In 1980, I was pretty hostile to Carter, believing him a
simpleton, who much like Obama spent too much time kowtowing to a right wing
that couldn’t stand him anyway. I was
enthused about much more liberal candidates in the primaries and sat out the
general. Ronald Reagan was elected, and with his election an era of me-first
government of the rich was ushered in. I don’t believe my vote made the
difference. Reagan garnered 51% of the vote to Carter’s 41%, and wiped him out
in the Electoral College. But what did wipe him out was the general trend of
millions of progressive democrats sitting out the election, some drifting to
the third party candidate out of their frustration with Carter specifically,
and the political process in general.
20 Years later a small sliver of true believer progressives
turned the election of 2000 for Bush in Florida and so the nation. The argument
is often made that the election, with only 500 votes separating Bush and Gore,
was decided by a partisan Supreme Court, and a vigilante brigade of republican
operatives. In reality the election was
decided by the 97,488 Florida votes that went to Ralph Nader. I love Ralph, but
that election swept in the worst administration the US has seen since Herbert
Hoover.
We would do well to remember the economic circumstances
under which Clinton departed (the launch site Bush had), and where Bush landed
(the smoldering ruin from which Obama began). Steaming along with the explosion
of the internet economy under Clinton the GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.6%,
and created 23 million jobs, more than the beloved Reagan who created about 20
million. Through Sept 2008 Bush averaged a much more meager 2.3% in GDP growth,
and a net increase of 3.5 million jobs, even after the biggest trickle down tax
breaks in the nation’s history.
As the poorly regulated housing and investment markets
crashed in the fourth quarter of 2008 GDP shrank at a rate of 6.8%. In response
the economy shed 2.6 million jobs, 700,000 in December of that year alone. After
Clinton’s 23 million, Bush created six million jobs in the first 7-1/2 years of
his administration, even with the massive tax cuts to the wealthy, a far cry from
the previous democratic administration record. But then the economy shed the 2
million-plus jobs in 2008, which left Bush with a net increase of about 3.5
million jobs. In January and February of 2009 the economy shed another 1.3
million jobs before it starting to respond to stimulus spending and leveled off
at 60,000 jobs lost on March of 2009. In the first quarter of Obama’s
presidency, GDP shrunk at a rate of 4.9%. In total for the last twelve months
of the Bush Presidency and the first six of Obama’s the economy shed four
million jobs. The republicans would like America to forget but it was pretty
grim.
The deficit in Federal spending was just $200 billion in FY
2000 and the government, Clinton’s last, was projecting surpluses in 2001 and
beyond. Many then called for locking these savings way for a rainy day which it
got on 9-11. However, Bush and the right enacted their tax plan by arguing that
Americans had earned these savings and the money did not belong to the
government. Like a kid with a buck, the money was burning a hole in our pocket
and was gone. By 2008, Bush had pushed annual deficit spending to $500 billion.
Much has been made of the negative effect 9-11 played on the economy and
spending at the federal level, but in 2002 the federal debt stood at $6.2
trillion. It ballooned to $10 trillion at the end of Bush’s term. Currently
that national debt stands at just over $15 trillion. Roughly speaking Bush ran up the national debt by
about $4 trillion in his second term and Obama spending his way out a of a
recession will have run it up by an additional $6 trillion by the end of his
first term.
Of course those are just numbers, evaluating the Bush Administration
in terms of human lives presents a more stark picture of his failed Presidency,
whether it be the missed signals before 9-11, the catastrophic failure with
Katrina in New Orleans, or the execution of a war of choice in Iraq, a flawed
waste of lives, treasure, and misguided national security priorities. And yet,
every policy failure was dipped in a patina of arrogance. General Shinseki, who
suggested in front of a committee of Congress before the war a far more robust
presence in Iraq was dismissed by Rumsfeld. Eventually a parade of generals
would step forward calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster. Thomas White, former Army
secretary, said at the time, “Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of senior military
officers since the day he walked in… It’s about time they got sick and tired.”
But home grown citizens critical of the Patriot Act and the torture at Abu
Ghraib and Gitmo were called naïve, unpatriotic, or both. Instead of being
shamed by the faithless and despicable behavior arguments were made out of some
distorted sense of national pride and necessity.
So where are we with President Obama?
Health care reform was passed. Far from a “government
takeover” of 1/6th of the economy, the plan steers millions towards
the insurance industry. Health care spending which was under 14% of GDP in 2000
at the end of Clinton’s term was running at nearly 17% of GDP in 2008. In 1980
it was 9% of GDP. Netting out the cost of recession recovery, the explosion is
this expense is the single biggest reason for the ballooning deficits into the
future. I personally doubt that the cost containment is strong enough,
something more progressive plans certainly would have addressed.
There are reforms that will benefits consumers such as the
requirement that insurance companies cannot limit coverage for those with
pre-existing conditions, allowing them to profitably cherry pick the healthy.
Children get coverage on their parent’s policies. This has already resulted in
millions being added to the roles of the insured. I now carry my daughter on my
policy which saves me the cost for her insurance—about $2,300 her first year of
college. Considering I pay that bill out of my after tax income that is a
rather large savings. Millions of Americans want Obamacare to go away. But it
is provisions like the following that bring the massive campaign donations from
the insurance industry to overturn; Insurance companies are now required by law
to spend 85% of revenues on healthcare coverage rather than marketing or
advertising or whatever. Rules are being written now by the regulators to
enforce this policy and at first glance at least it appears the administration
is serious about enforcing the provision.
The same cannot be said for the regulations to enforce
Dodd-Frank. Many of the regulations required to enforce the financial industry legislation
remain unwritten under a firestorm of criticism from the right and campaign
money and lobbying efforts from large financial institutions. There can be
little doubt that initially some of this lobbying was funded at least
indirectly in part with taxpayer provided TARP monies. The nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
has been held up by key GOP lawmakers who as the Washington Post reported
earlier this week, “renewed their vow to block any nominee unless broad changes
are made to the watchdog agency.” Republicans do not want a consumer advocate
for the finance industry. Period. A well-financed political opposition has
stymied financial regulatory reform. While I would be critical of the president
on many levels on this one, I think he has pushed as hard as he can. The repubs
will run out the clock, so only a second term will allow us to see whether any
real reform is possible there.
On the economy
the president has been a major disappointment. It is largely here that is
disapproval level of sixty, equal portions of disaffected progressives, the
hard right that literally hates him, and long term and hurting unemployed is
consolidated. Growth has been anemic, the results of less than robust
plans designed to garner the faith and support of the middle right which no longer
exists. Yes, over 2 million private sector jobs have been created, but as
everyone knows this has not resulted in acceptable GDP growth or substantially lowered
unemployment.
As with healthcare the president has allowed the national
conversation to be defined on the right. In the republican debates the dialogue
mostly comes down to the dishonest desire for deficit control (see Bush 43), further
tax cuts for the wealthy, and less regulation. The president leads from behind,
because he was naive enough to think that once the Bush tax cuts were extended
in the fall of 2010, the other party would play nice on the deficit and further
stimulus. This was a HUGE miscalculation. The Republicans nearly let the
country default, and there is NO movement on employment that would have immediate
effect. Obama is crazy like a fox, maybe, but it appears more likely that he’s getting
rolled by the Republican opposition. He seems to be winning the public
relations war, but legislation is still stalled, and whatever emerges is likely
to be so timid that it will not jolt the economy forward. The danger of a
decade of Japan-style malaise is real. If we do see that, for progressives the
argument that blames it all on the right will not hold up. Either lead, follow,
or get out of the way. While I personally
would give the president a passing grade on the economy, barely, I would have
to be honest and say that there is a substantial danger of a fail.
The right will no doubt make their foreign policy and
security arguments. The I-can-see-Russia–from-my-house true believers and the
religious right, always zealots of Israeli security, will buy it. Doubt anyone else
will, though Iran is a great concern. A military involvement in Iran must be avoided,
and all the other options seem sort of toothless. This doesn’t stop the time
honored tradition in both parties of trying to make the toothless sound fierce,
but IMHO I don’t see any clear solution there. But in the broader context I can’t
imagine, especially compared to the unfettered disaster of the Bush years,
Obama will score poorly there after the elimination of Bin Laden and Khadafy.
Energy policy is another area where decisive middle of the
road inaction will cost him, and this has a great effect on national
security. While much was made of the
Solyndra debacle, and there have been reasonable investments in green
technology, the Chinese outspend us more than ten to one. They see green
energy, high speed rail and other infrastructure projects as long term
investments in the financial vitality of the country, and they are preparing
for an economy not reliant on low cost labor. For America the sad truth is that
after a decade of inaction on climate and energy under Bush, Obama has shown
scant improvement and little leadership. Early on, this was a place to be
bold. Obama was not that. Now he has the
right apoplectic because he has "locked up" our energy potential and the
progressive left angry because he has moved forward so little. He would have
taken a lot of heat early on for a bold policy, but if Americans could see
results on the horizon, that would have passed. Instead both sides see weakness,
another area where opposition from right and left combines to create a high
unfavorable rating.
It could be a great day if the president finally figures out
that a portion will hate him regardless and starts to lead. Perhaps Obama can
take a page from FDR rather than Teddy. FDR spent a lot of time and expended
considerable political capital trying to find compromise with a right that
hated him. Thanks to Eleanor and his own progressive instincts FDR finally came
to see there was little chance of compromise. Once he came to understand centers
of power arrayed against him, FDR abandoned middle of the roadism became the
great president he eventually was. If only…
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