Obama Rachets Up Rhetoric, Attacks GOP Economic Philosophy
This blog has spent a fair amount of time wondering when President Obama would more aggressively take on the Republicans opposing passage of his economic agenda.
So it’s noteworthy that today Obama amped up his rhetoric, making a clear attempt to draw a sharper contrast with his foes — in philosophical and ideological terms. In his remarks on the economy today at an event where he called for a cap on executive salaries, Obama said (according to the prepared remarks):
Now, in the past few days I’ve heard criticisms of this plan that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis –- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject that theory, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. So I urge members of Congress to act without delay. No plan is perfect, and we should work to make it stronger. But let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let’s show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task.
A couple of points here. First, this is a more aggressive effort by the President to draw a contrast between himself and Republicans on their underlying philosophical differences on the economy. It goes beyond the generic call to action we’ve heard from Obama thus far. By rejecting the “notion that tax cuts can solve all our problems,” Obama is faulting conservative economic ideology, and arguing that this ideology is what landed us in our current mess.
Also: Though Obama isn’t singling out Republicans directly here, his reference to people voting for change is a more overtly political shot at the opposition than he’s been willing to take thus far. Obama’s full prepared remarks here.
Update: Some critics, such as Paul Krugman, have been emphasizing that what’s really at play here between Obama/Dems and Republicans is a fundamental clash of world views, not an argument over legislative minutia. It’ll be interesting to see whether Obama intends to continue making this broader case in the days ahead, as he did above.
Greg
Clearly, Barack is listening to your advices. As he should.
heh. if only…
this makes me happy. I also think is far more devastating for the Republicans that Obama is questioning their philosophy and linking it to their defeat in the election. If he just made some accusation about their party and this vote it wouldn’t hit so hard, more of this please.
what’s funny is that he was very aggressive in making precisely this case during the campaign — if he reverts to this case in a governing context it’ll be very interesting indeed.
agreed Greg. I hope he does. a good dose of this and let’s see if the Hansons of the world keep crowing about the ‘implosion’
Greg
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You know what I think? I think that between his Tee Vee appearances yesterday and his speech today President Obama provided the talking points for Dem surrogates to go out and repeat on all the talking head shows and a few Village liberals to write about in their columns tomorrow. That part that you bolded should give people ammunition when they are going against Ron Christie on MSNBC or Bay Buchanan on CNN. Hopefully they will get the hint and instead of just sitting there while the Republicans are burying their a$$es now they can just keep pointing to the fact that the failed tax cut only ideology is what got us here in the first place.
From Obama’s prepared remarks (see Greg’s link above):
“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe”
I hope to hear more of this too. Crying “Alarum!” has its rightful place and circumstance even if the last eight years suggested it might have only a wrongful place and circumstance.
Now, all we need is for Democrats to go out en masse on TV and explain to the American people that the Republicans are opposed to more jobs by opposing the recovery package. They don’t want the American economy to recover, and they want Wall Street to continue to profit off our ills.
Good work, Mr. President.
this is not a factitious question but truly out of ignorance—do the dems in congress need to be told to do this? why are they not doing it already eh?
lfo, I think the dynamic is that members of Congress have been taking their cues from the Obama admin’s hands off approach. so this could change things.
Josh, in a serious mood:
“…Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don’t believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it. If the GOP successfully bottles this up or kills it with a death of a thousand cuts, Democrats will have a good argument amongst themselves that Republicans were responsible for creating the carnage that followed. But the satisfaction will have to be amongst themselves since as a political matter it will be irrelevant. The public will be entirely within its rights to blame Democrats for any failure of government action that happened while Democrats held the White House and sizable majorities in both houses of Congress. ”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ 12:38
I wonder if anybody has ever asked a wingnut Republican Congressman who thinks government is the problem why the decided to run to be a part of goverenment. Some how I think their heads might actually explode on camera trying to explain the unexplainable. Think for a second about an organization that you think is a major problem for the country. Then ask yourself if you would want to go work there so bad that you would shake thousands of hands and raise millions of dollars just for the opportunity.
one more point.
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The next time one of them says government has never created a job I would LOVE for someone to ask them if that meant they were unemployed.
thanks Greg. So they never heard of good cop bad cop? They should watch more law and order. And that should have read facetious btw. working with a dying keyboard here so things don’t always get typed right. sorry about that.
sgw–I think they would say they are there to guarantee that govt does the only thing it can do–fight wars for us. or something like that. But I agree with you.
off topic–I think it is important to keep Nate Silver in mind now that Rass is touting numbers that according to him say the people do not want the stimulus. Gallup has different numbers and Nate is looking inside the hood and saying otherwise.
Now maybe some of the Dem pundits can use specific Rep solutions to hang them with. For example, yesterday AP reported that they were proposing “encouraging” banks to give mortgages at 4-4.5% interest, and FORCING Fannie and Freddy to buy them. While the Reps talk about credit worthy people, why would any bank bother to do a credit check if F&F were going to be forced to buy the mortgages anyway? And who would be on the hook?
lfo
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I haven’t trusted Rasmussen since they started going on FoxNews spouting WingNut propaganda and they changed their polling when the election got closer to make it look like McCain was closer to Obama than he really was. I even mentioned that on another thread. If you look at it so far Rassmussen has said that going by their poll
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1. the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t favor prosections of Bush Co
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2. The majority don’t want the stimulus bill
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3. Obama’s approval numbers are in free fall
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4. The majority are against closing GITMO
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Sorry but it just seems too much like Sean Hannity is doing their polling for them
I was wondering when he’d do this, and in fact chastised him this morning, using basketball metaphors badly. I’ve updated that post with the quote you used.
Perhaps some liberal defenders of Obama and the congressional Dems can explain the need to attack Repubs at this point and blame them for the now-probabale failure to pass this stimulus bill? Wouldn’t Obama be better served by convincing members of his own party to vote for this mess (if he truly believes that it will work)? Perhaps I can’t count (insert joke here) but it seems to me that no Republican votes are requiried to pass this thing. Did the Repubs threaten to invoke a 60 vote cloture requirement? Did I miss that? If so, they’d be wiser to let the Dems pass this with 50 plus 1 and let them hang themselves. Can the Dem leaders not simply buy the 3 repub votes necessary? They could if 3 were all that was required. It should be obvious that Obama has now lost the votes of up to 10 Dem senators – that’s the problem.
The dropping support – for those who believe it – I think is easily explained. The glory of Obama is fading into the typical American realization that their government cannot solve every problem. Thie economy will right itself, in time, and it will have little to do with any ’stimulus’ package. If we could could deficit spend our way out of economic problems such as this then – why, we’d never have gotten here in the first place, now would we?
Well, it’s about time! Here’s hoping President Obama quickly becomes comfortable at that Bully Pulpit!
Once again the Republicans are successful in winning the PR wars. The favorability of the bill is slipping even as Obama’s popularity ratings hold. The Dems really need to get professional help in framing their message and getting it out there. President Obama can’t do it alone, although he does quite well.
Main stream media, 24hr news outlets and the like are once again putty in the hands of Republicans – they do their campaigning for them, and it’s free. I’ve seen far more airings of Reps stepping up to the mike than Dems, and journalists – forgive me – are so uneducated as to fail to see the crux of the debate. They talk as if bipartisanship means 50:50. I heard Nora Roberts and Erin (is it Bennett?) discussing the issue this way, paraphased: “Why have the Dems put all their agenda items in there? They should be willing to give up some things and compromise with the Republicans. How about a novel idea: corporate tax cuts and eliminate payroll taxes?” Wow. Right over their heads. And this is the stuff that many citizens repeat….Does media not get that we are sliding off the cliff as we speak? This is no time for controversy-chasing media stunts.
Reaganomics 1981-2009
R.I.P.
Thank God.
I think the argument should be more simplistic, though no less valid:
If you want to juice the economy, you have to give money to people who will spend it. If you give $1000 to 1000 poor people, you’ll get $1,000,000 worth of bang for the buck. If you give $10,000 to 100 rich people, it will go into the next version of a CDO. Tax cuts give money to people who already have money.
Why do we persist in thinking that centralized decision-making makes the least bit of sense in a complex world, that fewer people should decide for the many when the few have only their own prejudices to go on and cannot possibly understand the complex interactions between their “solution” and the personal lives of individuals?
We don’t need to believe the Utopian fantasy that business leaders are without error. But it’s even more Utopian to assume that politicians are competent to prevent such errors, or even to correct them after the fact. In fact . . .
The assumption should be that politicians are MORE prone to error than anyone else, because . . .
* They make judgements on more subjects than anyone could possibly master
* These judgements impact everyone
* They have little incentive to get it right
This last point is especially important because . . .
* They generally pay no price for what they get wrong
* Usually, the next crisis (caused by their policy) will be used to justify giving them still more power!
Government heavily regulates health care and is the reason behind the high cost. Private business uses government to its advantage. For example, through regulations the AMA controls licensing doctors and keeps the supply low and prices high. Government never solves problems that it doesn’t create in the first place. The answer is not more centralized power but less. Get rid of the government’s ability to regulate private industry (but keep the legal ability to sue corporations instead of using regulations to be able to legally pollute) and you will have fewer private organizations manipulate it for their own gains. The genius of the Founders was to see this; our own very average intelligence that sees only linearly and knows little of history that is not distorted calls for more of the same that got us into this situation in the first place.