“Our plan includes more cuts,” Chuck Schumer bragged at a news conference on Capitol Hill yesterday when comparing Harry Reid’s debt plan to John Boehner’s.
Economic anxiety is at an all-time high as both parties embrace austerity politics.
The fact that Senate Democrats are trying to out-cut the cut-obsessed Republicans pretty much sums up the current political debate in Washington. “Harry Reid’s plan wins the austerity sweepstakes,” Adam Serwer wrote yesterday. “It's the austerity party vs. the austerity party,” blogger Atrios tweeted.
President Obama has actively shifted the debt debate to the right, both substantively and rhetorically. Substantively by not insisting on a “clean bill” to raise the debt ceiling at the outset and actively pushing for drastic spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs as part of any deal. And rhetorically by mimicking right-wing arguments about the economy, such as the canard that reducing spending will create jobs (it won’t), or that the government’s budget is like a family’s budget (it isn’t), or that major spending cuts will return confidence to the market and spur the economy recovery we’ve all been waiting for (Paul Krugman calls it “the confidence fairy”).
“For the last few months, I and others have watched, with amazement and horror, the emergence of a consensus in policy circles in favor of immediate fiscal austerity,” Krugman wrote on July 1. “That is, somehow it has become conventional wisdom that now is the time to slash spending, despite the fact that the world’s major economies remain deeply depressed. This conventional wisdom isn’t based on either evidence or careful analysis. Instead, it rests on what we might charitably call sheer speculation, and less charitably call figments of the policy elite’s imagination.”
In the last few weeks, the austerity hawk choir has only gotten louder. President Obama has successfully used the bully pulpit to undermine the case for progressive governance.
Even after the 2010 election, which supposedly was a referendum on government spending, there was little evidence that the public cared about the deficit and a lot of evidence that they wanted Washington to address the jobs crisis. For example, 56 percent of Americans ranked the economy and jobs as their top priority for the new Congress following the election, while only 4 percent named the deficit.
By a two to one margin, according to a July Quinnipiac poll, Americans still believe that reducing unemployment is more important than cutting the deficit. But they only narrowly believe that reducing unemployment is more important than reducing federal government spending, by a 49 to 43 margin. And the public now says that “major cuts in federal spending” would help, not hurt, the economy, a 15 point reversal from March.
Things might have been different had President Obama made an aggressive and sustained argument that the government still has an important role to play in spurring an economic recovery and creating jobs. Instead, the president sided with the austerity hawks and strengthened the elite Washington consensus.
Throughout the debt ceiling debate, Obama keeps touting how he’s bucking the activists in his own party. It seems as if the president wants to run against the Democratic base in 2012 and position himself as the supposedly sensible centrist candidate. As a result, the president’s approval ratings among liberals are at the lowest point of his presidency.
That “triangulation” strategy worked for Bill Clinton in 1996, although he had the benefit of a rapidly growing economy. My guess is the 2012 election will be much more like 2004 than 1996, when the country is fiercely divided about the incumbent leader, unsure of the opposition, and in a politically restive mood. If that’s the case, Obama will need his base to knock on doors, make phone calls and persuade undecided voters who to vote for. That’s how Bush won in ‘04, by ratcheting up Republican turnout in states like Ohio. The more Obama bucks his supporters—and keeps ignoring the jobs crisis in favor of deficit hysteria—the dicier his path to re-election becomes, especially if the economy continues to lag.
But let’s forget about the 2012 election for a moment. Right now, the public is being deprived a real and vital debate about how to solve the economic crisis. Obama is governing like a moderate Republican. Republicans are governing like Grover Norquist. The net effect is that US politics keeps shifting further and further to the right.
--Ari Berman is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. Follow him on Twitter at @AriBerman.
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2. posted by: jedi_mindtrick at 07/28/2011 @ 6:36pm
Jedi, Thanks for the link. That's mind boggling when you think about it. But at the same time, I can definitely see that happening.
I am so sick of the Obama bashing, from the left and the right. I'll just say this, I trust him more than any other politician in Washington. He is not wrapped up in ideology but approaches issues with REASON, which there is not enough of in politics. I sincerely believe he has the well-being of this country primary as his concern. It has been proven and made crystal clear that Reps only care about the wealthy, large corps, big oil, etc. AND their pledge to Grover Norquist. They also operate in secret organizations like ALEC and allow the Corps to make policy in their behalf. If you don't know what ALEC is, go to alecexposed.org.
Why don't somebody play `Fantasy Presidency' and imagine what a Hillary Clinton might have done?
To be honest, I knew she would be far more competent and bad for the Right/GOP.....she would have the best adviser possible, every night in the WH.
BERMAN: "Things might have been different had President Obama made an aggressive and sustained argument that the government still has an important role to play in spurring an economic recovery and creating jobs."
I'm sorry, Ari....you are doing your progressive best to put lipstick on Zero but you won't succeed.
It's now universally recognized, Left and Right, that the Great Orator's "aggressive and sustained argument" are just words on a teleprompter. A presidency is long enough to show whether earlier "argument" panned out or not.
Guess what, I know you don't agree, but Zero's first BIG argument fell off a cliff....that his near $900 Billion of economic brilliance that was, ahem, porky to say the least, in his first months on the job, led to the TEA Party but no jobs....unless you think Unemployment going up to 10% rather than the 8% `promised', means oodles of jobs were "created" or heck, "saved".
Why not come clean and be the first here to admit you were fooled and call a spade, a spade?
Meh. People are underestimating the very real, very dire and far reaching consequences of the nation's debt. Obama has no choice but to aggressively balance the budget, now, that the country's finances have been ravaged by 8 years of total mayhem by Republicans, and 20 years of conspiring to destroy the whole government before that, since Reagan. Don't let them get away with dodging responsibility by falsely assigning blame to Obama. Blame the real culprits, Republicans, while doing the work of repairing the damage.
Pervis J Casey: "There is no real difference between the economic policies of the current Democratic party and the Republican Party. Obama is not even a moderate Republican. Both parties are right wing Neoliberals. Everyone of the major political parties in Europe are right wing Neoliberals The EU's economic policies are right wing Neoliberalism."
Here's a reasonably good indication for why you're pretty much correct...
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape_our_world.html
Obama is not governing like a moderate Republican unless you mean he is governing like a Wall St. liberal. Obama is a corporatist not just another right-wing democrat like the Dixiecrats or the Cold War Democrats. Obama is marching under a blacker flag. Two years ago some of us here warned you all about the right-wing neolibs and you scoffed. Now we have articles like the above. A year or so from now, I suspect The Nation will finally have an article on corporatism as Il Duce Obama rules as dictator.
Progressive politics is a failure on a world wide scale...and most are now getting their eyes opened for the first time..except the left in America, of course...
Govt programs are a boondoggle and are unable to sustain themselves ..
Even Europe is bailing on as much as they can..
"Cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils: NHS begins rationing operations
Almost two-thirds of trusts affected as cuts bite
By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor
Thursday, 28 July 2011 Share Close Digg del.icio.us Facebook Reddit Google Stumble Upon Fark Newsvine YahooBuzz Bebo Twitter Comments Print Email Text Size NormalLargeExtra Large ANDREW HASSON
Anne Ball, 71, a retired business consultant: 'I have bilateral cataracts and under the original NHS criteria I was entitled to have at least one of mine treated - but then the West Sussex health authorities decided to change the threshold level to save money'
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There is no real difference between the economic policies of the current Democratic party and the Republican Party. Obama is not even a moderate Republican. Both parties are right wing Neoliberals. Everyone of the major political parties in Europe are right wing Neoliberals The EU's economic policies are right wing Neoliberalism.
I will also not be voting in the Presidential if Obama continues on his present path.
Looks like we have Grover Obama in the White House and Harry Norquist in the Senate with Glen Beck as the speaker and Rush Limbaugh as the majority leader...might as well be that way, because I don't see a shred of difference if it were otherwise.
Obama certainly is not getting my vote in 2012. Nothing is changing my mind about that.
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