Commonwealth Commonsense

Finally, Obama Adopts Family Responsibility Theme

I’ve argued to anyone who’ll listen that the meme Republicans have used about government having to tighten its belt “just like families do” was not only flawed, but ripe for adopting as a Democratic theme. Now, President Obama did it with his Saturday radio address.

When faced with financial challenges, families do several things. Yes, they cut back spending.  But they also look to increase income. They know not everything can or should be cut across the board. Some things you can do without; others are necessary to succeed in the long run. So, like the family alluded to in Obama’s speech where the mother is looking for a second job because they want their child to finish college, families do what’s necessary to pay for the things they think are important. The president uses this narrative to turn the tables on the disingenuous GOP narrative and argues the federal government shouldn’t cut everything. Some investments must be made because if we don’t, we’ll put our kids at a disadvantage to compete in the future. They won’t have the education or the infrastructure to compete. They’ll be more dependent on foreign oil than ever before with an antiquated transportation system that will choke economic growth. All because we want to cut taxes and slice not only muscle but bone from the our governments.

Text of speech is here. Video below.

No Vision, No Strategy, No Message

A few years back I tried to convince the Virginia Democratic leadership about the desperate need for a coherent, strategic communications plan to convince voters that its vision and plans for the future would be what’s best for Virginia. The only way to succeed in changing the conversation in, and direction of, the Commonwealth is to change the frames we talk about issues.  I admitted to them that it would take courage, discipline and patience.   They all said that it sounded good, but ultimately, the leadership did nothing.

The chickens come home to roost every January when the Republicans in Richmond roll out exactly what Democrats should be doing. The conventional wisdom was defined in Monday’s Washington Post article by Roz Helderman.

[T]he governor's agenda could earn [Democrat} the same criticism that Democrats have been lobbing at Republicans in Washington - that they are obstructionists who have not advanced an alternative vision for governing.

While individual Democratic lawmakers have submitted bills they say they will prioritize, the caucus has not announced plans to roll out a unified legislative package.

"The dilemma will be if McDonnell maneuvers them into a position where they are vulnerable to the same attack that's been made against Republicans for a decade - that they're the 'party of no,' " said Robert D. Holsworth, a former Virginia Commonwealth University professor who writes a blog on state politics. "I think it's very clear they're going to be feistier. Whether the Democratic Party puts forward a very clear alternative on issues beyond social issues is their challenge."

Nowhere is the dilemma likely to be more pronounced than on transportation, a perpetual dividing line between the parties that has bedeviled state politicians for a decade. Most experts agree that fixing Virginia's overburdened road network and crumbling bridges would cost more than $1 billion a year over the next 20 years.

Democrats have long maintained that the problem requires finding a new stream of revenue, such as a tax increase. But Republicans have said they will not raise taxes.

…Although Democrats agree the top priority should be job creation, they do not have a cohesive response to McDonnell's economic development proposals.

This lack of an agenda keeps Virginians wondering what Democrats stand for other than vaguely for a tax increase for roads.  The party refuses to be strategic and develop a narrative about what Democrats stand for.  It is killing them, as now the key reporter covering Richmond has called them out. Hers will be the narrative that describes this session. Alas, I have no faith that anyone in the Virginia Democratic party has a clue as to how to change it.

Obama’s Press Conference

I’m not happy with him or his tax compromise, and I worry about his political skills.

But this was a strong press conference.

Obama Tax Hikes?

Here’s a pretty good example, even if it doesn’t seem to be working as yet, of how the right tries to drive the framing of issues. The Dingbat of the the North tweets:

Pls refer to Jan.1 tax changes appropriately: they're OBAMA TAX HIKES & they'll slam every American's savings, investments & job opportunity

Politifact debunks this, of course.

Palin and other Republicans often suggest that Obama and the Democrats want to see tax rates go up for all incomes. But that's not what they've been advocating for more than two years. President Barack Obama campaigned on maintaining the tax cuts for couples earning less than $250,000 while allowing the expiration of the tax cuts for families above that line. In fact, in a Dec. 2, 2010, vote, the vast majority of House Democrats supported a bill to do precisely that, with almost all Republicans voting against the bill. (House Speaker-to-be John Boehner, R-Ohio, went so far as to call the bill "chicken crap.")

But Politifact misses the point. Blame should have been assessed relentlessly by Democrats over the last year on Republicans. The argument goes something like this:

Republicans had a chance to make the tax cuts permanent when they made them.  But they couldn’t get it passed because Democrats were filibustering the cuts. So they used budget reconciliation and made them just 10 years to avoid the “Byrd rule” forbidding using reconciliation if it impacts the budget beyond 10 years. In other words, the GOP used the same tactic they accused Democrats of using to pass the health care bill. So not only are they hypocrites, they were financially reckless and pushed the budget reckoning down the road. But then, following the elephant to clean up the mess is well-known and thankless job.

Deficit Commission Forecast

No pain, no gain.

False Argument on Taxes

Let’s have a show of hands: Do you want free-market capitalism or egalitarian socialism?

This is the argument that passes for political discourse. Victor Claar, as reported in The Post Sunday, believes that “ [w]hether because of differing intelligence, skill, ambition or luck, free markets produce different outcomes for different people, so envy is inevitable.”

That seems reasonable but he takes the argument to the illogical conclusion that because of these often random chances and opportunities, envy is behind the “social justice” urge to “spread the wealth around.” He says such ideas are “mean” because liberals are “suggesting those making over (sic) $250,000 should feel guilty for the hard work they have done to contribute something others find valuable enough to voluntarily pay for…. [P]ursuing self-interest in a system that allows you to be rewarded for pursuit of your own self-interest and at the same time in service of others? That’s certainly better than the alternative.”

And here I thought we were just talking about an adjustment to the tax code. Claar sees the end of the world as we know it.

Raising taxes on the wealthy is not socialism.  And asking those making more than $250,000 isn’t asking that they feel guilty, just asking they help pave the roads and build our schools. But that request is translated by economic conservatives as a guilt trip. Gee, now that you’ve figured me out, can I get up from the couch, doctor?

Pursuing self-interest and being rewarded for success? Seems reasonable to me. But much of what he and others are so strident in defending is not free market capitalism. What we have is a convoluted system of codes, judicial opinions and regulations that to many seem a rigged game.

Some folks just want a more level playing field, like the one we had 50 years ago while we were building interstate highways and suburban boxes for the prospering middle class.

Tax hikes are not apocalypses. But it seems to behoove those against such hikes to predict dire consequences. It much like the argument that raising taxes will shut down entrepreneurship and business investment. I doubt if a businessman wants to invest $1 million because he thinks there’s a $5 million return on investment he is, in the face of a three-four percent tax hike, going to put the money in his mattress instead of taking home $4.6 million.

Maybe worse, he’ll shoot himself because he now lives in a socialist state.

Will Democrats Fall for the Tax Trap?

Congressional Republicans are floating the “compromise” of extending all tax cuts for two years.  It sounds like a compromise all right, and of course, The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery, who betrays her Republican bias in almost every story she writes, takes pains to call other Republicans “equally willing to compromise,”  to frame the debate between compromising Republicans and the Obama position.  Of course, his position was already a compromise—a willingness to extend some tax cuts but not all.

But it’s a trap for Democrats.  It would put tax cuts squarely in the middle of the 2012 election, and Republicans are sure to call for their extension.  They would love to have tax cuts as a central issue because no one ever loses by appealing to the most selfish and ignorant of the American electorate.

With a closely divided Congress a near certainty for the next two years, and the economy likely to improve some, voters are likely to give credit to the fact that more Republicans are in Congress, even if they accomplish nothing.  And if we have a double dip recession, the GOP will not get the blame; Obama will.  Having the tax cut debate during the 2012 presidential campaign is a sure loser.

One in Seven Americans Live in Poverty

Is this a great country or what?

The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. Still, it was lower than estimates of many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year's skyrocketing unemployment. Many had predicted a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.

Analysts credited in part increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially in 2009 under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.

Another likely factor was a record number of working mothers, who helped households by bringing home paychecks after the recession took the jobs of a disproportionately high number of men.

"Given all the unemployment we saw, it's the government safety net that's keeping people above the poverty line," said Douglas Besharov, a University of Maryland public policy professor and former scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

So let’s government spending some more and so away with Social Security.  Even conservatives (not the right-wingers on Capitol Hill) recognize the value of a government safety net.  When you don’t have a job, cutting income taxes doesn’t do much for you.

Does Extending the Bush Tax Cuts Help Create Jobs?

No.

Obama No Better Than George W. Bush

George W. Bush could have given Obama’s speech last night, and the reaction would have been the same: it was all bluster.  Bush would not ask the country for sacrifice to pay for his wars and tax cuts.  Obama doesn’t want to ask people to pay for new energy and tougher regulations for a host of industries:  coal oil and financial, to name a few.  He certainly did not take my advice.

While Obama alluded to the need to build weapon systems for World War II as a time when the country faced a challenge, he did not mention that we sacrificed to do that.  Copper, sugar and other products were rationed.  The build-up of the space program after Sputnik required huge federal investment.  Alternative energy will require the same magnitude of investment and will require federal dollars that even Democrats are unwilling to raise.

The first part of his speech was mind-numbing with its lists of projects and their costs.  He continues to have speech patterns that are also mind-numbing in their repetitious inflections: regularly dropping his voice at the end of sentences.  It gives his speeches a condescending tone. 

When he talked about the lives upended by the Gulf spill, he seemed on the right track. He could have compared what the U.S. needs to do to help the fishing and tourism industries in the Gulf with what it has done to help other folks, including teachers and police officers, keep their jobs over the past two years.  He could have said to help those industries he needs their support for a new energy direction.  Oil and fishing do not mix.  But if a motel operator doesn’t want to stop oil drilling because his brother works on a rig, then they’ll both have to live with the consequences.  One of them—or both—need to sacrifice to solve our energy problems.  The oil employee needs to retrain for green energy jobs, and the motel operator needs to pay more taxes to help with that transition.

But Obama, like Bush, wants to make it look easy, as if all we need in determination, the same determination we need to defeat Al Qaeda.  But money and unending one’s life to take on new challenges?  No, we don’t need to go there.

He has ruined his Oval Office speech command.  The next time he schedules one, most observers will think it another bland attempt to recapture lost political momentum.  Besides, if you’re going to talk about sacrifice, better to do it when there is no live audience.  To ask for that in front of one, you risk the pundit analysis of the crowd reaction.  Since people usually don’t wildly applaud when told they need to sacrifice, the chattering class will point out that “Obama’s proposals were met with a stony silence.”

Obama may be genetically incapable of delivering passion or empathy.  But he could have said,

“Next time, government will not be able to plug the hole without massive expenditures necessary to duplicate capabilities oil companies should have. 

But government can minimize the likelihood of another disaster by instituting tough regulations and hiring tough regulators.  We need to move us away from energy sources that put the country at such risk of economic and environmental disaster. 

That will call on all of us to make sacrifices.  Oil workers will need to adapt their skills to green energy needs.  That may not be hard to do, as the manual and manufacturing jobs will not require significantly different skills.  And if the public is willing to help through higher taxes, government can help pay and deliver the necessary training. 

Furthermore, we need to jump start green energy with investments and loans to help entrepreneurs willing to invest their own money and time into the effort.  But at the end of the day, we’re not paying what oil really costs.  So right now, I’m proposing a $1.50 per gallon surcharge on gasoline to be implemented in steps over the next five years to raise the funds needed to wean ourselves from our oil addiction.  That will mean folks who rely on their car to get to work will have to tighten their belts elsewhere or find jobs closer to home or car pool or use mass transit.  These are small sacrifices for our children’s futures.

The good thing I can tell you is that if we seriously attack our addiction to oil, the price of gasoline will come down as oil companies seek to hold on to their customers.  But if we think we can fix this problem without sacrifice, we will accomplish nothing, other than give the oil industry the carte blanche they want to manacle us to their drug.”

But he didn’t go there.  He punted instead.  Obama is becoming a disappointment not only to progressives but to independents who though they were voting for a strong leader.  As of May 23, as many people think Obama is a strong leader as they did at the end of the political campaign.  His leadership reputation, except for a bump at his inauguration, has remained steady.  But if he keeps blowing chances to lead, he’ll become as feckless as Bush was in the waning years of his administration.