Politico wonders what President Obama set out to achieve in Wednesday's debt speech blockbuster. The speech began with reminder of why government is important. He addressed the plutocratic nature of the Republican plan to shift health care costs onto the elderly and middle class while slashing taxes for the wealthy. He proposed a four-part, balanced package, including one quarter that subsumed the only serious Republican proposal: domestic discretionary spending cuts.But the combative tenor of Obama’s remarks, which included a swipe at his potential 2012 GOP challengers, may have scuttled the stated purpose of the entire enterprise — to start negotiations with Republicans on a workable bipartisan approach to attacking the deficit.
What Politico fails to understand is that the President feels no need to reach his grand bargain before 2012. He can negotiate with the 113th Congress or even the 114th one if he wins reelection.
The value of structuring the speech within a vision of America, then comparing whose plan would get America into the 21st century without seriously hobbling it in the global marketplace, is that it provides exactly the kind of contrast that is helpful for voters in an election. Unlike President Obama's signal achievements like the Affordable Care Act--and major defeats like the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for income above $250k--that occured in the dark recesses of Congress, the debate about the broad outlines of the role of the American government in the 21st century requires public input. It requires a referrendum on the ideas put forth by both parties.
The Affordable Care Act was the product of such a referrendum, but the debt and the contours of the American state was not the major issue in 2008. Health Care reform, federal failures to perform core governmental functions (see: FEMA), and the economy were the major issues. As Republicans would have it, government's role in the economy will be the central issue of the 2012 election. It is also a debate that Republicans will lose handily.
President Obama doesn't need to negotiate with the current Congress, and any attempt to do so would be disastrous. We already know that Republicans the 112th Congress have an unappeasable appetite for hostage taking.
At the same time, President Obama is offering to cut domestic discretionary spending by nearly a trillion dollars over 12 years. This is a genuine olive branch to Republicans, but not the ones in Congress.
Tonight's Presidential address announcing a plan to slash $4 Trillion from the national debt is a good time to reflect on how best to use Democratic resources in 2012. It has become obvious that President Obama is not interested in transformational change of our politics or even changing the current anti-public domination of American political discourse. Even though the nascent job market recovery provides a perfect opportunity to extol macroeconomic intervention that prevented a deep Depression, I don't expect President Obama to start making the argument now that government has a role in regulating or safeguarding the economy.
I don't know what to expect from tonight's speech, but I certainly doubt it will have the content that I and millions of moderates would like to hear. As I would write the speech at the moment, it would certainly include:It is time to get serious about the future of our country. The economy is finally regaining ground, not just with growth at the national level, but adding jobs for working families across America. That didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen by accident. Hard work by millions of Americans, including those in the private sector, state governments, and this administration, have finally gotten it to its feet.
It's a little boastful, but call it a first draft. The President needs to take credit for the economic recovery, but not because it will help his electoral prospects if people think he fixed the economy. I would like to see an acknowledgement that there was a crisis that was caused by a failure of government under the Bush Administration to regulate or oversee the financial market and prevent the crisis. I would also like to see an acknowledgement that the public has the power to intervene in the market, and that it this case it was the right thing to do.
That piece of the speech would be necessary to set up the larger vision of America that can defend itself and its workers in the 21st century. How else would President Obama propose to keep the federal government healthy unless it had a vital role to play? Policing markets is one thing that the government needs to do better, but it also needs to perform its core functions. A defense of taxation and the fairness of paying for government-provided benefits (e.g. rule of law) should be the core of the speech.Back in December, Republicans threatened to stop all work in Congress until they could give billions of dollars away to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. They stopped work on a nuclear defense treaty, they stopped work on immigration reform, and they stopped work on this year's budget, all to give billions of dollars to stock brokers, hedge fund managers, and CEOS. Now this month, they have taken billions of dollars away from the middle class. They stopped the Mortgage Modification program that was designed to help keep middle class Americans in their homes and out of foreclosure. Republicans took one half of a billion dollars away from the WIC program that gives working mothers the extra help they need to afford groceries. The Republican budget took money out of students' hands so they won't be able to pay for summer classes to get into the workforce sooner. It is time to get serious about the national debt, but putting our workers and our middle class into personal debt is not the way to do it.
Of course, President Obama would never make this speech. By calling out his political enemies, it certainly does sound a little partisan. By focusing attention on exactly what Republicans have done and the values of Congressional Republicans, it sounds a little mean-spirited. I would be shocked if President Obama gave a speech that contained either of these two necessary explanations to the American people.
And that is precisely why we need more and better Democrats willing to make these arguments in public. Focusing on building a bench for real Democrats to draw upon would be the best use of organizers' talent, fundraisers' energy, and bloggers' attention in the coming two years. At the national level, that means filling House districts with the best progressive challengers. At the local level, it means organizing for progressive state senators and state house representatives. House members, senators, and even Presidents come from somewhere, and that is the base that we need to build if we want to have a transformation of American politics any time in the next generation.
transcript of the President's speech on debt reduction is online.
