A Second Obama Term

As you may recall I’ve been puzzled by the president’s reluctance to lay out his plans for a second term. In that light I was amused by columnist E. J. Dionne’s column last week in which he proposed his own agenda for a second Obama term capped with a somewhat contradictory assertion that a custodial presidency, guaranteeing the accomplishments of the first term, was really good enough.

Mickey Kaus noticed that column, too, and even more he noticed that the column implicitly contradicts a previous Dionne column:

Oh wait. I’m sorry. That was written last month when it looked like Obama had some chance of winning big and defeating the entire ”GOP congressional apparatus.” Now that he doesn’t, winning big turns out not to matter so much! In a fortuitous development, it seems that, on second thought, Obama can not only govern but pursue an ambitious second term agenda even if Republicans continue to control the House–at least he can on five big issues (immigration, energy, education, infrastructure and campaign finance).

Our confusion can now be laid to rest. The Obama re-election campaign has produced a booklet outlining the president’s plans for a second term. If I find an online version, I’ll link to it but here’s a summary:

The new booklet—a glossy, 20-page publication with several policy sections—makes no mention of Mr. Romney or any of his ideas. In some cases, such as health care, it explains what Mr. Obama has already done and details what he won’t do, such as privatize Social Security. Other sections highlight his promises for a second term, though the promises are somewhat limited. For instance, his education section includes his goal of cutting the growth of tuition by half over the next 10 years, though the federal government’s power to achieve that is uncertain.

The new, 60-second TV ad is narrated by Mr. Obama. In it, he says the nation has added five million jobs, seen exports and home values rise, and brought soldiers home from wars abroad.

“Here’s my plan for the next four years,” the president then says. “Making education and training a national priority, building on our manufacturing boom, boosting American-made energy, reducing the deficits responsibly by cutting where we can, and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. And ending the war in Afghanistan.”

“Cutting the growth of tuition by half” seems like a very modest goal to me. Over the last ten years tuition costs have more than doubled. They’ve grown about four times as fast as prices, generally (CPI-U). Is cutting the rate of increase to twice that of CPI-U an adequate goal?

What effect will “cutting where we can” and increasing the rate paid by the top 1% of income have on the deficit? Practically nothing, according to the CBO.

For me the most enlightening part of the plan is that it’s pretty clear that the president is doubling down on structural problems, that Americans just don’t have the training and education needed for the jobs that are available, as the main problem facing the U. S. economy. You can believe that a shortfall in demand is the main problem facing our economy or you can believe that the president has the right prescription. You can’t believe in both.

15 comments… add one
  • I TOLD you this would be the October Surprise! Yeah, baby! Validation!

  • “Cutting the growth of tuition by half” seems like a very modest goal to me.

    He wants to give the appearance of doing something useful (“cut… by half”) while actually promising something inconsequential.

    But that’s okay, the Admin wants to make debt slaves of young people. He’ll promise everyone a degree is grievance studies at expensive private schools so they can rack up a large debt to the government. He’ll be able to say he’s keeping their tax rates low, but the government will still be collecting all that yummy-yummy interest on the debts, which are strangely non-dischargeable. A hidden tax that no one will even think of as a tax – brilliant!

  • He wants to give the appearance of doing something useful (“cut… by half”) while actually promising something inconsequential.

    Cutting growth by half sounds great, but what it means is that education costs will remain at their currently higher level and will continue to go up, just not as fast. That is hope and change you can believe in!!!!!

  • Steve V., I believe!

  • Drew Link

    Flim Flam men spin Flim flam.

    Last night Obama tried to talk over Romney about liquidation of the auto industry, eventually demanding a check of the record. Well, they have checked the record.

    Oopsey. Flim flam.

  • You can say that again Drew….

    I did not watch the debate, but that “zinger” that “won it” for Obama intrigued me. The more I look the more like a complete fool Obama appears.

    He noted that there are these ships were planes land on them called aircraft carriers (can he be anymore of a condescending prick?). The implication is carriers are so awesome we can reduce the number of other surface ships (of course, not too much as carrier strike groups have a sizeable fleet they travel will–something like 6-7 other ships at least). But the U.S. has 11 carrier strike groups. Are we going to add more? No. In fact, carrier strike group 7 was deactivated on December 31, 2011.

    So in the end, Romney was correct. The U.S. is reducing its ability to project power around the world. Maybe this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the snide comment doesn’t address that. And it makes Obama clueless about what his own administration is doing.

    And I have to say, I find John Taylor’s argument that our sluggish economy isn’t so much a result of a financial crisis, but government policy somewhat intriguing as well. After all, after 1930/31 the growth of the U.S. economy was very, very rapid (unit government policy nearly killed it). As with other prior financial crisis. So based on that, I have to say the notion that government is hampering things should indeed be considered a viable hypothesis at the least.

    Then factor in things like Obamacare and it is like….wow, people think this guy is doing a good job? Romney may not be much better…might even be worse, but Christ to try to argue Obama is worthy of second term is ridiculous. At best, I think the argument could be, “Well…Romney would be even worse.”

  • Drew Link

    He screwed up the “derisive” denial too. It’s on film in all it’s glory.

    Flim flam man…..

  • steve Link

    “So in the end, Romney was correct. The U.S. is reducing its ability to project power around the world. Maybe this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the snide comment doesn’t address that.”

    Stick to economics.

    Steve

  • steve Link

    ” After all, after 1930/31 the growth of the U.S. economy was very, very rapid (unit government policy nearly killed it). As with other prior financial crisis.”

    Levels dude. How long did it take for output to recover? The
    Schularick-Taylor is pretty relevant. You also need a consistent definition of financial crisis.

    Steve

  • steve,

    Tell me how I’m wrong? We are down a carrier strike group. We will be down more ships unless a deal is reached with Congress. To use a factually incorrect “zinger” to win is pretty lame to me. It indicates a lack of substance.

    Levels dude. How long did it take for output to recover?

    Stick to medicine.

  • steve Link

    Read the pros, although I must say it find it amusing to see a libertarian tacitly supporting New Deal policies that lead to rapid growth. I would never have guessed that FDR was your economic policy hero. The paid pundits? Of course they do this. Tell them FDR was wonderful and they have pointed out for years that it took many years for output to return to pre-Depression levels.

    http://voxeu.org/article/fact-checking-financial-recessions-us-uk-update

    Aircraft carriers? Think of it like nukes. If we have enough nukes to kill the world five times over, and we cut their number by 10%, do we really have less defensive capability? The difference between 10 and 11 is politically meaningful, but not in our ability to defend ourselves or project naval sea power. But, if you think I am wrong, maybe you should lobby for 20 or 30 carrier groups.

    Steve

  • Read the pros, although I must say it find it amusing to see a libertarian tacitly supporting New Deal policies that lead to rapid growth.

    Really, stick to medicine cause you are looking like an idiot here.

    They properly criticize New Deal policies that slowed down the spectacular recovery from April to July 1933 to almost a crawl. What stopped April to July recovery almost in its tracks? The answer is almost certainly that FDR forced his misguided National Industrial Recovery Act through Congress in June, and by July its effects were beginning to be felt. Simultaneously forcing up nominal wages in the face of high unemployment (though unemployment started had falling rapidly when recovery started in April) and cartelizing large swaths of the American economy, the NRA effectively shut down the recovery that was still gaining momentum. As shown in the chart representing industrial production, industrial production resumed its rapid expansion almost immediately after the NIRA was unanimously struck down by the Supreme Court in May 1935. The aborted recovery was a tragedy for the American economy and for the world, but the premature end of (or extended pause in) the recovery tells us nothing about whether an economy can recover from a depression with no increase in aggregate demand.

    In other words, we had high growth despite FDR’s best efforts to the contrary. Now, with a far, far more activist government it isn’t surprising that government policies might be more effective at limiting growth.

    Aircraft carriers? Think of it like nukes. If we have enough nukes to kill the world five times over, and we cut their number by 10%, do we really have less defensive capability?

    Right, because nukes provided such a great deterrence during the Cold War…..

    But, if you think I am wrong, maybe you should lobby for 20 or 30 carrier groups.

    Now you are just being a complete idiot. I’d be fine with fewer carrier strike groups. I’d be fine if we did less around the world. I’m doubtful that our various military adventures over the last 50 years have made us safer in the long run. My point is that Obama’s “zinger” really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, especially if the sequestering takes place.

  • James Joyner, somebody who is and expert on foreign policy.

    “Our Navy is old — excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me. I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.”

    Obama retorted that, “Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting slips. It’s what are our capabilities.”

    Obama’s line was clever, if factually incorrect and misleading. It’s absolutely true that the sheer number of ships isn’t the only thing that matters; but it does in fact matter. Will a fleet in “the low 200s” be adequate to our future security needs? Well, it depends on what we ask of it. If we’re going to continue to expect our Navy to cover the entire globe simultaneously, maintain a presence in key hot spots, perform humanitarian and counterpiracy missions, and also pivot to Asia—a naval theater—then it may well not be.

    Further, while Romney left himself open to ridicule with the “ our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917″ irrelevancy, his very next line was that “The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission.” We have far fewer ships than that now and Obama proposes to cut them.

    What’s interesting here is how little time was spent on this relative to so many less important issues. And Obama never responded on the issue of the Air Force—much less introduced a discussion of the appropriate size of the Army and Marine Corps or the future combat role of the United States military.

    Huh….well look at that. So there is indeed a serious issue here. One that Romney made some valid points about, and Obama blew it off with a joke.

    Very Presidential I tell you!

  • steve Link

    I think James should double check his numbers. We have 285 ships. The Navy has actually suggested more than one number as the optimal number. Some have suggested 300. We really arent that far off. Could we eventually get to low 200s? Sure, but that would take quite a while unless we went to actively decommissioning them. (I am not sure what was factually incorrect. We actually had fewer ships under Bush. We really do have fewer horses in our military than in 1917, Romney’s date. We also rarely use bayonets as bayonets. (I collect knives.) If we want to get really technical, we currently have about 800,000 Marines and Army. Some of them carry bayonets, even if they dont use them very often except as knives. We have about 600,000 Navy and Air Force. Having served in both of those, I can tell you I never saw a bayonet. In 1917 we had WWI, which is why Romney chose that year. We had increased the number of our ships, but many were just transports. Almost every soldier carried a bayonet. They were nearly always attached for charges across the trenches, and they were used.)

    Now, I would agree that neither candidate addressed the issue of what the size and make up of our military ought to be, and why they support the size they do.

    Steve

  • Learn to read steve. James’ was quoting Romney with regards to the 285 number.

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