Obama is clearly winning in the current version of the Duopoly battles. That includes, but isn’t limited to, the Super Sequestration Deficit Cliff Grand Bargain production, brought to us, unfortunately, by DC Electeds on behalf of those for whom they actually work. In this act of the Obama Years segment of the ongoing theatre that is national politics, post-re-election Obama is playing a stronger version of himself, and to this point, he’s winning. That doesn’t necessarily mean a “win” for we the people. There’s a lot of “he’s better than the other side,” and I certainly won’t argue with that. But we’re still stuck in Lesser Evildom. And I, at least, see no move-out date. In fact, to a large degree, I don’t see the “conversation” moving beyond the “my dog’s less evil than your dog” level.
Both sides use the “you have nowhere else to go” argument – in governance as well as elections – which will keep working precisely as long as we accept that those are the only options we will ever have. You know, until somebody else does something about it. And when “somebody” works at doing that, they will be discounted, derided and demeaned.
What follows are several examples of what people are saying about this particular moment in Lesser Evildom. OF course, that’s my descriptive term. (emphasis added throughout post)
Matt Taibbi, Sequestration Cuts Crisis Makes Me Want to Strangle Both Sides:
If you can get past how horrifying it is, the looming ‘sequestration cuts’ crisis is fascinating. It’s like watching a bunch of gambling addicts play craps by throwing dice into a four-dimensional wormhole. There are so many variables that neither side can possibly know the true outcome of a failure to make a deal – which means the only certainty is that what we’re watching is irresponsibility on an epic scale, wherein both of our major political parties seem to prefer government by random outcome over one managed by sensible compromise.
William K. Black, Obama Could End the Sequester:
The point … (is) not who should be blamed for the insanity of the Sequester. The answer was always both political parties. I raised the President’s efforts to save the Sequester because they revealed his real preferences.
Michael Payne, The Washington Kabuki Theater of the Bizarre Presents: “The Height of Political Deceit and Manipulation”:
While this country remains under economic siege and is bleeding profusely from many self-inflicted wounds, those who were given the responsibility to find the ways to stop this hemorrhaging have now proven that they are not up to the task.
Deborah Burger, Lew’s Latest Shows US Increasingly Out of Step in Holding Wall Street Accountable:
How far behind the rest of the world can we continue to fall on holding the Wall Street traders and tycoons to account for the mess they made of our economy?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, The Revolving Door Spins from Sea to Shining Sea:
To those who would argue that the notion of a perpetual motion machine is impossible, we give you the revolving door — that ever-spinning entrance and exit between public service in government and the hugely profitable private sector. It never stops.
Jon Queally, In Blind Poll, Republicans Choose Progressive Budget Solutions Over Their Own Party’s:
When the Business Insider polled registered voters and asked for their preferences among three Congressional plans floated to avoid the looming ‘sequestration’ cuts in Washington, they found that when stripped of their partisan labels, the policies most favorable to the majority were those offered by the progressive wing of the Democratic caucus.
Note the irony between this poll, and what Solomon reports below.
Norman Solomon, Three-Quarters of Progressive Caucus Not Taking a Stand Against Cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid:
While still on the caucus roster, three-quarters of the 70-member (Congressional Progressive Caucus) seem lost in political smog. Those 54 members of the Progressive Caucus haven’t signed the current letter that makes a vital commitment: ‘we will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits – including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.’
Richard Eskow, Lords of Disorder: Billions For Wall Street, Sacrifice For Everyone Else:
The President’s ‘sequester’ offer slashes non-defense spending by $830 billion over the next ten years. That happens to be the precise amount we’re implicitly giving Wall Street’s biggest banks over the same time period.
We’re collecting nothing from the big banks in return for our generosity. Instead we’re demanding sacrifice from the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the young, the middle class – pretty much everybody, in fact, who isn’t ‘too big to fail.’
That’s injustice on a medieval scale, served up with a medieval caste-privilege flavor. …
And remember: The White House represents the liberal side of these negotiations.
All of this, of course, comes from the Left side of analysis. I very honestly don’t know how much is “progressive,” and how much is “liberal, in today’s Left.
Adding one more, which I guess makes me a “Purist,” “Idealist,” “Racist,” etc, whatever.:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2013/02/28/sperling-obama-wanted-sequester-to-force-democrats-to-accept-entitlement-cuts/
Thanks for the link. I find it very interesting to read the different analysis being done.
Enjoy reading Jon Walker on health care, but his premise is absurd on this one.
President Obama can get entitlement cuts without sequester and likely will eventually. He’s stated openly that’s what he wants and Pelosi and other leading Dems have signaled they will support it, with progressives not having enough votes to stop it. Additionally, the longer this draws out the easier it will be to get them.
For Walker to say it’s “betraying the base” is preposterous. Obama signaled in 2011 he wanted to cut entitlements, and the entire Democratic party supported him to be the leader.
I’m rooting for progressives, as I’ve said a million times, because I disagree with Obama on entitlement cuts, but there is absolutely nothing whatsoever Machiavellian about what he’s doing here. That he’s also openly admitted he’s conservative on these types of matters offers the rest of the proof anyone needs.
I think what you just wrote is absurd, Taylor. Most Obama fans have no idea what his real position is on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Talk to them, and what you hear is that it’s those mean, nasty Republicans who want to get rid of SS, M & M, and our Young President is just trying to stem this horrible tide. Yes, they’re misinformed, but so what? The White House has been trying to frame things this way for ages now, as have the Democrats. Reading Robert Reich, an otherwise clear-eyed observer of our economic politics, on this subject is a like a trip through an alternate universe where Carter’s hair is really bad and the Goa’uld have taken over.
Yes, people should be better informed about these things, but people vote for Presidents for a lot of reasons, and fiscal policy is only one of them. What Obama is doing is a betrayal of what the Democrats say they’re about. That they haven’t really been about that for some time is only evident if you look at their actions, and most folks have neither the time nor the knowledge built up to do that.
It’s a betrayal. Blaming the victims doesn’t make it not so.
This is a fair assessment.
Yep, Obama has been clear. I’m not sure about the “betraying the base” thing — in terms of the Dem party leadership, Electeds, etc., I don’t think they see any “betrayal” whatsoever, largely because of what you write. In terms of Dem voters … I honestly don’t know what to think, though the argument I see most oftten still seems to be of the “he’s better than the other side” variety, a kind of pragmatism, I guess.
Obama being Obama still sums it up for me.
Absolutely, Joyce. Obama’s been very clear for a very long time about what he wants and what he intends to do if he possibly can. It’s not betraying the base in any sense, who have been told his intentions, which is quite different than liking it or approving of it.
But like Obama says often, paraphrased, no one is going to get everything they want. That’s his philosophical view to the compromises required through politics, which
I wrote about way back in 2007 and remains his foundational viewpoint today.
There’s no betrayal, because for Obama it’s called compromise, which is the natural order in American politics if you want to accomplish anything.
again the “betrayal” is not Obama’s. He is just being Obama. The betrayal is what he is asking from other Democrats.
The base has already given their permission, by *accepting* President Obama as the leader.
That’s *their* compromise on his behalf, with the entitlement cuts & partial austerity part of it. Now, they can and likely will continue the fight against these cuts, and I’m rooting for them.
Obama believes this compromise is what’s required to accomplish what he truly believes is needed.
Just to reiterate the obvious, I disagree with his economic philosophy.
No.
Obama’s base is Wall Street.
There is no “THE base.” When you look at the last election and the entire “lesser evil” argument forced down people’s throats, notions of “the base” do not come into play.
“The base has already given their permission, by *accepting* President Obama as the leader.”
You mean over Romney, right?
So “the base,” as you refer to it, had the choice in 2012 of cutting SS under Romney or Obama.
I would hardly call that “accepting.”
Also…
Not one of mine…I voted Stein!
Cons succeed because the victims think or do foolish things. That doesn’t mean they’re not cons.
We were given a choice between two men who wanted to “reform” (cut) entitlements and take the meat cleaver to Social Security, screwing over the middle class and poor.
We elected one of them- which means we’ve endorsed cutting entitlements and taking the meat cleaver to Social Security and screwing over the middle class and the poor.
Therefore, we have no reason to complain. Got it.
Walker says nothing about “the” base, which I guess you mean, by your reply “Obama’s base.”
His quote:
“Obama still wants to use this manufactured crisis to force congressional Democrats to betray their base by adopting Social Security…” indicates to me that Walker posits two different “bases” here, Obama’s and that of “Progressive Democrats.”
And I would agree: Obama’s base is Wall Street.
I’d say that Wall Street is the part of his base he listens to and caters to, because they’re the ones who might take their support elsewhere. That’s why I keep stressing that as long as progressives aren’t willing to stop supporting Democrats, they can continue to expect no more than what they’re getting.
Of course, Wall Street has power that most progressive interests do not, but Democrats can’t win without progressive support, either.
Bill Black, in a link from a link:
Obama’s driving role in creating and maintaining the “fiscal cliff” makes his warning of the necessity of avoiding “self-inflicted wounds” (recession by austerity) imposed by the fiscal cliff another proof of our family rule that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. We need to convince Obama to follow his own advice and eliminate the self-inflicted wound (recession) by eliminating, not delaying, the fiscal cliff and safeguarding the safety net.
end quote:
It bears repeating that deficit spending is what a government should be doing during a recession, because it effectively expands the money supply. We learned that lesson in the 1930′s. Japan had that concept demonstrated during the 1990s, and they’re still feeling the effect of not having done it a generation later. Europe is now having this demonstrated on its economies, as well. They, too, are likely to be paying for that foolishness a generation later.
The other way of expanding the money supply is to “print more money”, which can be done via platinum coin seigniorage, without the necessity to change any laws. The Obama Administration have explicitly ruled out that course for no real reason.
No one who pays attention to the economic lessons of the last two centuries thinks that balancing a budget is a good idea right now. Only the two major parties, the finance people, and the “economists” who act as their shills think that’s true, along with all the sadly misinformed folks who assume that a national economy is like a household budget, only bigger.
Money isn’t a thing, not at the level of a nation that has its own fiat currency like we do. It’s just an abstract means of getting resources from where they are to where they need to be, based on the perceived value of those resources. If the resources exist, which they mostly do in our case, and there are people who can use them (potential demand, should those people ever get the money), and the only problem is there’s not enough money, then the solution for the government is to make more money. It’s really that simple.
You’d never know that listening to our politicians, but it is. The Obama Administration wants this battle, and has maintained it long after everyone supposedly opposed was ready to throw in the towel (see jinbaltimore’s link, and mine). It has kept this battle alive because the battle serves its own interests, not that of either its own party or the opposition’s.
“The Obama Administration wants this battle … has kept this battle alive because the battle serves its own interests, not that of either its own party or the opposition’s.”
I know you’ve written about this before, but I’d love reading more. The “battle serving its own interests” is, I think, a very important point.
Thanks for the link to Black.
Every time I think I’ll write an article on this, I end up giving up the idea. On the one hand, I think about economies differently from the way economists seem to, hence my term “Idiot Savant Economics”. I think of economies in terms of the resources they have and how they’re distributed. Money just makes that easy to do. It relieves an employer of having to pay me with ten gallons of gas one day, and a chicken the next. It also, and this is of interest at the national level I think, makes it possible to pay someone for doing something that doesn’t have an immediate payoff. An employer can pay me to keep working on a computer system that won’t be sold or paid for until later, because the employer can either reach into his bank account or borrow the money.
I’m an engineer, so I have to think of things in terms of getting strong healthy person A hooked up with suitable shovel B and transported to hole location C. All that requires resources, which are typically paid for with money, because it’s a lot easier than finding someone to trade an old desk for a shovel, and hoping that my shoveler can wait to eat until I find a cook to have that sandwich made for him.
Economists worth listening to, like Robert Reich for instance, seem to have some understanding of this idea. Others, and on his bad days Paul Krugman fits into this category, seem to think that all that is either unimportant or done the first way that pops into their heads. I don’t think Krugman has any idea how to run a business, and little idea what it is to have to live in America on a small income. For some discussions, that doesn’t matter, but for others it’s everything.
OTOH, saying all that brings up lots of questions, which ought to be answered with links to the answers. I don’t worry about that when I’m commenting here, because of the “multiple links put you in Moderation Hell” rule.
So, I tend to react, rather than act.
Thanks for taking some time to share more of your thinking.
I’m a big fan of William Black. Think the man knows what he’s talking about and talks it straight. I’ve read his essays over at Naked Capitalism and New Economic Perspectives. When I listen to these deficit hawks, claiming the world is about to end because of the deficit, they’re talking as if Nixon never released the US from the gold standard back in the 70s. It’s the great bamboozle. Or as Black has repeatedly said: Obama’s Grand Bargain is really the Grand Betrayal.
Why? I think somehow Obama believes this ‘Deal,’ which Joyce and Taylor have stated has never been a secret, will be his Grand Legacy. Pride goeth before the Fall! If POTUS gets his way, he’ll hang an albatross around all our necks. Austerity is the worst thing we can be doing right now. And we have the evidence as you clearly stated: Japan’s lost decades and Europe in an economic tailspin[ despite all the nervous happy talk].
This whole disaster is turning into another Climate Change denial–don’t trust your lying eyes.
The focus on the deficit is a distraction that just keeps on working …
Re: the Moyers/Winship quote, that’s not perpetual motion – the door never stops spinning because people don’t stop going through it.
I know, no one likes a pedant…
“Perpetual motion” of always more people willing to take a spin?