An Actual Discussion

Dear Friends,

An incredible event occurred yesterday, President Obama met with and answered questions from the House Republicans.  After watching the exchanges between President Obama and various Republican members of the House of Representatives, I was once again reminded why I was so enthusiastic about candidate Obama. 

The questioners got to pick their topics and had notes and in some cases statements that ultimately asked a question written out.  The President had no notes and responded directly to each question.  He challenged the misstatement of facts contained in most of the statements preceding the questions.  He did that from memory, and he was right on the facts.  He challenged the characterizations with a gentle tone and incredible patience.  He rebutted assertions about his record that were clearly untrue.  My favorite was when he pushed back on unemployment numbers saying that surely they weren't blaming him or his policies for the jobs lost before he took office or during his first couple of months in office, when that was exactly what the questioner was doing.  In some cases but certainly not all he called out the hypocrisy of their positions.  My favorite was President Obama pointing out that they voted against the stimulus bill and then had photo-ops at ground breaking ceremonies for projects that were using stimulus money.   He was able to disagree without anger or being condescending. 

He did far more than just correct the factual errors, correct the faulty assertions and answer the questions.  He gave an analysis of the issues and why the current way that politics is conducted makes governing very difficult.  By demonizing your political opponent, you make it virtually impossible to compromise with that political opponent or ever vote for something that your political opponent supports.  It would certainly be change that we can believe in if our elected officials took the President's analysis to heart.  I doubt that they will.

I think that President Obama should propose that he meet with the Republican Representatives and Senators every other week for 2 or 3 hours where the Republicans can question President Obama on any topic that they want and that a discussion like the one that occurred yesterday can take place on television.  By having the discussion often, more follow up questions and comments could take place and specific provisions of specific bills could be discussed.  Reading talking points would not be enough, they would have to be translated into actual detailed legislative proposals. 

What a great tradition would be started.  Future candidates for President and the voters would have to consider how the candidate would do in that kind of setting.  Only the best and brightest candidates could stand that exposure.  Unfortunately, the Republicans are already making it clear that they made a mistake by allowing yesterday's discussion to be televised, so it seems unlikely that my idea will be adopted.

While the meeting with the Republican Representatives reminded me of why I was so enthusiastic about candidate Obama, there were a couple of items yesterday that also reminded me why I have concerns about his Presidency. 

It seems that he is going to propose tripling the loan guarantees for nuclear power to $54 billion.  Candidate Obama did not support the Yucca Mountain site for storage of nuclear waste which means either he has changed his mind about that or we have no permanent nuclear waste storage site that he does support.  Yet he is encouraging the development of more nuclear power plants. I must admit that I have mixed feelings about nuclear power, but there is one thing about which I am very certain.  It is completely irresponsible to build more nuclear power plants and create more nuclear waste, if we have no plan to permanently and safely store the nuclear waste.

I am also getting the sense that when President Obama talked about ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year, what he meant was to start thinking about it and maybe start implementing a multi-year process to stop it.  I have yet to hear any logical reason for not just stopping the policy now.  While I gave him credit for raising the issue in the State of the Union, I am getting very nervous about President Obama's willingness to simply push it through Congress.  We have seen in the last three days, the enthusiasm and support for ideas he can engender if he goes to the people.  I hope that he will use his gift to get Don't Ask, Don't Tell eliminated now.

I will try to be more hopeful and less cynical, but in the meantime I will keep an eye on what is going on.  Trust but verify.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

State of the Union

Dear Friends,

I vacillate between the naive sentimentality that President Obama can really bring change and hope to a dangerously fractured nation and hopeless cynicism that nobody can change the way Washington works.  The President's speech tonight reminded me why I was so enthusiastic about him as a candidate and so hopeful about what he could accomplish.  His style, tone and ability to communicate are brilliant.  In a manner far more genteel than anything that I could do, he made clear what his values were and called out those that would obstruct the ability of the government to govern. 

The policy part of the speech was way too conservative for me, but his defense of government spending as the way to get people back to work was articulate and understandable.  His spending freeze is still dumb, but if he gets the spending through Congress this year and that sets the bar higher and then if the freeze is conditioned on an improved jobs market, then maybe it is ok. 

Now we need to see what he actually does.  He offered no approach to getting health care reform through, but let's see what happens.  He again pledged to end Don't Ask Don't Tell but he has done that before.  He pushed for the financial reforms and higher taxes on the wealthy and banks, but let's see.  My cynicism is showing again.

If we have a reasonably educated electorate and they were listening and if President Obama and the Democrats follow through on both the tone and substance of the speech, ie both offering to work with the Republicans but calling them out when they are just saying "no", our country will be well served and the Democrats are likely to perform fairly well in the mid-term elections.  If the President and the Democrats fail to follow through consistent with the speech, our country will suffer and the Democrats will get what they deserve at the polls.

Thanks for reading (I have been told by family members that I should not expect comments but) and please comment (I will not give up),

The Unabashed Liberal

Freeze gets Icy Response

Dear Friends,

It seems that I was not the only one that thought that President Obama's spending freeze was a terrible idea.

"It’s appalling on every level." is what Paul Krugman says about President Obama's freeze idea on his New York Times blog (here).  Just for the record, he is the winner of a Nobel Prize for Economics.

It is always nice to be affirmed.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Get a Backbone

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I voiced some hope that President Obama and the Democrats understood that they need to stand up for the traditional values espoused by the Democratic Party.  Then today, President Obama makes a big deal of some much needed help for the middle class "Sandwich Generation".  While this help is much needed, it does not create jobs or address the critical issues our country faces.  Then this evening the big leak of a freeze on domestic spending that is really not a freeze on domestic spending.  It doesn't cover big ticket items (Pentagon).  It covers about $477 billion and doesn't come into effect until 2011.  Oh, did I forget to mention that it has to get through Congress?  Good luck.

Unfortunately, today it seems that President Obama and the Democrats have bought into the narrative that the voters are most concerned about the deficit.  I have seen no data to suggest that the voters that got President Obama elected would place reducing the deficit above creating jobs and getting the economy going again. 

We may see some improvement in the stock market and some of that improvement may be permanent, but if our economy is to have a sustained recovery, the Federal government must spend the money that will create jobs--build, rebuild and maintain roads, schools, bridges, electrical grids, hospital, green economy projects, etc.  Private contractors will be hired to do the work and will make a profit.  They will hire people to work on the projects.  They will need capital equipment and raw materials to complete the projects which will create more jobs and private business profits.  Once people have jobs, they can spend money which will create further demand and further jobs and profits.  Its the multiplier effect from Economics 101, and it works.

It is far easier to erase a deficit with increased tax revenue because people are making more money than to cut expenses.  Right now the Federal government needs to spend money that will create jobs and not talk about reducing the deficit right now.


So it seems that President Obama and the Democrats need to get a backbone.  MoveOn.org is sponsoring emergency rallies tomorrow (Tuesday) entitled "Emergency Rallies for Democratic Backbone" (here).  We should all try to attend.  However thanks to my son at ich bin ein oberliner, I have discovered that for once MoveOn.org's approach and rhetoric is on the mild side.  As evidence I give you the following ad:



    

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

The Narrative

Dear Friends,

First, I want to thank those of you that took the time to read my first post and especially to those that offered comments.  I did receive some comments directly from people that did not know exactly how to post a comment.  It is hard to be a computer immigrant which I am because of my age.  Here is one such comment.

My take is somewhat different. It’s this: Obama’s failing has been his belief in bipartisanship – a belief that many people, me included, upheld for a long time. Some of the president’s shortcomings were products of that belief: for instance, his appointment of an economic team that might have been accepted by reasonable Republicans (on economic management, the re-emergence of Paul Volcker’s influence is an encouraging sign). But when the GOP has become the Party of No, with cheerleaders the likes of Palin and Bachmann, any hope for bipartisanship crumbles. If Obama had shed that delusional hope sooner, perhaps the country would be in better shape now. But that’s a big perhaps. Optimism has become a scarce commodity. For evidence, see the cover story in the current Atlantic, a remarkable article on America’s future by James Fallows.

So now onto the narrative.  I learned from my youngest child that in order to understand why the media publish what they do you need to figure out what narrative they are endorsing.  With that in mind, I read with interest and much dismay an article in the New York Times this morning (here) with the headline, "In New Hampshire, An Angry Tide Swells".  The current narrative about the Senate election in Massachusetts is that the voters were angry about the health care legislation and that President Obama is pushing a government takeover.  The NYTimes article does not contain any polling data and is based on interviews in Milford, NH.  The people quoted in the article with one exception are either identified as Republicans or without any political party designation but who seem to be conservative in nature.  

The question is not why are Republicans and other conservatives angry and frustrated.  The question is why did voters in Massachusetts who voted for President Obama either stay home or vote for now Senator Brown.  MoveOn.org Political Action, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Democracy for America co-sponsored a poll (here).  The summary of the poll results on the MoveOn web site is

A poll was conducted immediately after the election last night of 1000 registered Massachusetts voters who voted for Obama in 2008. Half of the respondents voted in the MA special election for Republican candidate Scott Brown; half of the respondents did not vote at all. The poll definitively shows that voters who stayed home and voters who switched party allegiance share very common frustration and anger at an economy that continues to work better for Wall Street than Main Street. There's a real populist anger out there. Voters worry that Democrats in power have not done enough to combat the policies of the Bush era. Both sets of voters wanted stronger, more progressive action on health care reform, as well. In summary, the poll shows that the party who fights corporate interests—especially on making the economy work for most Americans—will win the confidence of the voters.

• 95% of voters said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote.
• 53% of Obama voters who voted for Brown and 56% of Obama voters who did not vote in the Massachusetts election said that Democrats enacting tighter restrictions on Wall Street would make them more likely to vote Democratic in the 2010 elections.
• 51% of voters who voted for Obama in 2008 but Brown in 2010 said that Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street.
• Nearly half (49%) of Obama voters who voted for Brown support the Senate health care bill or think it does not go far enough. Only 11% think the legislation goes too far.

I am not qualified to comment on the validity of the poll.  Nevertheless, I am citing it here because it supports my narrative that in order for President Obama and the Democrats to maintain the support of the voters that got them elected, they need to 

• effect the change they promised 
• fight for real health care reform with a true government option
• pass a huge stimulus package to get people back to work and our infrastructure up to date
• re-regulate Wall Street, etc.
  
• get our civil rights back

President Obama has the ability to go to the American people and convince them to support the agenda that he promised in his campaign, but he has to go back on the campaign trail to do so.  Hopefully, his recent campaign-like appearances and rhetoric in Ohio and the increased involvement of David Plouffe signals that he gets it.  He can no longer look to Congress because much of that part of Congress that had not already been bought will be bought as a result of the latest Supreme Court ruling.  "We the People of the United States" can succeed in getting President Obama's campaign promises enacted into law, but he needs to bring the fight to the people, and we need to join him.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal