I note that the usual suspects in the progressive blogosphere are wailing and gnashing their teeth at the news that Obama will announce a deficit reduction plan on Wednesday, as if he could face reelection without having made an effort.
Pretending that we don’t have long-term fiscal difficulties is getting pretty boring. It’s how we address them that matters, not whether we choose to address them or not.
President Obama will lay out a long-term deficit reduction plan later this week that will take “a scalpel, not a machete,” to programs like Medicare and education services and try once again to extract more taxes from the wealthiest Americans, his senior adviser said Sunday…
…Mr. [David] Plouffe presented few details of the steps the president may outline in his deficit-reduction plan, one that would stretch over several years. But he indicated that Mr. Obama would try again to end tax cuts for those earning $250,000 a year that were enacted during the administration of George W. Bush.
I think it’s obvious that the Republicans won’t be too willing to consider raising taxes on themselves, but it would be nice if progressives put half as much effort into backing up the president’s efforts here as they are in ridiculing him for making any effort at all.
…the plans he ran on back in 2007-8. For example, income over $250,000/yr should be taxed for SS. If that is not in his plan it’s a major betrayal.
As far as saying you want Republicans to end the Bush tax cuts when you had a Democratic House and Senate renew them and signed them into law, I guess it will impress someone.
I agree, and I am not sure why this doesn’t enter the debate about SS revenue more often. Also realize that President Obama wanted to allow income tax rates over $250K revert to pre-Bush, but Senate republicans gave him an “all or nothing” ultimatum. He took the hit on keeping all the rates in order to ensure the cuts would remain in place for less than $250K. I suppose it’s easy to say how he should have held out and let all the cuts expire, but I’m guessing that would not have gone over too well if people actually had to start forking over more of their paychecks.
Well Obama has stated he disagrees with Paul Ryan’s haters’ economic plan and Plouffe said Obama will be revisiting the Bush tax cuts for ppl earning over $250,000.
Man I hope so! That would be a nice start. Then a financial transaction tax to help Wall Street contribute a little bit.
I’m sorry,what? Its a major betrayal if its not in the plan or if he doesn’t get it through this congress? You do recognize the congress we have right?
but glad to see the goal posts are already bring set so we can all know when to be disappointed/betrayed.
I would consider it a major betrayal if he doesn’t even propose it. If nothing else, it needs to be on table in negotiations. Your mileage may vary. Perhaps he should just start negotiations with whatever McCain proposed and compromise from there.
Though frankly we should do nothing on social security if we can’t get the higher taxes.
(Clinton deregulating the banks didn’t make the outcome any better than if Bush or Reagan had succeeded. It didn’t even help Democrats win an election. So why I should I want a Republican plan for SS?)
I should add that the deficit commission report contains something like this. Its okay now that he takes ideas from that report?
IOKIYAO
The commission recommends increasing the base up to $190,000 in 2020 [it will go up to $168,000 anyway, so it’s not that impressive.] Every dollar above that goes untaxed, every dollar below that is taxed.
Compare to Obama’s primary and general election promise to tax the money above $250,000. Notice the difference? One is the breaking of two campaign promises and the other is keeping them.
See page 52 of the report.
You would think so, but feet to the fire and all that.
but he makes it DAMN difficult.
In January, he had the Republicans with their backs to the wall with the extension of the billionaire tax break. Did he use the leverage? NOPE, he gave it away. Now, when they are after OUR policies, we have NOTHING to counter the Republican attack.
He is the worst Democrat negotiator that I have ever seen in my life.
Ok. Obama should announce a jobs plan; getting the economy back with people paying taxes is the best deficit reduction measure he can take.
spot on. and end subsidies to oil/nukes/coal and bring troops home ending these costly wars.
I expect that trying to get some kind of movement on an energy program will be a higher priority. I expect passing a couple of free trade agreements will also be a higher priority. But I am not criticizing those who are concerned about what kind of deal will be struck. I am criticizing those who think Obama can and should avoid tackling our long-term debt entirely. The president sends Plouffe to tell us that he wants defense spending on the table and he wants higher marginal rates on the table. What’s the response? It isn’t agreement, or relief, or a willingness to help fight for those goals. Instead, it’s “why are you doing anything about this at all?”
On Social Security I can sympathize with this absolutist stance, as a bargaining position if nothing else. But on Medicare? You’ve seen the projections on Medicare, right? It has to be addressed. We can address it the way Ryan wants it addressed or we can kick the can down the road. Or we can make a proposal. It’s not like the Republicans are going to agree to anything anyway.
I think you’re putting up a straw man. There may be those who don’t want to deal with the long-term debt, but most of the lack of faith is in Obama’s and the Dems’ incredible and routine reinforcement of the meme that cutting, not taxes, is the only answer. There’s absolutely no reason to bring Medicare/Medicaid into the debt equation at all, or to “make a proposal” about it. Do you really think any such Dem proposal will be anything but “cut it”?
As to what’s supposedly on the table, being on the table doesn’t get us anywhere unless somebody’s fighting for it. Do you really thinks it’s unreasonable for liberals to assume that significant military cuts and significant progressivity in the income tax will be the very first things to fall off the table? Has history indeed come to an end?
The Medicare problem is the same problem as all of American healthcare,,, exploding unit costs. Only a single-payer system can solve it. In ten years, damn few of us will be able to get health care without mortgaging our souls.
It is a component but we also need to get away from the way we pay for healthcare now which is based on the quantity of procedures. It needs to be a more holistic approach that focuses on preventative medicine
All those Republican specialist doctors who are making big bucks on end-of-life procedures will make sure that that doesn’t happen.
The primary care docs, however, will cheer if that happens.
Also, there is a huge IT cost in shifting accounting from micro-managed fee-for-service to some more aggregate basis.
The current Medicare system is contracted out under strict CMS supervision to contractors, who primarily are private healthcare insurance companies. A lot of it is running on old hardware with only recent changes in software. All of the web-based services are just a frontend for this antiquated system.
His energy plan already includes expansions of nuclear, clean coal, and offshore oil drilling.
That’s already a compromise. Why do we need to cut Medicare for that?
“Free” trade agreements are a Republican and busineess priority. Why are we trading aid to the poor for that? Obama should be holding the trade agreements hostage for Republican concessions.
I’m with you 90% of the time but this is absurd.
I think he will be holding those free trade agreements hostage. I believe that is going to be a huge part of the battle.
I’m a Democrat. I don’t think I’m terribly radical. But Obama keeps negotiating with himself and giving in before he ever gets to the table. His deficit group did not represent working people. He talks like a Republican. I’ve found myself defending Obama against crackpots who babble on about Kenyan socialist death camps. In the nineties I was arguing with Republicans over the President getting a blowjob from an intelligence plant when that same President was gutting the working class with GATT, NAFTA, etc., and signing off on Gramm-Bliley-Leach.
We haven’t actually had a Democratic President beholden to his constituency since Carter, and if you’re old enough to remember he was considered a conservative Democrat.
Farewell, America.
His deficit group? You mean the one that couldn’t even come up with a set of recommendations for Congress to vote on?
Was a huge tactical mistake many on the left made. They should have co-opted the ones that were good progressive policy and rejected the rest. Just a few from the chairman’s mark-up that should have been co-opted
Don’t get me wrong there was a lot of crud in that mark-up (Increase cost-sharing in Medicare for one) but
we should have taken a lesson from our conservative counterparts and just embraced what we liked and rejected the rest.
Instead the entire report was deemed wrong before it was even issued and we lost an opportunity to say see even those serious about deficit reduction agree with us on these points.
“Cut the federal workforce through attrition (a 2 or 3 replacement rate) versus lay-offs”
Why cut the federal work force and pay a private company a profit to do the work? Or do you subscribe to the “lazy guv’ment worker” theory?
As technology evolves it takes less manpower to do tasks such as accounting. We should exploit that technology and bring down the size of the workforce over time
I see nothing wrong with adjusting the workforce by natural attrition.
I have a good friend who has been at the FDA for 30 years. He just retired, and got immediately rehired as a contractor. There are many like him. He could easily be laid off at any time. People like him are expendible (sorry about this, buddy), and should be laid off first.
We would already see billions from the stock market run up. Clinton ran surpluses with a lot of help from capital gains taxes. I think 28% across the board then.
ABSOLUTELY. Tax all capital gains at the level of your normal tax.
That would IMMEDIATELY inject BILLIONS into the tax base, since it would end the HEDGE FUND SCAM of listing their income as capital gains. People like John Paulus make BILLIONS and pay at 15%.
Jeezzzuz! Shouldn’t this be a two way street? Why should the left always have to swallow hard?
When was the last time that Obama actually tried to move the goal post to the left instead of preemptively moving it to the right only to have to move it right again?
Also, you know what might get more liberals to back Obama? If Obama ever backed liberals.
Speaking of barking up the wrong tree..
this currently a blog post over at AmericaBlog:
“The one who primaries Obama will be the next Democratic president”
Ok, I know people in the liberal blogopshere are not happy with the Dems and Obama right now, but do people actually believe SHIT like this?
Probably the biggest crock of bullshit I’ve read all day (and no, I didn’t bother wasting my time reading the post).
Well, the solution is shit, but the frustration is understandable and justified to a significant extent. The Dems ran the government for 2 years. We shouldn’t be in this situation today if they hadn’t screwed up royally.
“Pretending that we don’t have long-term fiscal difficulties is getting pretty boring”
Hearing people say we have long-term fiscal difficulties is getting pretty boring, since no one has made a credible case for why we are “going broke”. It is taken on faith that we have to get our budget in order, “cut our spending” just like households.
There is no similarity between household, local or State budgets and the Federal Budget. Last time I checked they didn’t control the currency. The idea that they operate under the same constraints is ludicrous.
Our long-term fiscal difficulties Are caused by pretty much one thing – the rising cost of health care.
No matter what we do if we don’t deal with that we will be spending 100% of GDP on healthcare eventually (at current rates of growth).
Second, If we get control of health care costs and the economy gets back on track, we have no long-term fiscal problems.
The National Debt will never have to be paid back – just like all of the generations before us GDP growth will make the debt an insignificant number, without making a single payment (of significance – if you count the times we’ve run surpluses they were trivial payments).
Don’t take my word for it – look through the historical budget data for yourselves. As far as I can tell the Federal Government has never defaulted on its obligations, and likely never will.
Obama had the opportunity in Jan. 2009 to be FDR. For reasons I’ll never understand, that opportunity was squandered. It probably had something to do with the corporate ownership of Congress, which came to light so glaringly during the healthcare legislative process. The White House failed to take control of the message and let the GOP scream about death panels. Now they’re screaming (with impunity) about FEDERAL SPENDING and THE DEFICIT.
Then along comes Rep. Ryan’s budget plan, and it’s like the opposing team throwing an interception exactly when you need it. What a gift to Obama and the messaging team. Will they take advantage of it? Will they be able to hang the potential demise of Medicare around their GOP necks?
Obama is now, and for the next year and a half, focused on appealing to independent voters. That’s what all that happy horseshit with the Washington Monument was the other night.
It might work.
Am I happy about all of this? No. Is it better than President Trump or Palin or Bachman? I’ll let you decide.
Obama doesn’t believe the FDR path is the best way to go. He believes America cannot move forward unless the political spectrum can work together to provide solutions.
May I be so bold as to make a historical point?
The Democrats had huge victories in 1930, 1932, 1934, and 1936.
FDR came into office, like Obama, on the tail of the second big win. But then he was lucky (and good) enough to win two more big election victories for his party.
Unfortunately, Obama did not have the same good luck (or wasn’t as good) and he saw the House taken over by troglodytes and his Senate majority vastly reduced.
So, it’s fair to criticize him for not preventing the losses in the 2010 midterms (at least, when comparing him to FDR) but it’s absurd to think that he can behave like FDR did in 1935-36 because his Congress is totally different.
Finally, despite winning four straight elections, the Democrats under FDR still failed to prevent a recession in 1937 that they actually did a lot to bring on.
So, that’s my history lesson for the night.
notably, it was FDR’s ill-advised caving to conservative demands to inappropriately cut/slash spending during the depression that also contributed to worsening economic conditions in 1937, iir.
Yeah, but FDR never could have won re-election without announcing a deficit reduction program etc etc etc. Now obviously that’s historically-inaccurate snark, but there is a point: why should Obama get a pass because “he has to do this to get re-elected” when we have good reason to suspect this will hurt the country?
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to look at this line of reasoning and conclude that Booman places a higher priority on Obama’s re-election than on what is best for the country. That makes sense if we’re looking at it from the Obama team’s perspective, but why progressives are supposed to find it persuasive is beyond me. I only support Obama and the Dems to the extent that they provide a means to the policy ends I favor. I could care less about the Red Team / Blue Team stuff, which is something Booman doesn’t seem to be taking much into account.
The Dems aren’t entitled to my vote.
Ok, well I will criticize this history lesson on that final point, regarding the recession:
Economics was a fairly new profession at the time, and we didn’t have the models or data that we have now. In fact, before Keynes, everyone looked to the Austrian view of economics, which was that we should:
a.) Do nothing
b.) Cut spending in the face of high deficits
FDR frankly didn’t care about economics as a profession, and he did whatever he thought might help. He ignored Keynes on many fronts, and outright hated him in some respects.
So the fact that Obama has this historical lesson, matched with economists from all sides who say cutting in a recession is stupid, means that he has learned NOTHING from it. You can’t even begin to put FDR and Obama on the same scale in this respect, as FDR had no history lesson, he had no solid economic theory or model. Obama has both the economics and the history, yet he’s making the same mistake. That doesn’t put Obama in a good light, and it sure as hell doesn’t put FDR in a bad light given the context. In an attempt to save-face with Obama you’re trying to trash FDR, when in reality your comparison is grossly unfair, and does the opposite of what you tried to do.
Let me also say that while my mother is a hardcore Republican (not in her views, but in her voting record), yet she still admires JFK because she thought he “fought” for the people. Obama may have still been disliked by a lot of these same people, but I get the same reaction from everyone I talk with. They don’t feel like he’s fighting for them.
I never criticized him for not behaving like FDR. I just pointed out his political philosophy is different. This is the philosophy he’s spoken of and written of and everything he’s done is consistent with that philosophy.
This worked so well back in ’37, I can see why Obama wants to do the same thing again. Those who know their history really are doomed to watching others repeat it.
For the life of me, I don’t know why they haven’t found a way to communicate the parallels of today’s fiscal problems to the 1930s. It’s not that hard to understand. A good communications team could find a way to fit it on a bumper sticker.
If Japan and Germany hadn’t declared war on us in ’41, resulting millions of healthy men and women being taken out of the job market for four years, it’s interesting to contemplate just how long the Great Depression would have lasted. Apparently Obama and his brain trust mean to find out this time around…
Excellent point about WWII.
In fact, I really wonder why NO ONE that I know of has raised this issue: What got us out of the Great Depression was the biggest Federal jobs program in US history, in which we did deficit spending for 5 solid years, employed more than 25% of the population in the Federal government, put them all on government health care, and paid no attention to the lunatics on the right wing, who were mostly in bed with the Nazis.
Progressives would also have to admit that defense spending is the biggest jobs program the US has. We absolutely need to decrease defense spending but we need to be reality based and acknowledge that reducing it will result in job losses unless that spending is replaced with something else, like infrastructure spending.
Progressives say I know how to cut the deficit. Cut the pentagon budget by some huge percent. In the same breath progressives are often talking about how the government needs to spend more on jobs programs.
Really neither side of the issue is very reality based. Republicans won’t acknowlege that defense spending is a jobs program because that would make defense spending bad. Progressives won’t acknowledge it either because would make defense spending exactly the type of thing they are urging the government to do.
The reality based argument is that we need to transition defense spending to other types of spending and while that won’t result a huge net draw-down of the deficit it will keep people employed and improve our infrastructure.
Since his election, when has the White House won any message war? How is this supposed to be any different?
They did not blame the financial crisis on the banks, hold them accountable and stay on point. Their program sucked for homeowners too. They gave Bush a pass on torture and war crimes, we must look forward! . They have had no counter to Tea Party or Fox News or Koch brothers. Their handling of health care was a debacle and completely lost out on PR to death panels nonsense. Senate used filibuster over and over to prevent the agenda they ran on. Did the inform public of these facts? Make sure everyone in America knew who would not allow and up or down vote. Who was preventing change? Who was ruining the economic growth by not allowing up or down votes? Nope.
Their economists predicted rosy scenarios that turned out to be narrative killers, Summer of Recovery! Stimulus was the first part of down payment and they over sold it as the savior. Then we had, the car is in ditch, drive D, instead of R. Hope and Change it was not.
I am not saying all of this is their fault but how is this message war supposed to be any different?
Now it is winning the future, belt tightening and use a scalpel instead of machete. Do any of those sound like winners which can be tied to sound policy? Maybe the investment into the future but that gets lost when you start talking about cutting and investing. People do not understand how it ties into something.
No party, Dem or GOP, will ever take on the true causes of Health Care costs (Doctors/Drug Companies) so any mention of Medicare/Medicaid is about decreasing the benefits. Republicans will never agree to tax increases unless they are super regressive and some Dem supporters seem skeptical of Obama cause his negotiating skills can hardly be argued as superb.
Gut Pentagon, End Oil Subsidies, Close Corporate Tax Loopholes, Raise Taxes on Rich greater than Clinton era rates, Finance Transaction Tax, End Hedge Fund Manager break, and on and on. How many of these will be in Obamas opening offer? Are they too afraid of Corporate America to even propose them to throw them away in negotiations?
I would love to fight Republicans on these issues instead of talking about NPR, Planned Parenthood or whatever group the Republicans decide to attack that we should be happy about saving even though Dems control 2/3 of the levers of legislative government.
I don’t know about Obama, but I’m quite sure the U.S. Congress is OWNED by corporate America.
As a way to cure or fiscal woes and often they say we need a jobs program to really reduce the deficit. While I agree in theory we need to bring down defense spending drastically we also need to acknowledge that the most robust jobs program America has it its spending on national defense. After all it took the government spending that came from World War II to really get us back on the road to prosperity after the great depression.
If we cut defense spending we need to use a large percentage that money to increase spending in other areas like infrastructure improvement just to keep the unemployment rate from skyrocketing. That means while there will be savings it won’t be as big as people think it will be. Now it could be if we cut defense spending but don’t use a good percentage of those monies in other areas but then that means higher unemployment.
That is the argument we should be making. Use a high percentage of the money we now spend on national defense to improve things on the homefront. We can also extend that argument to say that improving our infrastructure is a national defense issue in that it will allow us to keep our economic engine running smoothely.
there was a 90% tax on wealthy incomes to support WWII. end the current wars and bush millionaire tax cuts and deficit problems are solved.
I agree with the general thrust of your comment. But beyond messaging, there’s the issue of effort. Obama doesn’t even look like he’s trying to get a good deal. Also, and I think this is critical, does anybody have a sense for what he believes in – beyond “compromise”?
Obama does not go to the mat for the elderly and the poor (to quote Dean Baker). I think the December deal with the Republicans was one of the worst moves he’s done so far. Obama didn’t stand firm on eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Okay, that was traded for an extension in unemployment. But what about the lowering of the estate taxes and replacing 2% of employee Social Security contributions with money from the general fund?
Obama is a conservative Democrat, or what used to be a moderate Republican (ca 1990). Anybody who thinks differently is fooling themselves.
When Obama stops pissing away $300 million per day in Afghanistan, then maybe I’ll listen to his deficit plan.
spot. on. invest at home + end these deficit-inducing wars.
I think there could be some interesting opening positions if the White House decided to be bold.
As long as the code remains as complex as it is. A good accountant will find a way to make sure the effective tax rates of his wealthy clients won’t increase all that much. Complexity breeds regressivity in our tax code.
It would be more effective and I think resonate with the American public more if he announced that individual tax rates will return to Clinton rates (that is the red meat to the base) and that he is proposing to reduce corporate tax rates so that they are more in line with the rest of the world. In conjunction he is proposing comprehensive tax overhaul so that companies like GE pay their fair share.
No reductions of any kind. Just eliminate all deductions.
Tax increases are needed. Capital gains tax should be same as regular income. The experiment of 15% capital gains taxes has been a horrible mistake.
Do the usual suspects include Steve Benen?
This seems like fairly reasonable caution and I think considering Obama’s track record on these issues, some caution is warranted.
No, it doesn’t include Steve Benen. He is making an obvious point. It’s a point I fully agree with.
I’m waiting to see what he says.
Booman, dude, I’m impressed. I get that taking every single thing Obama does and breaking down for us why it’s not only the wisest but the only choice available (weird how those always turn out to be the same thing) is your gig, but are you serious with this? Cutting entitlements is a requirement for re-election now, huh? I must have missed the part where Social Security and Medicare cuts stopped being overwhelmingly unpopular. And by the way: this post needs more Republican frames, dude. You aren’t doing their work thoroughly enough yet.
It’d “be nice” if progressives would just blindly support the President putting Medicare and Social Security on the table before even hearing what his proposals are? The description I would use for someone who expects results by pledging support sight unseen would be “insanely naive.”
“it would be nice if progressives put half as much effort into backing up the president’s efforts here as they are in ridiculing him for making any effort at all.”
He gets credit for “making an effort” to meet Republicans halfway on cutting the safety net? So you’re Andrew Sullivan now I guess. I’m gonna drink a gallon of bleach… what’s your plan to get rid of the bleach? How are you going to meet me halfway? It’d be nice if you’d put half as much effort into cheering me on while I drink bleach as you would pointing out that I’m probably about to die.
And by the way: if someone could point me to a post where Booman says or even implies that Obama has or could make a mistake, that would be a first for me. I’m not joking; I’ve never seen so much as a word of criticism of the President posted on this blog.
You might read any of Booman’s diaries on Libya.
you’re right. there are the libya diaries.
but other than that, I often feel like this is the lemonade stand. Obama hands progressives a lemon, Booman finds a way to male lemonade.
I don’t blame him, even though I find a lot of it incredible and infuriating. Hey, ya gotta keep yourself sane somehow.
This is more of a gloryhole than a lemonade stand.
now, now delonjo, play nice. Our host has an infant at home and is already stressed enough.
if making lemonade out of lemons (or even out of piss, which is what this “deal” is, a big bucket of piss for the poor, for women, for health care, and for progressives) keeps booman from losing his shit, well so be it.
or Afghanistan
Well this diary has certainly brought out a lot of vivid anti-Obama negativity, much of which I will attribute to trolls because it’s not a discussion it’s just attack Obama because he’s going to destroy Soc Sec and Medicare. The proof of this is the fact that Obama is going to address the usa economic situation together with proposals by Simpson, et al. which “obviously” Obama endorses.
I had to laugh. I have read this so many times that it’s gotten funny.
Also, too, Obama needs to assure other countries that the US is sound. Our debt is not owned by us.
I bet he corners the Repubs on the default drama. Any talk of default is dangerous.
Giving up on his own Health Care plan before it could be implemented.
The budget agreement also takes aim at two provisions of the new health care law. It would cut more than $2 billion set aside for the creation of private nonprofit health insurance cooperatives.
It also eliminates a program that would have allowed hundreds of thousands of lower-income workers to opt out of employer-sponsored health plans and use the employer’s contribution to buy coverage on their own, through new insurance exchanges.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, the architect of this provision, lamented its demise.
“Publicly,” Mr. Wyden said, “both parties say they are champions of choice and competition and making health insurance more affordable for everyone. But then behind closed doors they kill a program that does exactly that. This seems like a victory for special interests.”