David Brooks describes a meeting with Obama Administration officials after he’d written a column musing over whether moderates should be worried about the Administration and presents the Administration’s defense:
- They don’t think they’re liberal crusaders but pragmatists doing their best with the hand dealt them.
- They’ve raised government spending to 27%, more than a 25% increase, but they’d like to reduce it to 21%.
- The Administration’s healthcare proposals actually constitute a cut in entitlements, consistent with what Republicans have been pushing for.
- While they’ve put the budget 12% into deficit, they’d like it to be 3.5% in deficit.
- Their view is that they’re resisting as many liberal ideas as implementing them.
or, more briefly, they’re aspirationally moderate but operationally liberal. And things could be a lot worse.
Mr. Brooks sees the thorn in that rosy scenario:
I didn’t finish these conversations feeling chastened exactly. The fact is, after years of economic growth, the White House still projects perpetual deficits of more than $500 billion a year. That’s way too much, especially with the boomers’ retirements looming. Moreover, Congress will likely pass the spending parts of the budget and kill the revenue parts, like the cap-and-trade energy tax and the limits on itemized deductions, thus producing much, much bigger deficits.
It doesn’t matter very much how the Obama Administration sees itself. It’s what it can get through the Congress that’s important and it’s rather clear that for the Congressional leadership the present circumstances have much the same kind of appeal that throwing chum into a shark pool has for the sharks.
Sooner rather than later the Obama Administration will realize that Congress is not their friend and, if their aspirations are genuine, Congress will be the greatest barrier to their achieving their objectives. That was the case during both the Reagan Administration and the Clinton Administration and, no doubt, in all administrations to one degree or another. During the Reagan Administration the Congress gleefully enacted his tax cuts and defense spending increases without implementing any sort of cuts in other areas of the budget. Bill Clinton achieved most of his accomplishments by allying himself with Congressional Republicans against his own party (triangulation).
Even before the election, I thought Obama would do better with a Republican congress, as he clearly enjoys the process of trying to win them over. In a couple of years, that may be just what he’s faced with.
“they’re aspirationally moderate but operationally liberal.”
Beautiful.
This is one of those situations where I hope I am served steaming crow in a couple years. But I doubt it.
In a basketball analogy, and something Luol Deng can’t seem to master, fake right, go left.
From where I sit, they have a total leftist agenda. I observe their actions, not words. Brooks is a convenient diversionary mouth piece. Brooks can talk to me when Obama comes out and back hands Reid and Pelosi on legislation. Until then. Just words.
If I’m wrong – and please political gods, prove me wrong – I prefer Texas to Carolina barbecue sauce.
I don’t think the right/left paradigm has much value when it comes to analyzing Obama. He’s adapting to circumstances. We’re in the middle of a series of interlocked crises and he’s doing his best to find a way out.
I’ll go with a historical analogy rather than a sports one.
US Grant was accused my contemporaries of being a butcher. He wasn’t. He inherited a war that was no longer a war of maneuver, but of fixed positions, a war of attrition. Because he had superior numbers he knew attrition favored his side. So that’s how he fought the war.
We’re in the middle of a series of interlocked crises and he’s doing his best to find a way out.
Wrong. Obama is doing his best to ignore all root causes. Has he proposed a plan to “rescue” the banks? No, he has proposed that we build a lot of bridges instead. Has he pushed for a review of the financial regulatory environment to see what needs to be kept and what needs to be changed? No, he has proposed that we talk about health care reform. Has he addressed the mountains of debt that the nation faces, not just the governments but also individuals and companies? No, he has proposed that we should make energy more expensive and should spend several trillion dollars we don’t have.
Obama is ignoring the most important issues so that he can do what he’s always wanted to do. Meanwhile the financial system continues to circle ’round the drain, and the rest of the economy isn’t far behind. Where’s the Age of Competence you promised, Reynolds? Hell, Obama’s State Department can’t even translate a single Russian word correctly for the SecState’s first big meeting with the Russians. This Administration isn’t even fifty days old and it is already moving beyond parody and farce.
A few weeks back Geithner came to Congress to present his bank rescue plan. He told them, in essence, that the dog ate his homework. Shortly thereafter Obama addressed the problem of over-valued housing by proposing that the federal government try to keep the houses over-valued while simultaneously keeping the people that couldn’t afford them in those same houses. A couple of days back Obama told people they should invest in the stock market because the profit to earnings ratios were good. Meanwhile Geithner was telling Congress that we need to make energy more expensive to save the economy. Today Hillary handed a Russia diplomat a stupid present that didn’t even have the correct Russian word printed on it. The man put in charge of vetting appointees has problems with his own wife’s law breaking. Which perhaps explains why the National Intelligence Director didn’t bother to tell the White House who he was choosing to chair the NIC. Would they figure out if the guy had problems or not anyway? Bettter to just put him out there and see what comes out. (Plenty, it turns out.)
Obama has made everything BUT the financial crisis his Number One Priority. Everything from closing Club Gitmo, to government procurement reform, to healthcare reform, to energy reform, to building a bunch of bridges have all been given priority, but he and his Treasury Secretary cannot be bothered to announce how they plan to stabilize the financial sector. The one thing that SHOULD be his top priority barely warrants mention. He’s not trying to solve the problem, he’s desperately hoping that if he ignores it it will go away. Good luck with that approach.
And working from top to bottom, I just noticed the previous post. Even Krugman doesn’t think Team OBAMA has a clue how to bail out the banks. I noticed yesterday that Barry “O Shit” has lost Chris Matthews. So don’t just take my word for it, take Paul Krugman’s word for it. He’s got a Nobel Prize in economics, ya know.
Icepick:
Since I’ve won every Obama bet I’ve made so far — Rick Moran and Transplanted Lawyer in the blogosphere — I propose a simple bet with you.
I’ll bet $100 to your favorite charity, that a year from today we have a bottom in the stock market and in the housing market, and that unemployment is below 7.5% and falling. I’ll even throw in another metric, just to give you a chance to win: Gallup will have Obama’s job approval at 55% or better.
I understand that 6 weeks is a very, very long time. For my kids. But I wonder if we might not agree that repairing the staggering damage done to this country and this economy by members of your party might take just a bit longer.
I will not gamble with a man who has claimed that I am worse than a Nazi for supporting lower marginal tax rates. You are a lying sack of excrement, and only marginally better of a “human being” than the armed thugs who invaded my mother’s house last year. Incidentally, they were also Obama supporters. Say “Hi” to them at the next meeting for me.
I understand that 6 weeks is a very, very long time. For my kids. But I wonder if we might not agree that repairing the staggering damage done to this country and this economy by members of your party might take just a bit longer.
Typical of an Obama supporter. (When they aren’t robbing little old ladies at gun point, that is. But I guess that was okay, because my Mom is just a “typical white person”, and I know how you Obamabots hate “typical white people”.)
You have not addressed one single issue. You claimed that Obama would be competent, and that his Administration would be as well. Well, Obama nominated a tax cheat to oversee the economy and the IRS on the claim that Geithner was the ONLY man for the job. Despite Geithner being an experienced insider, and having plenty of lead time, he hasn’t even been able to name his staff. Where’s the competence there? Or is that failure also the fault of Rush Limbaugh?
Geithner has also not been able to do the ONE thing he said he would do, and the one thing he NEEDS to do. He was supposed to have a bank rescue plan before Congress WEEKS ago. Where is it? Is that also Limbaugh’s fault, or is it Karl Rove’s? (I’m sure it’s another one of those evil “typical white people” whose guts you hate.)
Where’s the competence at the State Department that can’t even translate one single word correctly?
Where’s the competence with a President who claims that we’ll have six percent economic growth in the future to HALVE the size of the budget deficit?
Address what’s happened in the last six weeks, asshole. You won’t though, because that would require that you actually engage in honest debate, and you are as incapable of honesty as you are of any basic human decency.