Obama 2012: Just do it!
Watching
President Obama's press conference, you got the feeling he wouldn't
care if Congress put a bill on his desk ordering the immediate
demolition of Capitol Hill, so long as it included a measure to increase
the debt ceiling.
"Let's
step up," he told a packed house of reporters. "Let's do it. I'm
prepared to do it... Let's consider it... Let's go... Let's act now... Let's get
this problem off the table... Let's deal with it... Now is the time for us to
go ahead and take it on... Do it now... I'm ready to do it."
If
nothing else, he's got a new slogan for his 2012 re-election campaign,
assuming Phil Knight doesn't mind the trademark infringement.
As
further evidence of the complete incompetence of the United States
Congress, the president has once again been called in to play the
moderator in a partisan battle over a routine budgetary matter that in
the last 40 years hasn't been any more controversial than a declaration
to rename the Inverness, Calif., post office.
Congress
didn't balk when it voted to triple the national debt with 18 increases
to the debt ceiling during Ronald Reagan's two terms. No Republican
majority leaders stormed out of the room before Congress voted a
half-dozen times to increase the debt ceiling during George H.W. Bush's
one-term presidency. There were never any threats of defaulting on the
nation's credit card when Congress voted seven more times to raise the
debt ceiling and nearly double national debt during Junior's two terms
in the White House.
But
Obama isn't a Republican president, and Republicans today have no other
choice in the matter. If you sow beets, you will not reap olives.
They
thumped Democrats in the midterm elections by campaigning against big
government, against government spending, and against the national debt.
To break that promise would be to sever the support from one of the most
vocal and active factions in politics today, the Tea Party. Reneging on
their vows would carry the consequence of early retirement, as Tea
Party organizations across the country have threatened to oust "Republicans in Name Only" (RINOs) in 2012 primaries if they fail
to seriously tackle the debt. It would also carry the risk of making
Republican members of Congress look like H.W. Bush after he uttered the
now infamous campaign promise, "Read my lips: No new taxes."
On
top of that, Republicans know that a poor economy (made worse by their
efforts to enact massive federal spending cuts) is their only hope for a
repeat performance in 2012.
Barack Obama Swoosh |
What GOP leaders fail to realize is that their stall tactics and obstructionist strategies only make the president stronger. They've fought "big government" by demanding massive spending cuts as part of a deal to increase the debt ceiling, but they've vehemently opposed every option put on the table. Their House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), walked out on negotiations because Democrats wouldn't agree to 100 percent of his demands. And then they had to call in the president to help heal the wounds and iron out a deal.
Just
like in April when Obama took over the 2011 budget negotiations, he's
re-framing the debate, and it doesn't look good for Republicans.
He
agreed to $2 trillion in spending cuts. Republicans said no. He then
offered more than $3 trillion in spending cuts. Republicans again said
no. As the icing on the cake, he proposed significant reforms to Social
Security and Medicare, the Democratic Party's sacred cows, and the GOP
still said no.
He's
taken to the podium twice in as many weeks to lay out the general scope
of the negotiations, to ask for some modicum of urgency and fairness in
the talks, and to send the message to the American public, to the
electorate, that he's willing to go to any length to avoid an
economically catastrophic default. The only caveat: reciprocity.
"I'm
prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something
done," Obama said, "and I expect the other side should be willing to do
the same thing – if they mean what they say, that this is important."
"Now
is the time to do it,” he said in a warning to Congress about the added
pressure of continuing this debate any further into the 2012 campaign
season. "It's not going to get easier. It's going to get harder. So we
might as well do it now – pull off the Band-Aid; eat our peas."
Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Obama is showing the American people that there actually is an adult in this fight, and that that adult doesn't care about the political differences. He wants results.
"[I]f
each side takes a maximalist position, if each side wants 100 percent
of what its ideological predispositions are," he said, "then we can't
get anything done."
He's
direct and pragmatic where other politicians are demagogic. He's
confident about the potential for compromise where other politicians are
frantically, stubbornly obstinate. And he's reassuring where other
politicians are apocalyptic.
The
more time he gets in front of a room full of reporters and cameras, the
more he gets to demonstrate to the American public that sanity has a
seat at the head of the table in the daily operations of an otherwise
insanely politicized federal government.
"[I]s
the package that we're talking about exactly what I would want? No. I
might want more revenues and fewer cuts to programs that benefit
middle-class families that are trying to send their kids to college, or
benefit all of us because we're investing more in medical research," he
said. "I make no claims that somehow the position that Speaker [John]
Boehner and I discussed reflects 100 percent of what I want. But that's
the point. My point is, is that I'm willing to move in their direction
in order to get something done. And that's what compromise entails. We
have a system of government in which everybody has got to give a little
bit."
It's
the reason political analyst Mark Halperin described the president not
as an "ignoramus" or an "economic bonehead," but as a "dick" following
his last debt ceiling press conference.
Obama
wasn't wrong. He wasn't misinformed about the necessity of increasing
the debt limit. Rather, Halperin knew no other way to vent the
frustration of seeing a Democratic president take the upper hand in a
debate that Republicans not only started but started with
the self-assurance that its outcome would wreak havoc on Obama's
approval rating and credibility.
Understandably, it must be quite embarrassing to pick a fight only to bow out every time the opponent steps into the ring.
It was Republicans, remember, who spent a year campaigning against excessive government spending.
It was Republicans who demanded "historic" federal budget cuts.
And it's Republicans who are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to secure even more "historic" cuts.
The debt wasn't only contributing to the economic "uncertainty" that Republicans claimed was hampering job growth. It was also going to destroy the American Dream for all future generations.
Then the president said, "Okay, let's do it... I'm prepared to do it... Let's go," and the GOP panicked.
The big-government loving socialist suddenly endorsed one of the most un-socialist, small-government policy positions ever.
(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)
It was Republicans, remember, who spent a year campaigning against excessive government spending.
It was Republicans who demanded "historic" federal budget cuts.
And it's Republicans who are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to secure even more "historic" cuts.
The debt wasn't only contributing to the economic "uncertainty" that Republicans claimed was hampering job growth. It was also going to destroy the American Dream for all future generations.
Then the president said, "Okay, let's do it... I'm prepared to do it... Let's go," and the GOP panicked.
The big-government loving socialist suddenly endorsed one of the most un-socialist, small-government policy positions ever.
Obama 2012: Just Do It!
Labels: Barack Obama, debt ceiling, John Boehner, Republicans, U.S. national debt
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home