Robert N. says:
> So [Obama] used tax cuts
> for stimulus. So what? So did Kennedy. The payroll tax holiday was a
> great way to do stimulus. It spread the goodies to many people who
> wouldn't see much benefit from a lot of the other ways Washington
> spends money.
Except at low incomes, tax cuts are fiscally inefficient, i.e., they
stimulate aggregate spending less per dollar of increased deficit than
do increases in government purchases (on weapons, schools, etc.) Put a
different way, they increase the deficit more per dollar of stimulus.
This is of course the big problem with the currently-standard GOP
"supply-side" tax cuts, which have weak effects on demand (basically
rewarding rich people for doing the spending they'd do anyway) and no
or almost no effect on the supply side (while increasing income and
wealth inequality). As with the GOP tax cuts, Obama's high-income tax
cuts create pressure to slash non-military spending ("starving the
beast").
Low-income tax cuts are much more fiscally efficient, likely just as
efficient as increased government purchases, but (as Dean Baker came
to agree) there's a political problem: by temporarily defunding Social
Security and/or similar welfare-state programs, it fuels the
Bowels-Simpson deficit fever (which involves the inside-the-Beltway
blitzkrieg against Social-Security-and-Medicare), which Obama seems to
support wholeheartedly. And given the fact that the total stimulus
package was much too weak, it's quite possible they will be repeated,
encouraging further attacks on Social Security, etc.
>From a Keynesian perspective, government investment in roads, bridges,
etc. would be much more effective, especially since they help raise
the supply side (potential output). That's sort of what BHO promised
when he started. But he didn't live up to that promise. As Frank
suggests, he compromised before compromise was necessary.
> So [Obama] copied Romney's health care plan. So? The question that should
> concern us is to what degree the Affordable Care Act moves us towards
> universal coverage, not the party affiliation of the person who did it
> in Massachusetts.
At this point the national Romneycare program (the ACA) doesn't seem
to move us toward universal coverage any more than what happened due
to its initial steps. It's a substitute for single payer (or even
having a public option), and will likely block any further movement
toward universal coverage. With Big Med becoming wedded to the program
(using it to push their interests and then backing it) and due to the
Tea Party pressures to increase subsidies for insurance & pharma
companies, it's likely that the program will get worse over time.
A key problem is BHO's instinct to compromise before compromise is
needed (which is what almost all of Frank's discussion is about). If
he'd pushed for (and tried to mobilize public support for) something
better than Romneycare from he start, e.g., Medicare for all, we
probably wouldn't have gotten it, but the compromise would would
likely have been better than what we got. It's a little like he was
playing Monopoly and he said, "okay you guys can start the game owning
Park Place and Boardwalk with hotels without paying for them."
NB: most of what Frank says isn't criticism of BHO's programs as much
of this compromise-before-needed instinct.
> And why should we care what rhetoric the Republicans use to motivate
> their base and their funders? Yes, they call Obama a "socialist." Who
> cares? The word "socialist" has zero meaning for politics in the
> United States, except as an epithet....
I guess we should care because calling Obama a "socialist" is like
saying that a cow is a bacterium. It's a gross distortion of the
language which further pollutes political discourse.
Michael S. writes: >Frank is a clever fella and a good writer, but
this really couldn't be more wrong. If Obie is defeated this November
-- and who gives a shit whether he is or isn't -- it will simply be
because the people who bought the hopey-changey con in '08 have
learned their lesson and stayed home. it won't be because Fox News has
persuaded them he's a socialist; it'll be because he's persuaded them
he's not.<
1) who among liberals or leftists thought that Obama was a socialist in 2008?
2) even though it doesn't matter at all who I vote for (since I live
in California), I do give a shit whether BHO is elected or not. It's
not because he's left-wing in any sense of the phrase; he's clearly in
bed with the big-money folks and he's on the wrong side of the class
divide. But if he loses, it's a victory for racists and similar
creeps. A victory of that sort would just encourage them. A different
HARPERS article quotes some voter saying that she wants to send Obama
back to Africa. That kind of stuff would become more common, more
acceptable.
Steve D. writes:
>Now [Obama] has been forced into a compromising alliance with Clinton that may
>get him reelected but will leave him with even less room to maneuver.<
But an alliance with Big Bill might actually push Obama to the left.
The Clinton-vs.-Obama competition is mostly about tactics and
strategy. I don't see any differences of principle.
--
Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, at
least you should know the nature of that evil.
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