again of the notion that Obama “negotiates with himself,” it won’t be soon enough.
Why do we need to give up anything? We’re going over the cliff. Republicans want lower taxes. They pass our bill to lower taxes and delay or eliminate the sequester, or they get blamed for not doing so at SOTU and Inaugural Address (President’s own words). Then continue passing CR’s until 2014. We only need a deal if you think we should get one. You and the president think we should; most progressives do not (Kevin Drum being an outlier).
They pass our bill to lower taxes and delay or eliminate the sequester, or they get blamed for not doing so at SOTU and Inaugural Address (President’s own words).
So is that quote confirmed? I have to say, who knows what happens behind the scenes during negotiations, but this account stretches the imagination somewhat.
Alright, that’s true. Either way, it’s what will happen.
If we want to talk about quotes confirmed, why don’t we go here:
Now that doesn’t mean he IS one, but the policies he’s pursued are that of one.
Um, no.
“If I’d had my policies back in the 1980s, I’d be considered a moderate Republican.”
Moderate Republicans in the 1980s are not the same thing as how we use the term today. People forget just how big a tent the Republicans were in the 1980s.
Past the 1980’s and beyond, there was no such thing as a moderate Republican except for maybe Lincoln Chafee and Connie Morella. So it’s a truism to state that “in the 1980’s I’d be a moderate Republican.” If you’re a moderate in the 1990’s and beyond, you are necessarily a Democrat or independent.
Hmmm, that came out wrong. It’s not meant to be interpreted that there were no moderate Democrats in that era, but that designating the time period of the 1980’s is irrelevant since there were no more moderate Republicans beyond that time (again, except Chafee and Morella).
Designating the time period “in the 1980s” matters a great deal, because whether we like it or not, there are people designated “moderate Republicans” in the 1990s and beyond. Calling out the 1980s means that Obama is comparing himself to, say, Edward Brooke, as opposed to someone who might be designated a moderate Republican today, like John McCain or Dick Lugar.
I guess we’ll agree to disagree. I suppose it matters to VSP what the era to which you’re referring, but the fact remains that John McCain has never been a moderate anymore than Orrin Hatch.
I’d call Edward Brooke a liberal Republican rather than a moderate one.
John McCain has never been a moderate anymore than Orrin Hatch.
That’s why I used the term “designated” moderate Republicans. Like it or not, that is how he is commonly described these days. “Moderate” in 2012 means “not Tea Party,” and includes people who would have been considered the conservative wing of the party in the 1980s.
By appending “in the 1980s” onto that statement, he’s getting in a dig at the Republicans, by alluding to the fact that even the “moderate” Republicans today are right-wingers.
Going over the cliff is a total shit sandwich. Have you not computed that, yet? The Republicans will have all their leverage back. Yes, we can dictate the terms of tax reform/changes, but we can’t raise the debt ceiling or extend unemployment benefits or restore other tax credits or put money back in the budget where we want it. All we get is total broken government and slightly higher taxes on rich folks. That sucks, seabe.
We can raise the debt ceiling, as per Armando’s legal calculus:
Link 1
Link 2
They have appropriated the money. It is in conflict. The Constitution wins. Granted, uncharted territory, but if we continue to allow this to be bargained with, it won’t stop.
Unemployment benefits and tax credits, yes that does suck. But conceding entitlements for that is not worth it, especially when the pressure on Congress to eliminate or move the sequester mounts.
Right after ‘As per Armando….’ any connection with reality goes out the window.
I don’t agree that Republicans gain leverage after January 1st, but that is not factual and is instead a matter of opinion. I’d prefer that we not take time debating that.
But how about this? Given our shared view of Boehner’s massive incompetence and the insanity of his caucus, how do you propose Obama maintains what you claim is his greater bargaining leverage right now by crafting a deal before the end of the year? With whom, exactly, does he make a deal? There’s no GOP House leader or leaders who can be relied upon to deliver the votes, except for a horrible Grand Bargain none of us would accept.
He’s going to have to make pretty much the same deal after the cliff. Unless he’s prepared to have a big recession.
Sure, the GOP will be eager to cut taxes, but not for working folks. They won’t agree to raise the debt ceiling unless they get more cuts. They won’t extend unemployment insurance. They won’t agree to refund all the discretionary programs that they hate. They will hold everything hostage and they don’t care HOW unpopular it will make them.
But we’re almost definitely going over the cliff, so I am not even talking about a grand bargain this year.
Can we threaten to defund all faith-based programs? It’s a tiny part of the budget, but given the superstitious zeal that Republicans treat them with, we ought to be able to hold them hostage in exchange for many more programs worth a great deal more. “Give us everything or we take God out of government.”
I’m only half joking.
This entire crisis is upon us because we gave into their demands last time (although I think the president tried to use it to his advantage to get a Grand Bargain and it failed…so it’s kind of his own fault). The debt ceiling will need to be raised (again) before this term is up after this, and again when we win in 2016. By your own measure, the GOP will still control the House (most likely). So what you’re arguing is that we continue to give them cuts now, the next time, and during the next Democratic president. When does it end, Booman? When?
That’s the whole point of demanding a long-term/permanent fix to the debt ceiling as part of a bigger deal. The whole point of getting unemployment insurance extended now is that the GOP won’t do it next year. You seem to have missed the whole point of Obama trying to get a deal.
The reason that he can’t get a deal at any price is because the GOP doesn’t care about cuts to the Pentagon because they’ll just restore the funding. They don’t care about getting blamed for raising people’s taxes because they’ll just turn around and cut them again.
Going off the cliff was supposed to terrify them into caving into Obama in exchange for modest adjustments in entitlement spending, but they don’t care about going off the cliff so it isn’t going to work.
The deal would have taken away the vandals’ tools, but all we’ll get instead is more crisis.
I think some progressives think we’ll wind up with higher taxes and lower Pentagon spending if we go over the cliff. We won’t. We’re in the same place, essentially, with the House incapable of passing anything remotely acceptable.
Then explain why he agreed to just a 2 year extension rather than a permanent fix after saying he wouldn’t play that game. If it was a permanent fix, a deal may have been preferable. But it wasn’t. Now maybe he just threw that out there to show nothing would have placated these extremists. I don’t know. What I do know is that we don’t need a fucking deal on the debt ceiling if the president really presses it.
trillion dollar coins, right?
The reason they changed on the debt ceiling is because they can’t get the Republicans to give up their hostage. I don’t think you understand how bad the situation is. There is no one in charge. There is no one to negotiate with. There are just vandals.
If there is no one to negotiate with, then what are we arguing about? It’s time for a Cooper Union situation. And if a trillion dollar coin must be a part of that, then so be it. Of course, I think a government shutdown would need to happen before that.
What leverage does Orange Julius have come 12:01 January 1, 2013?
See also:
Fiscal Fail: Government Agencies Plan Few Significant Changes For January, Despite Cliff Hype
No. It looks better to me than any compromise bargain that has been floated. I think we have the same fundamental argument that we had about TARP. Wall Street wanting to avoid the cliff at all costs should set off alarm bells.
Going over the cliff is a total shit sandwich.
Any plausible deal Obama can get from the Republicans is a bigger shit sandwich. I know we can dream up deals that would be win-win, but the Republicans are kooks. No deal they’d actually go for in December will be better than the cliff and a January deal.
We’re down to the least-bad option.
That’s true. But things are not going to be better in January.
There will be more Democrats in Congress, and the Republicans will not have to vote for a tax increase – and will be voting for a tax cut – in a January deal.
We don’t. For two simple reasons: (1) we have the leverage and (2) negotiation means nothing to these GOP dickwads anyway. They want everything or nothing.
No no no!
Talk of rainbows and ponies absolutely does not need to end!
Without this wailing and moaning from the left wingers, Obama’s negotiating strategy becomes a lot harder. How is he supposed to get credit for being reasonable and willing to sacrifice to reach a deal if he can’t point to criticism on his left?
Shine on, you crazy diamonds! Let your freak flag fly!
Yeah, that too. There’s a reason why Obama is thought to have seriously violated his War on Drugs campaign promise. It’s because the anti-prohibitionists have defined the debate. The truth is that Obama hasn’t really violated jack shit on that front, California is simply a free-for-all and there’s no real state regulations (he hasn’t gone after growers in Colorado really, it’s been focused on California). But he left himself open with his vague talk. So, the anti-prohibitionists defined it on our terms:
The politics of Presidential pot statements
I left this comment there:
“You write as if President Obama is upset by, or bothered by, this dynamic. (The claim that he was “politically damaged” is some rather implausible wishful thinking. Did you see his margin of victory in California?)
He could, of course, be making clear and aggressive statements of policy if he wanted to avoid letting the anti-prohibitionists move the agenda like this. Have you given any thought to the question of why he’s choosing not to do that?
Sometimes, the best thing a politician can do is stay out of the way.”
Long live the professional left.
true, but we can stop being so earnest about it?
No means test for Medicare. By making Medicare means tested you take it from being eldercare insurance to welfare entitlement.
If you’re going to means test, make it Social Security. You pay into that, its easier to defend and Mitt Romney doesn’t need it.
Medicare is already means-tested. If anything, that is something I’d be willing to give up if we must have a deal.
You use the phrase “give up,” but really, what we’re talking about here is having wealthy people pay more into a public health care system.
Is that really giving something up, from a liberal point of view? Short of actually mugging them in the streets, I’d have a hard time not supporting any plan to make wealthy people pay more money into public health care programs.
It would be viewed as a concession from every part of the spectrum that matters, especially the MSM. So yeah, this would be one of those “fake” scalps the Republicans can have, as opposed to raising the age which would be real.
That is so backwards.
You can means-test Medicare (in fact, we already are) without mean-testing benefits. You can make premiums more progressive, but still provide the same universal package of benefits. Everyone is still getting the same great benefits package, and it’s not welfare.
Whereas with Society Security, means-testing would mean reducing people’s benefits – the size of their check. That really would be turn it into a welfare program, a program that provides benefits mainly to the poor, and that would have the effect of harming it politically.
I’ve been thinking of a different way to mean test Social Security. Everyone gets the benefit that they always would have received but the wealthier have to wait longer than the not so wealthy. The argument with raising the retirement age for Social Security is that blue collar workers can’t wait longer, so I would even argue with this approach you could lower back down to age 65 the lowest level of the scale.
I would combine this with raising the tax cap to something like $300 or $400 thousand. That way it’s a combination of things and therefore a “compromise” to something both sides want.
Something will have to be done for Social Security at some point and the longer we wait the worse it will be.
I don’t see why it will be worse (shit, there might not even be a problem due to unforseen economic growth or changes in productivity). Even Kevin Drum — who supports a deal — doesn’t see why for another reason: they’ll pay the benefits regardless:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/12/great-political-mystery-social-security-reform
So imagine it’s 2033. The head of Social Security calls a press conference and announces that in July the trust fund will be depleted and benefits will be immediately cut. What happens next? The answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? With tens of millions of seniors facing a whopping cut in their monthly checks, Congress will go into crisis mode and restore benefits. Period. There will be no cuts at all.
Does anyone seriously doubt this? I simply can’t imagine any other outcome.
So why make a deal?
Congress may restore the cuts but at the expense of what else that we all care about. I’d rather make a small change now than either have to cut something big (although it may not be Social Security) or a big tax increase that will likely hit the lower and middle class like it did last time.
By the argument others have made for Medicare, the SS payout is already means tested. The richer you are, the more tax you pay on SS. Upper income taxpayers pay tax on up to 85% of SS. This could/should be raised to 100%. I’d go along with that, but not cuts to the gross annuity, and certainly not stealth cuts like chained CPI with hedonic adjustments.
If anything SS COLA should be based on a basket of goods that seniors actually buy. The rent/property tax component should be higher as it takes a higher percentage of their budget. Likewise food, drugs and medical services. Automobiles, gasoline, clothing, computers and smart phones should be a smaller percentage. Instead of COLA’s 0.3-0.5% smaller, they should be 1.5-2.5% larger.
That’s taxes on the benefits, I’m talking about taxes on income prior to retirement.
I agree about the tax cap. But that is not “means testing”.
maybe means testing was a the wrong word choice
I’m saying the benefit payouts wouldn’t be changed just when you can start collecting based on income level.
I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of the tax cap or even raise it without giving up something else. The Republican solution to Social Security outside of privatization has always been raising the retirement age. So we can give them what they want without hurting low and middle income people.
Chained CPI would be a reasonable offer to get a tax cap raise. For precisely that reason, it shouldn’t have been offered except in combination with a tax cap raise.
Chained CPI is a terrible offer. Have you considered what it means to be 20 years down the road at 82-90 and have your income down 20%? It looks innocuous and terribly technical but what it really means is if you have the bad fortune to not die soon after retirement you are guaranteed to be dirt poor just when you are most vulnerable.
I’m not convince on Chained CPI either but your math seems to be off. The way I understand it is that it slows the benefit increases slightly since it changes the inflation rate to better reflect actual changes in spending throughout the country.
Either way, that’s not the point I was trying to make. My point was we can make a change and protect those that need protecting at the same time get something we really want which is a raise in the tax cap.
I’m using the rate Simpson-Bowles used, not the lowball figure being touted now. So, medicine is too expensive, so poor people stop buying it and we pretend it’s not important anymore. GREAT way to set COLA’s.
First off I don’t think Simpson Bowles took into account the effect of the ACA since it wasn’t passed yet, so that would effect the healthcare calculations. Second, I’m pretty sure that’s not how chained CPI works, it’s about replacement costs as people’s preferences change.
I’d happily toss a good portion of my share of the defense budget into the pot.
My conclusion. President Obama is a Lincoln Republican. Unionist. Free soil. Free labor. Free money. (Check what those meant in the 1850s-1880s before jumping to conclusions.)
Don’t forget an attachment to ‘internal improvements’. (Google ngram gives essentially no hits for ‘infrastructure’ until the 1960’s…
The big problems here are the real outcomes of the budget cuts, and the optics, which are very meaningful.
Obama offering Chained CPI, and getting Pelosi to make a defense and promise of votes for it, IS A PROBLEM. A sign of what a big problem it is: Nancy made an attempt to suggest that this policy change would still protect the most vulnerable, poorest of Americans. That is false on its face, and any carve-out within Obama’s offer which would do so was not mentioned in any description of the offer. It causes careful watchers of these negotiations to lose faith in Pelosi’s representation of the effect of policy changes, and I’m one of Nancy’s biggest fans. Such a carve-out would also break with the history of the SS program and create that dangerous “welfare” impression.
An even bigger problem is that Boehner was not made to define the Chained CPI cut. If the Orange Speaker were forced to name the earned benefit program cuts his GOP wish to create (I’m not talking about overall reductions in future spending, but actual named cuts), then Obama could respond to those requests in context to an overall package. If the President wanted to make a deal that had a SS concession within that pathway, he would be able to mention at his State of the Union and many other public venues that GOP Congressional leaders were making this demand in the negotiations.
Instead, he now has named HIMSELF as the person who wishes to cut future Social Security benefits. As a Democratic Party President, the Party which created and has defended the social safety net against generations of Republican attacks, fresh from a smashing re-election during a time of deep economic troubles, this is hard to understand and is close to unforgiveable as an open negotiating strategy.
I would suggest that the chief reason Obama won is that there are many more poor and lower-income people who feel very insecure in this economy, see this economy as one likely to extend many years, and went with the Presidential ticket which promised to protect the safety net. For God’s sake, Biden said explicitly that there would be NO cute to SS beneficiaries in a 2nd tern, and they’re offered up in the very first month! I’m aware that Obama has used more weasel words on SS/Medi than his VP, but if he didn’t want be held to a standard his own ticket stated explicitly, he shouldn’t have allowed Biden’s statement to stand.
I neglected to mention the fact that Social Security does not contribute to the budget deficit. To make cuts to SS part of a budget negotiation which is intended to reduce the deficit (and hopefully best serve the needs of Americans) is something that further misinforms an already dangerously misinformed public. I can understand Fox News’ interest in misinforming people, but not Obama’s.
Many, including Paul Krugman, have been patiently explaining to Obama since at least 2007 that a) Social Security isn’t broken and if it ever needs a fix, that would be decades in the future and b) Social Security hasn’t contributed a dime to the deficit.* As Obama continues to assert that SS is broken and0 to put SS cuts on the table in budget negotiations, what does that say about him and those that defend his rhetoric and actions on this issue? Only two possible conclusions, stupidity or hostility towards SS and a stealth movement to destroy it. And yet, the “chained CPI” is just another version of the “catfood commission.” That is neither the principle nor actions of a Democrat but that of Republicans that have been trying to destroy SS since it was enacted. And I for one am sick and tired of so-called liberals/Democrats chastising those that say no cuts to SS as deluded.
* The “payroll tax holiday” did contribute to the deficit — one of many reasons why it was bad policy.
What people like Boo won’t admit is that Obama even wrote in one(out of two) of his books that Social Security needs fixing. And that Obama, the only one out of 538, showed up at the opening of the Pete Peterson-funded Hamilton Project. Those that complain about EmoProgs are the ones that need to look in the mirror.
Oh, well — they still refuse to admit that Bill did more damage to the New Deal financial regulation that protected working stiffs for decades than Reagan and GWHB did. That he completed what GHWB couldn’t accomplish — NAFTA and capital gains tax reduction. Plus media and energy deregulation that paved the way for Fox/Murdoch and Enron. Threw poor women and children under the bus. So there is a precedent for liberals/democrats supporting a DEM POTUS completing the agenda of his GOP predecessor. Such partisan DEM supporters are as deluded as Republicans screaming “keep government out of my Medicare.”
I thought that Boehner was the one who offered up COU and Obamas counter was ok let say they are in the table what are u giving me. Doesn’t that change the context
Yes, but Boehner never put it into an official proposal. Notice that it wasn’t in his Plan B.
This is incorrect. Chained CPI was in Boehner’s initial fiscal cliff proposal.
http://www.politicususa.com/bernie-sanders-rips-john-boehner-calling-cuts-disabled-veterans-benefits
.html
Boehner also called for a switch to the chained CPI, which would reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients, and for disabled veterans.
It wasn’t in his Plan B, which was meant to be a smaller bargain, but it was in his opening offer.
I’ve found that there is a lot of confusion on this point. I guess TPM ran a story that mis-reported where the proposal came from.
I think a problem here is that it’s not just a handful of people on the left who don’t know about this. The narrative of Obama pitching the chained CPI has become accepted history, right or wrong. That’s not the President’s fault, but it’s out there, it’s part of the conventional wisdom, and it’s something we’re going to have to take into consideration moving forward, unless somebody with a megaphone can reverse that impression.
And even then, it’s been allowed to stand for so long that it probably can’t be erased.
In the entire internet, I haven’t seen anybody else making the point that Boehner opened up the negotiations with chained CPI, not Obama. You’re apparently the only one who remembers.
Wait a second. I thought we were supposed to present a mirror to the teatards by being just as nuts, intransigent, angry and vocal. Except that we really aren’t, this is all just theater, except that some really are, but we can’t know for sure because some people are bullshitting and some aren’t.
Where do I get the left wing decoder ring? Is today an ‘angry’ day, or a fake angry day? I’m so confused.
I’m beginning to think YOU’RE the freaking Republican.
OBAMA: “I will not under any circumstances cut social security of medicare. Period. Deal with it”
POLLS: at least 75% approve
OBAMA: “The Bush tax cuts are expiring. I would like to sign a bill to restore them for those making under 250K. That’s the only bill I’m willing to sign. Period. Deal with it.”
POLLS: at least 75% approve
we go off the cliff – everybody’s paycheck gets docked – the heat gets hotter and hotter for the repubs – eventually they buckle, and give people a rebate to reimburse them for what they lost – but those who get really screwed because their finances were so close to the edge will never forgive repubs – and a f**kload of those people living month to month are red state limbaugh freaks.
So Booman – why are you joining the chorus of dickwads trying to tell us we have to get screwed on social security and medicare? I’ve paid into these programs all my life and if you welch on that I’m going to be furious.
loud and clear
Why do they buckle, again?
The GOP can’t lose another presidential election, not for four years.
They’re gerrymandered themselves into a permanent House majority.
The Senate is theirs as soon as they can get the Teahadis to stop running primary candidates.
‘Intransigence’ is their brand.
There’s no evidence that people have suddenly started to vote their economic self-interest any more or less than they’ve ever done.
Unless the Republicans make proposals to cut Medicare and Social Security, and the Dems oppose them. Unfortunately when handed the opportunity Obama blew it by putting them on the table. If Obama had publicly gone ballistic at increasing the Medicare age, we’d be in a very different, and much better politically, situation.
I can’t give the prediction of permanence in electoral politics much faith. Unless “permanent” means “until the next election cycle”.
I think that the Obama administration hasn’t used all of the resources it should to help Democrats control the House, either in 2010 or 2012. I don’t expect him to in 2014 or 2016. Instead of pulling together to make the case for a Democratic majority, we’re being defeatist two years early.
Considering that Obama was/is willing to put SS cuts on the table as part of deficit reduction efforts, not too soon at all to be defeatist.
Can I just point out to everyone that there is not the slightest evidence from the real world of the political damage you’re assuming?
Remember when you told us that the Republicans were going to spend the 2012 campaign attacking Obama for “putting Social Security on the table?”
That didn’t happen, and the reason it didn’t happen is because you can’t actually build a political attack out of “My opponent agreed to one of my suggestions, but it never actually got adopted.”
No, I can’t remember —
Because I never said that. In general Republicans don’t attack Democrats for doing what they approve of. Hence, they went after Clinton for a sexual dalliance and not NAFTA, capital gains tax reduction, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, etc. Romney/Ryan didn’t attack Obama for killing OBL, drone strikes, bombing Libya. Surprising to me (meaning I would never have projected it), they did attempt to trash Obama for Medicare reductions but it didn’t work for the simple reason that the response was easy — Ryan had the same cuts in his plan.
What I did project in 2011 was that Obama would win a second term. It wasn’t a tough call once the GOP wannebe line-up was set.
Well, Marie, a whole lot people last year made exactly the same prediction you’re making now – that “putting Social Security on the table” will open Obama up to political attack from the Republicans. It didn’t actually work out that way in the 2012 elections, so it’s probably won’t happen this time.
You’ve gone from attributing a statement from me to one made by an undefined “whole lot of people.” Odd that I never saw heard that from anyone on the left side of the aisle. And I know that because I would have challenged such an assertion and never did.
And you’ve gone from trying to argue that “putting Social Security on the table” causes political harm to…whatever the hell this is supposed to be.
You keep doing the pissy internet commenter act, and I’m going to stick with the point: there isn’t the slightest evidence for your claim about this maneuver doing Obama political harm. In fact, when it was done last time, people made exactly the same prediction as yours, and they were wrong.
You can keep talking about my rhetorical device all you want, if it makes you feel better. The facts of the actual issue aren’t going to change.
Totally with you on this, Joe.
They can move the census?
After the chained CPI issue needlessly divided progressives, after being insulted by Pelosi’s Orwellian rationalization, after hearing Obama himself say that his economic policies would have made him a moderate Republican during the 80’s, this post doesn’t lead to the type of unity that we need going forward. I’m disappointed.
Talk of rainbows and ponies – you left out only “retarded”. “Gut entitlements” and “100%” are just straw-man arguments thrown off against unnamed critics, none of whom are your readers.
I’m open to hearing arguments that contradict my opinions. This post offers none. But worse, it really makes me question what kind of discussion I can expect when the President does something that generates criticism.
But it’s been a long week and we all have things to do. Happy holidays, everyone.
After the last four years you’re only wondering this NOW?
What I’m willing to give up: the size of the increase to current recipients of Social Security.
If you have a real progressive vision, you understand how much we’ve already given up for nothing.
I have not seen any of the “gut entitlements” stuff from anyone of importance — erode perhaps, but not gut. Who knows how long it’ll be before he comes up with a privitizations scheme though, and hopefuly he’ll have a Lewinsky scandal of some kind to derail it like was done to Clinton.
And if he isn’t repub-lite, how do you explain the hypocrite charge in response to their obstructionism in the form of “they were for it before they were against it!”.
He’s a “NEW, New Deal” kinda guy that more closely resembles the repubs of old than the dems your parents voted for. I had my suspicions before he was elected, and they were confirmed as soon as he appointed that hack Rahmbo as COS, and then assorted other corporation-frindly, DLC, Third Way goons.
Putting up SS as a sacrificial lamb when it has mutton to do with the debt problems is the problem everyone has with it, because it is an erosion that only a dem could get away with.
Gee, what’s next, another four years of silence on climate change for a little more revenues?
And who are you to speak for him http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/19/1171989/-Obama-admits-he-s-already-conceded-more-than-warra
nted and exactly what do you have of the substantive kind that rebuts the charge he’s a piss poor “negotiator”. I don’t buy the idea that a smart guy like him hasn’t learned any lessons over the last four years about who and what his opposition are, any more than I bought the idea that many of Bush’s failures allegedly attributed to “incompetence” — like disbanding the Iraq army, Baath leadership, etc — was success hidden as failure in terms of what they were after at the time. His lack of negotiating skills is by design and intended to generate the “ponies and rainbows” crap under the red skies of “the politically possible”.
Lap it up I say, but don’t be surprised if many don’t and won’t.
I can’t find anything to disagree with, though I didn’t know that Clinton was entertaining ideas of privatizing social security before Lewinsky broke.
I’m surprised by Obama defenders who are so harsh on Clinton. The defenses that come so easily for Obama don’t seem to be applied: Clinton defeated an incumbent Republican who lost because he raised taxes; he had Newt Gingrich to work with as House Speaker; the Republicans were after blood from the beginning, accusing him of murder, and never treated him as a legitimate President; he had his own set of Blue Dogs; he had no D.C. experience before coming to office; Reagan had shifted the terms of debate on every issue; he hadn’t won a majority of the vote; and twenty years ago the country was nowhere near accepting homosexuality as an open lifestyle. But Clinton was responsible for virtually everything and Obama — not so much.
Clinton went to the mat for two things which were bad for the country: NAFTA and welfare reform. He didn’t just give in to the Republicans, he fought tooth and nail for them. For all his flaws, when Obama has gone to the mat it’s been for net positives. Obama’s flaw has been not fighting hard enough for good things – an inadequate positive, not an actual negative.
Clinton did some good stuff too, but the bad stuff sticks in people’s craw.
That’s not a fair description of Clinton and welfare reform.
He vetoed two Republican welfare reform bills, accomplishing many meaningful improvements, before signing the third. He was clearly playing defense on that issue, not going to mat for it.
that’s true, but it turned out to be inadequate in terms of satisfying future needs — like in the wake of the 2008 recession for example
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169788/clinton-touts-welfare-reform-heres-how-it-failed#
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402604.html
One could say that Obama is going to the mat for drone attacks, surveillance, and prosecuting Bradley Manning.
I think that both Presidents have gone to the mat for some excellent things and awful things and haven’t gone to the mat for many very good things.
Well, I defend both of them over what I think they deserve defending, and the same for criticisms.
The difference between the two more than anything else imo, is that Clinton was a pioneer with the DLC, “Third Way” stuff BHO is merely continuing today.
And if one considers their role as stage-setters for the pres that follows — like that SS privatization thing — I argued to my fellow lefties a decade ago now, that “If not for the BC lies about wmds, Bush would never have sold his.” He had no more certainty about wmds than Bush had, but that’s not reflected in the rhetoric he used, or that of many dems during and after his admin. They were the “wrong” as Kay put it after wrapping up his investigation.
And look at what BHO has done with Bush’s WOT stuff, with the drones, and going further by claiming the right to assassinate US citizens. And don’t get me started on the Iran BS.
A following up by a rightwingnut in 2016 is a scary thought, but it’s not like having another dem guarentees a fear-free condition. The biggest and best reason to vote dem imo has long been to keep more rightwingnuts off of the SCOTUS.
Look, if you GOP ratfuckers are going to come over to a Democratic site and try to wedge us, your posts have to make some sort of narrative sense.
if you reading comp challenged are going to respond to posts, you should really make sure you’re immune to the accompanying embarrassment of someone pointing your inadequacy out, given that is the only plausible explanation for your response.
In this Liberal Republican bullshit is that Jeff Davis Democrats were more worthy.
<cough>
Things change.
Too bad, so sad. If you don’t like it, do as African-American and progressive Republicans did in 1932 and start a long march on the other side of aisle.
Figure on 20 years before anyone over there gives a fuck, but there you have it.
Any commentator still barfing this stuff up after four years is operating on bad faith.
What are we willing to sacrifice?
For what?
To control a debt problem that doesn’t exist?
To so something anti-Keynesian like cut the deficit?
There is nothing here for us to sacrifice FOR.
Oh, but we want taxes for the rich to go up.
Since they are mostly just sitting on their money that would not even be especially anti-Keynesian; if we transfer the money via unemployment, food stamps, etc., it would actually increase net demand where it’s needed.
So.
Going over the cliff will be a good thing, then, no?
And the sacrifice we need to make to get there?
Nothing at all.