In an age when political and policy discussions are often crammed into soundbites, President Obama and the House Republicans advanced transparency and honest debate with their unprecedented live, televised question-and-answer session on January 29. Since then, people of all political persuasions have been talking about the value of what’s being called “Question Time.” It’s time to start a new American political tradition. We, the undersigned, call on President Obama and the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress to hold regular, frequent, and public Question Time sessions between the President and the opposition party.
That was pretty interesting. Obama has definitely come out with a different tone; he’s less grandiose, more direct and plain-spoken, and more confrontational.
For instance, talking about health care reform, he sarcastically said “if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.” Explaining that the budget freeze wouldn’t go into effect until next year, he testily told Republicans “that’s how budgeting works.”
He also chided both parties for gridlock and partisan games in Congress. There was at least a small taste of the sort of language I want to hear more of from Obama:
Greg Sargent articulates my frustration with Obama exactly:
This gets at, I think, an underappreciated aspect of liberal disappointment with Obama: On multiple fronts, Obama seems to be abandoning the idea that Dems can win arguments and achieve fundamental shifts in public opinion.
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Obama is one of the most gifted public communicators in decades. His campaign was premised on the idea that liberals needn’t shy away from arguments with the right or cede them any rhetorical turf. For this reason, each time Obama does cede rhetorical ground on this or that issue, liberals see Obama engaging in a larger capitulation. He seems to be giving up on his own potential for persuasion.
Bingo. I was desperately hoping for a communicator who could do for liberalism what Ronald Reagan did for conservatism: shift the entire national debate a few clicks in our direction.
Now, that’s not to say it’s too late. Obama still has seven (yes, seven) years to go, and I can only hope that at some point in the near future, the lessons of the past year make themselves apparent. Tonight’s State of the Union Address is another chance to make the argument for liberal policies, and I’ll be hoping against hope that Obama takes it.
During the primaries, there was one huge reason that I supported Barack Obama, and that was for his communication abilities. After years of watching George Bush cajole Democrats into backing down and supporting a right-wing agenda, I was thrilled of the prospect of Obama using the office to achieve something similar from the left. I imagined a scenario very similar to today’s, in which a major bill like health care was being held hostage by a recalcitrant Republican party, but in my mind, it ended very differently.
My hope for Obama was simple — that unlike most Democratic leaders, he would talk to the American people and make the Republicans’ intransigence a weapon against them. Just like Bush spent months publicly tarring Democrats in Congress as obstructionists, Obama would make the Republicans’ lack of cooperation and demand an up-or-down vote. He would use his bully pulpit to turn Americans against the Republicans for their obstruction, and the Republicans would know that they had a simple choice: Either support the health care bill or be branded as the reason it failed.
Well, the time for that was at least three or four months ago, and the White House has remained silent. Obama’s attempt to remain “above the fray” has not only allowed the Republicans to obstruct the health reform bill without consequence, it has actually left the Democrats looking like the culprits. Instead of the Republicans being blamed for their refusal to get involved in the legislative process, the Democrats are blamed for their failure to move the bill through Congress.
Being President is hard, I’m sure, and the first year has a pretty steep learning curve. Here’s to hoping that Obama has learned his lesson for whatever the next big battle in Congress is. I’m not sure that the Democrats can take another communications failure.
Ever since the Bush administration created TARP, the bailout program for financial institutions, the public has been asking “When do we get our bailout?” Well, “bailout” may be the wrong word, but the Obama administration is planning to divert repaid TARP funds to new job programs:
President Obama will propose using $200 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to support creating jobs, White House officials confirmed Monday.
The president, in an economic speech before the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, will argue that the money would be well spent by funding projects to build bridges and roads, weatherize homes, and provide other assistance for small businesses as well as the unemployed.
Obama’s right on. We need some more money spent on job creation — not on “stimulus,” which seems to consist mostly of unhelpful tax cuts designed to appease Republicans. Unemployment is largely leveling off, but we can’t afford to stop now. The economy hasn’t been righted, and one of the worst things we could do would be to get complacent and assume the recession been averted.
You can expect this proposal to be given a lot of trouble by Congressional Republicans, who only like spending this sort of money on tax cuts for CEOs. It’s absolutely crucial that the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress stand up for the middle class and jobs. We need to start pushing the unemployment rate back down again.
the White House hosts weekly message calls sharing their talking points with pundits who appear on television. The meetings are sometimes hosted in person at the White House.
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“It’s a smart thing for the administration to do - bringing in Democratic pundits so they know what the message the White House is pushing,” the source said.
The source said attending the meeting does not equal parroting the White House’s talking points, but said they are helpful to have a sense of where the administration stands on key issues.
Why shocking? Because I would never have believed the White House was hosting communication meetings — their message doesn’t seem to be getting out in the least. If pundits have Obama’s message, why do I only ever hear Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann’s message?
This is completely typical for Democratic administrations, of course. Liberals have been losing the message war now for 3 decades. But I had hoped things would be different under an Obama administration, because of the communication skills he showed during the campaign. Oh well — maybe next president.
Politico reported last week that Barack Obama intends to “focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010.” I know Obama is very concerned about the deficit, and I’m glad of that. Our soaring debt over the past eight years did a lot of damage to American economic strength, and that needs to be corrected.
All the same, Obama needs to be careful of his timing; it would arguably be worse to roll back our deficit too soon than too late. Yes, we have a record-setting deficit today, one that was even higher than the deficits we ran under Bush. But it’s crucial to consider the context — our present-day deficit is the result of major spending initiatives in an effort to stimulate the economy. Obama did not like the idea of running up such a large deficit, but given the alternatives, it was better than letting the employment situation get even worse than it is today. Now he needs to be careful not to pull back on Federal spending too fast.
Over at MyDD, Charles Lemos gives a quick history lesson on Japan’s lost decade:
Prime Minister Hashimoto in 1996 on the first whiff of recovery from Japan’s then half decade long downturn became hell-bent on reducing the budget deficit. The result was an economic catastrophe with GDP falling from a 4.4% growth to a -1.9% decline in the space of a year. The collapsing economy resulted in plummeting tax receipts, nearly doubling the size of the deficit. Japan’s fiscal deficit went from ¥18 trillion to ¥38 trillion over two years. Imposing fiscal discipline too soon prolonged Japan’s misery and it cost Prime Minister Hashimoto his job in July 1998.
I know there’s a lot of political pressure to reduce the deficit, and it’s a good thing that it’s front and center on Obama’s radar. But we need to wait to cut back spending until it makes economic sense, not political sense. Better to have political unrest than economic catastrophe.
President Obama delivered a powerful speech earlier today at a memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood shootings. At least a few pundits have classified it as his best speech ever. I’m not sure about that, and I think focusing on that distracts from why Obama was speaking in the first place, which was to honor the victims. It’s certainly powerful and worth a watch, though. There are a couple of things in particular that really stuck with me toward the end of the speech:
We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.
We are a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military, and see it in the varied backgrounds of those we lay to rest today. We defend that truth at home and abroad, and we know that Americans will always be found on the side of liberty and equality. That is who we are as a people.
…history is filled with heroes. You may remember the stories of a grandfather who marched across Europe; an uncle who fought in Vietnam; a sister who served in the Gulf. But as we honor the many generations who have served, I think all of us - every single American - must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before.
We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.
Watch the video here, since I can’t seem to embed it in this blog.
In his speech last night, Barack Obama pledged to move forward with demonstration projects on malpractice reform — a long-sought goal of conservatives. This is a major, major compromise by Obama, and a huge signal that he wants to find common ground on health care.
The question now is simple — Will the Republicans negotiate in good faith, giving liberals some of their goals in exchange for moving forward on malpractice reform?
Everyone knows the problems we’re facing; they scarcely need much discussion. Cost are soaring; health insurance is tied to employment at a time of massive layoffs; individual insurance is outrageously expensive; and insurance companies deny coverage seemingly as often as they provide it. Nearly all Americans agree reform is needed.
The question is no longer whether we will act, but how.
President Obama showed tonight that his position is the middle ground. Despite Republicans’ insistence — as always — that his plan amounts to socialism, Obama pointed out that his position is far from the extreme. He has bucked both the left and the right to come up with a fundamentally moderate bill. His health reform plan does not hand health care over to the government, nor does it hand health care over to big insurance companies. It is a compromise that has risen above the partisan games that have engulfed Washington. As proof of his desire for bipartisanship, Obama offered to support malpractice reform — a longtime goal of conservatives’.
Over the last week, conservatives have been pre-freaking out over Obama’s planned speech to students today. They’ve essentially been in an outrage over what some of them imagine Obama could possibly say. I personally prefer not to react to news until it happens. It helps me to avoid sounding hysterical.
…at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
That evil commie is going to brainwash our kids into thinking they can succeed!
See the complete, completely innocuous text below:
I don’t care who you are, you have to at least have a grudging respect for a statement like this:
“The president (said), ‘I’m not going to kick the can down the road.’ And he said that and I said, ‘Well, that’s something I’m kind of used to from southern Iowa, you know. I know about kicking the can down the road.’ And he said, ‘No, if it makes me a one-term president, I’m going to, we’re going to take it on because the country is in need of us taking this on.’…”
We could grouse about Obama’s tactics forever — I think he’s been too accommodating during the health reform debate, and I’m sure conservatives would say he’s been downright tyrannical — but I think it’s pretty hard to impugn his motives. He has an ambitious agenda because he sees a lot that needs to be done. I have a lot of respect for his willingness to fight for his beliefs, as well as his willingness to accept the consequences.
These are the mom and pop stores and restaurants, beauty shops and construction companies that support families and sustain communities. They’re the tiny startups with big ideas, hoping to become the next Google or Apple or HP. And, as shown in a new report released today by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, right now they are getting crushed by skyrocketing health care costs.
In this week’s address, Barack Obama discusses how health reform will help level the playing field for small businesses by providing an insurance exchange to help them gain access to affordable insurance for their employees. Small businesses and their employees, even more than many other Americans, are being seriously hurt by skyrocketing health care costs. Because they are the engine of our economic growth, it’s absolutely crucial that we have a system that doesn’t push small businesses out of business.
It’s true! For once, I agree with Rush Limbaugh. Barack Obama is most definitely black. We should all face that fact.
There’s obviously more to that quote, but it’s not as intelligent as the first part. Limbaugh, in a fantastic moment of self-parody, is apparently making the point that Barack Obama hates this country because he’s black. We know that Obama hates this country because he’s against everything that makes it great, like arresting prominent black citizens for “forcing entry” their own homes.
Clearly, Obama hates this country. He hates it so much that he campaigned for two years to lead it. He hates our country so much that — and this is the worst part for Limbaugh — he thinks blacks and whites should be treated equally.
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