As I was reading this rant, a response to President Obama’s Bluto Blutarskyesque full-on campaign mode speech yesterday decrying “tax cuts for the rich” and singling out for particular attention the tax deduction for corporate jets.
Why do I call it “Blutarskyesque”? If President Obama disapproved of the deduction he mentioned so frequently in his speech, he might have mentioned it when he enacted it into law in 2009. If he disagreed with “tax cuts for the rich”, he could have vetoed their extension when the legislation came across his desk.
Back to the post. Mr. Mariotti declaims:
You need to retire your golf clubs and roll up your sleeves and live up to some of that soaring rhetoric that got you into this job—you know, the one you have learned you were woefully underprepared to do.
I think this fails on logical grounds. If President Obama is, in fact, “woefully underprepared”, wouldn’t we be better off if he spent more time on the links?
I’ve seen quite a few complaints lately about the president’s management style, mostly by people who couldn’t care less about his management style and disagree with him on policy grounds, and the retort, mostly from people who couldn’t care less about his management style and reflexively defend him on the basis of team spirit, that the less engaged style is very much what Reagan (presumably, a president admired by the former group) used.
I would say that Reagan employed a staff management style reminiscent of Eisenhower’s, quite a contrast to the hands-on, finger in every pie approach favored by Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and, later, Clinton.
The problem is that neither Eisenhower nor Reagan ran on a reform platform while Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton did. When you’re not a reform candidate you can bring the old party bulls into your administration without appearing ridiculous, an approach not open to a reforrm candidate and, in general, not desired by a reform candidate. The staff management style is highly appropriate for these highly seasoned and experienced individuals. Not so when your administration is staffed by tyros and shadow ministers.
However, I remain puzzled by President Obama and his administration. As a matter of policy, does he believe that fiscal stimulus is an effective method of producing economic growth or not? If not, why did sign an $800 billion+ stimulus package into law? If he does, why doesn’t he propose more stimulus?
What objectives does he believe will have been accomplished in 2014 in Afghanistan that haven’t already been accomplished?
Does he agree with Sen. Obama on the reprehensibility of raising the debt ceiling?
On the subject of the debt ceiling, I think the entire discussion is political kabuki, I find the argument that the 14th Amendment renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional convincing, and I think that the view that the Congress is empowered to enact spending in excess of the debt ceiling but is required explicitly to raise the debt ceiling to implement the spending is incoherent.
I sincerely believe that President Obama is convinced he’s on the side of the angels in the bombing campaign in Libya (those who support the policy certainly do). I would like to know how long he expects the campaign to last and how he reconciles the campaign as presently constituted with international accords, though.
I’m not alleging hypocrisy in any of this. I want to know what the administration’s policies are.
I just made my observation that everything is building toward 2012 as a referendum on all spending cut, or some tax increase.
Obama may have been clumsy, but without a doubt there is an entire industry dedicated to hearing him wrong.
By all means get caught up in jets and definitions of “rich” … and place your bets for 2012.
I’m not sure he has a managment style. He’s never managed anything so he is chamelion-like, reactively bouncing this way and that, and now with an eye to the election cycle.
In any event, I view the “private jet” thingy as a signal of desperation. Their preferred policy levers wrt the economy have flopped. Time is running short. So haul out the tired class envy rhetoric. Get prepared for a steady stream.
But anyone who views corporate jet tax rhetoric (I mean, really, corporate jet jawboning?? What next, a yacht tax?? A Rolex watch tax??) as a substitute for real economic policy or policy advocacy needs his head examined.
It was, shall we say, not a shining moment for President Obama. I hear one guy called him a “johnson.” I just call it, as I have for 3 years, not ready for prime time.
The President is not above Congress. Congress has more power in domestic policy. Presidents who think they can lead Congress to pass an agenda they are not enthusiastic about will likely fail like Bush did on Social Security and immigration.
Talk about upper income taxes and corporate jets does not make a lot sense if someone is serious about the budget. It makes great sense if someone is trying to score political points and win elections to anyone who has looked at the polling on taxes. The only way I see to bring the budget under control is to let all the Bush tax rates expire and slow Medicare spending.
I think he would like more stimulus for the states but he knows it has no chance in the current Congress. I am puzzled why he does not push for more infrastructure spending as a stimulus. That has a chance of passing.
What puzzles me most about Obama is why he does not make Federal Reserve appointments a high priority. He is not likely to get anything out of Congress to boost the economy. The Fed has a lot of power to boost the economy but Obama has let Fed seats sit vacant and has done little to fill them.
First of all, the thought of Barack Blutarsky cracks me up. Kudos.
That said, I think you are overapplying the rhetorical questions here a bit – you know full well that most of the shifts in Obama’s stances have to do with changing political circumstance. I don’t even have a problem with that – I expect most politicians to change their stances based on what is politically possible at the time.
I wish I felt sure the debt ceiling issue was kabuki – it always has been in the past. The intensity of the disagreement and the media spotlight makes it seem different this time. Intentionally ruining the nation’s credit should not be an option for Congress, no matter which party is in charge.
He doesn’t ask for what he won’t get. That’s why he didn’t push for more stimulus.
I’m frustrated by Obama’s style because it’s so Aikido. But we saw where a brawler got us — two unfunded wars running at 4 trillion, an unfunded Medicare expansion, a surplus pissed away on tax cuts and trickle down that were supposed to get us a growing economy and instead landed us on the edge of collapse across multiple fronts. And by the way, no jobs.
That was Drew’s idea of a chief executive who was ‘ready for prime time.’ You know: Republican, conservative, Drewish, white, all the important things.
The problem is not experience, an overrated factor. (Nixon: Congressman, Senator, Vice President. Carter: Military officer, businessman, Governor. George W. Bush: military officer, businessman, Governor. That’s a lot of experience for three catastrophic failures.)
And the problem is not ideology: Obama is not ideological.
The problem insofar as there is one is a temperament. He’s a meetings and consultation guy, collegial, civil, willing to take a back seat, and perhaps too willing to compromise. He would be a great guy to work for.
I’ve been watching this with great interest from the start because I think I had him pegged pretty accurately. And, because Obama’s temperament is so at odds with my own, I was intrigued. I think it works surprisingly well in that Obama tends to get what he sets out to get — health care reform, end of DADT, surge in Afghanistan, financial reform, GM/Chrysler, original stimulus — even despite the nihilism of the GOP.
The weakness is that while he gets what he sets out to get, he doesn’t set out to get what he doesn’t know he can get. He’s a man whose reach never exceeds his grasp, and I think that’s limiting.
“The problem is that neither Eisenhower nor Reagan ran on a reform platform”
Eh? Ike maybe, but certainly Reagan was out to reform.