Why the center-left is fed up with Obama
By _Matt Miller_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/matt-miller/2011/02/24/ABBcOYN_page.html) ,
Wednesday, August 10, 8:39 AM
Here’s the thing. I know Tea Party Republicans were behind the debt-ceiling
standoff that wreaked needless damage on confidence in the United States.
I _wrote_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/who-does-sandp-think-it-is/2011/07/21/gIQA9g6lSI_blog.html)
weeks ago of Standard &
Poor’s outrageous nerve in threatening a downgrade when America’s ability
to pay its debts can’t possibly be in doubt. In short, I know who the real
villains are at this volatile moment.
So why am I so mad at Barack Obama?
I know I’m not alone. In conversations with folks across the center-left in
recent days, everyone’s basically had it with the president. I’ve had
policy frustrations before: Obama’s never aimed high enough on school reform
and he’s failed miserably to advance a real jobs agenda, to name just two. I’
ve said repeatedly that we need _a third party_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111003489.html)
to shake
things up. But at the same time a part of me has always cut the president some
slack — after all, look at the mess the man walked into! Yet somehow the
debt-ceiling fiasco and the downgrade, punctuated by these _horrific jobs
numbers_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/employers-hire-117000-in-july-jobless-rate-slips-to-91percent/2011/08/05/gIQATuQDwI_story.html)
and _stock market gyrations_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/worst-day-for-world-markets-since-08/2011/08/08/gIQACKtQ3I_story.html)
,
has made something in me (and, I suspect, millions of others) snap.
It’s the sound of confidence in Obama’s leadership breaking.
Yes, other forces may be “responsible” for the bad news. But in the end a
president has the most power to shape the debate. How could Obama have let
the entirely foreseeable debt-ceiling standoff turn into a hostage drama?
Why didn’t he have the spine to say “send me a clean debt limit increase or
I’ll raise it myself and see you in court”? How could he leave us in a
position where every future debt-limit hike now becomes an occasion for
blackmail? And where Chinese officials can blithely say that “the U.S.
government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days
when it
could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone”
?
Events keep screaming that the president is weak, weak, weak. That this can
happen so soon after his gutsy call to take down Osama Bin Laden is
striking. First the president gets rolled on the debt limit. Then S&P lowers
the
boom. Then China piles on. Then the White House rushes out word that _Tim
Geithner is staying put_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/geithner-tells-obama-he-will-remain-as-treasury-secretary/2011/08/07/gIQAj9kt0I_
story.html) . Can anyone explain exactly who that news was meant to
reassure? It can’t be that we’ll all now breathe easier because
Geithner-crafted
policy has been such a smashing success. So is this move a function of
Obama’s fear of not being able to get a new Treasury nominee confirmed — or
his inability to attract someone of stature for what could be an unpleasant
one-year stint? Either way, it smells weak.
Then there’s the president’s measurably ineffective pep talk as the market
plunged on Monday. And the cynically inadequate “pivot” to jobs. Coupled
with what will surely be a more-than-ample pivot to character
assassination, with news that Team Obama’s plan for 2012 is to _metaphorically
“kill”
Mitt Romney_ (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60921.html) .
Now, I’m happy to stipulate that Romney is a craven flip-flopper and _maybe
even a mistreater of dogs_
(http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1638065,00.html) . But when 25
million Americans can’t find full-time
work, hearing macho strategists speak with glee of this coming assault seems
truly off key.
Does the president sense what the moment requires? It helps to think like
Mitch McConnell. Once you do, you’ll see there’s no way Republicans will
partner with Obama to do anything that matters, because they have the
president right where they want him, with “full ownership” of a lousy economy.
That’s why the super-committee is doomed to fail, because McConnell’s only
goals will be a bipartisan Medicare reform that takes the issue off the
table, plus a deal with no tax hikes.
This means that, for all the attention it will consume, there is no way the
super-committee can deliver. (And the awful cuts that are supposed to
ensue if it fails will never happen; they’ll be “triggered” yet scrapped or
put off after the election.)
Once Obama sees that this struggle for power ensures no substantive
progress in the next 15 months, he has two alternatives. He can campaign small
—
via Mediscare and fresh taxes on millionaires and billionaires, while
demonizing the GOP candidate as “worse” — and hope to squeak across the finish
line.
Or he can go big — with mega-plans for jobs, education, infrastructure, and
research and development, while calling out GOP nihilism as the obstacle.
But “big” means pairing this with bolder (and much more candid) long-term
deficit-cutting plans that kick in once unemployment comes back down—
including higher taxes on the best-off, yes, but also sensible steps to slow
the
growth of Medicare and Social Security, bigger defense cuts, and modestly
higher taxes for everyone on consumption, dirty energy and financial
transactions.
Will Obama go big? I think not, because no honest agenda for American
renewal can avoid trims and taxes that impose costs on the middle class (as
part
of a long-term plan to save it). Yes, the president will sound “big,” and
so will his opponent. But it’ll be phony. Instead, we’re in for another
season of charades as both parties fight for 51 percent with symbolic “ideas”
unequal to the size of our challenges.
If this is how it plays out, people like me won’t just be mad at Obama. We’
ll be mad at ourselves for believing he was going to be different.
--
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