Obama – Bad or Irrelevant?
By Brian Kirwin | Sunday, July 24th, 2011 | PolicyI’m beginning to think we need to stop making Senators into Presidents.
Not that we do it that often. JFK and Obama. That’s it for the last 60 years. LBJ was VP when he became President, so I don’t count him. When he actually was on the ballot for it, he was already a sitting President.
JFK and Obama both had huge majorities in the House and Senate. JFK kept his. Obama lost the House and is hanging on to the Senate by a thread.
But check out this comment by Speaker John Boehner:
“As I read the Constitution, the Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign,” Boehner said, recounting what he told the president, according to two sources.
The Democrat Senate, Gang of Six or not, is out of the chat. Their plans of vague “spending cuts” and specific “revenue increases” isn’t going anywhere in time. Having not even passed a budget in two years, I’m not counting on the Senators to suddenly be leaders.
Which brings me to Obama, former Senator who, when given the choice to vote Yes or No, frequently chose “Present.”
He’s acting like a Senator with a bigger house. He’s offering nothing in the way of an actual plan. He’s insisting making people pay more in taxes, but as far as spending reductions, I haven’t seen much.
It mostly sounds like 1990 all over again when George Bush ditched his “Read my lips – No new taxes” promise to get “2 dollars of spending cuts for every 1 of tax increases.”
Remember how that worked out?
The 1991 budget deficit was supposed to have been $253 billion. Instead, it was $269 billion. The 1992 deficit was supposed to be $262 billion. Instead, it will be $314 billion. In 1990, the year before the budget agreement took effect, the deficit was only $152 billion.The budget deal was supposed to save $500 billion over five years. When the budget deal was passed, the 1991-95 deficit was projected at $770 billion. The latest Congressional Budget Office estimates place the five-year deficit at $1.426 trillion. The budget deal added at least $500 billion to the national debt; it did not reduce the debt by that amount.
The budget deficit from 1991 through 1995 will be $1.3 trillion higher than it would have been if Congress had simply remained on the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings track and had never held a budget summit. (link)
These plans aren’t cuts in actual spending! They are cuts in PROJECTED spending! Cuts in planned increases.
It’s like saying you’re on a successful diet because you’re gaining less weight than you thought you would. It’s crazy!
And Obama is negotiating. He isn’t leading. Speaker Boehner seems willing to play along, passing and proposing solutions, leaving little but a pen in Obama’s hand.
It’s risky, but it is leadership.
Obama sure isn’t showing any.
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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15 Responses to "Obama – Bad or Irrelevant?"
Actually, the only lesson to be learned from succession is that it is tough to follow a President who made a mess so bad that even the recovery takes time. The Bush Administration created the Great Recession, and while the President has made great strides in resolving the crisis, recovery from such fiscal chaos takes time and resources. Most have forgotten that sick feeling in their stomach in the Fall of 2008 as banks failed, the market plunged in value, and we averted collapse of the international banking system only by a bi-partisan commitment to stop the rest of the banks from failing. Then of course, the thought of electing a republican President to do the same thing again was repulsive to most, but then only far right republicans would see this collapse as their best opportunity to then regain the Presidency, and you have to hand it to them how quickly they reversed course. From surplus to deficits, from passing the bailout to condemning it, from approving programs without paying for them to disapproving programs already passed by their predecessors, these guys have no principle worth obeying except the steps necessary to return to power so they can reward their rich, wealthy, corporate masters and stick the rest of us with the bill. So now the far right will create another fiscal calamity from which they hope to gain. My only word for them is despicable.
I wish that was your only word. Unfortunately, you use a lot more words and bore the hell out of the rest of us.
Mike,
It was the Congressional Democrats who triggered the mortgage crisis, bringing about the Great Recession.
I am a bit curious about what will happen in the financial markets in the next 24 hours. The childish behavior of Barry on friday may cause a huge financial shipwreck. I wonder how one would swim away from this sinking ship?
And what I like best is that I should know the answer within the next 24 hours.
Another day for day traders.. Dollar speculators are looking for fresh meat though.
“It’s crazy!”
What’s crazy about it? That’s how politicians work. If there was a real cut in spending, we wouldn’t be all atwitter about raising the ceiling by 2.5 trillion. The only differences between Boner and Obama are the position of the decimal place and the time increment for the resulting deficit graph released to the public.
Brian K at 11:12am to Mike B.
Hahahahahahaha
that was great
Real funny Brian. So do you think your boss is at the office today deciding who to lay off tomorrow if the market tanks and default becomes the only option? The Great Recession will look like good times if 40 % of the federal expenditures are cut off in a week. I believe the effects for Virginia and Hampton Roads will be even greater because so much of our GDP is defense related. Moodys thought so too. So with social security and Medicare cut, the decision will be to pay the troops, or retirees, or the contractors, or the Homeland Security, etc. I know this is a laughing matter for right wing zealots, but that frankly is becasue they don’t have a clue of the repercussions on their own personal finances, their employers, their Commonwealth, or their nation. I guess they really don’t care.
How nice it would be if Obama were really irrelevant. Then he could be bad and it wouldn’t make much difference. Obama is Not an isolated phenomenon. Everything he says I have heard from garden variety leftists over the past 25 years. (1985 is about the point where the Dems went round the bend IMO.) His views are their views. He may be more politically inept in some ways than some other Dem would have been but that’s it. At this point he has an additional problem since he can’t lose anyone from his like minded base. Now he’s constrained by his own demagoguery.
I always thought it was a waste of time to do the Biden talks, the gang of Six, etc etc. These were just Dem delaying tactics. (Trump is accurate in his negative opinion of Repubs negotiating tactics.) Obama always counted on getting his way at the point of default. If the Repubs weren’t going to play hardball with the CR a few months ago it makes little sense to fool around here since the debt ceiling is much less manageable than a conventional budget impasse.
At this point I guess something like a dressed up McConnell plan is going to be done. Boehner did allow a clean debt ceiling vote a month ago but let Dems vote against it. My only strong objection is to allow some triangulating Dems to vote against a McConnell type plan. Dems should own it. If it were me I would say that every single Dem in the House and Senate has to vote for raising the debt ceiling (with phantom cuts) or the Repubs block it. That at least would put intense pressure on Obama and recalcitrant Dems. Repubs could watch the arm twisting from the sidelines for a change.
Hey what’s the worry? Super Congress will save us!
The Gang of Six becomes the dictatorial Dirty Dozen. Each one preceded in their congressional chamber entrance by a Lictor’s fasces topped with an eagle riding the Wall Street bull, as lesser members bow in reverence.
Mike squawking like chicken about blaming Republicans and Grover is great and he is getting it all in right now because all of the blaming will shift the second the President has to start making hard decisions on who not to pay on 2 August. Obama can decide to not pay SS, Medicare, Medicade, Military, interest on the debt, or the rest of the government. The Dems will poll this next week to see where the most damage will occur and will recommend to the President’s “Default Death Panel” who lives, starves or dies based on who will blame him the most.
Speaking of death panels.. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/24/businesspro-us-markets-global-idUSTRE76N2XJ20110724
Asian Samuria’s are already dicing us up.. Under Obamas watch if we default this must be impeachable.
Today’s global financial crisis is about as exciting as watching Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone’s secret vault.
Henry: That’s not what brought about the Great Recession. There’s plenty of blame to go around for that to both Dems and Republicans for revoking the regulatory scheme that had protected us for 70 years. That happened with a Dem president and a GOP Congress.
not many people can afford to live like Americans; the trouble is, neither can they.
According to Warren Buffett, America’s most successful investor, the country has “relied on the labour of others to provide things that can be used every day… this can continue for a long time and on a large scale – but not forever”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/8658888/America-can-now-only-defer-its-debt-crisis.html
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