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Friday
Jan272012
David Brooks' One Percent Solution
Because of some unavoidable delays in posting at the New York Times eXaminer over the next several days, I've posted my column for today's NYTX here. I'll probably take this down after the column goes up at NYTX. I'll transfer any comments over; I'll give the commenters credit, naturally, but the comments willl have to go above my name.
New York Times columnist David Brooks is disappointed: President Obama did not devote his State of the Union address to a “grand plan” to dispense with the old, the sick and the poor once and for all.
Brooks begins today's column pining for the good ole days when it appeared the deficit hawks on the Simpson-Bowles Commission would prevail upon the Congress and the President to slash the deficit by cutting spending on what the right characterizes as “entitlement programs.” As Robert Greenstein and James Horney of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities wrote, “Budget cuts account for 69 percent of the savings” in Simpson-Bowles' most recent proposal. Those cuts come largely, though not entirely, from “non-security discretionary spending”; that is, from social safety net programs. Worse,
The plan also relies on reductions in scheduled Social Security benefits for most of the changes it proposes to ensure the program’s long-term solvency. Those benefit cuts outweigh the proposed revenue increases by 2 to 1 over 75 years — and by 4 to 1 in the 75th year. This does not represent a balanced approach to Social Security reform.
Using the most conciliatory language possible, Greenstein and Horney write that Simpson-Bowles “raises question as to whether the funding for this part of the budget would be adequate to meet critical national needs in the decade ahead.”
Brooks also longs for the “big ideas” proposed by the fiscally-conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a foundation funded by the multi-billionaire hedge-fund operator Pete Peterson. The foundation is devoted to scaring Americans about the “gargantuan” national debt and pressing the need to end Social Security and other social safety net programs, the better to protect the wealthy – like Peterson. “Peterson money is everywhere,” Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works told Benjamin Sarlin of the Daily Beast. “They've managed to insinuate themselves as centrists when what we have in my mind is a really far-out anti-government conservative perspective.” Sarlin documents how Peterson influenced the Simpson-Bowles Commission and how he has used his money to insinuate his views into media coverage of the budget deficit. Economist Dean Baker asked, “Do you have to work for Pete Peterson to be cited on budget issues in the Washington Post?” The question is rhetorical. Post coverage, as Baker documents, suggests that the answer is “yes.”
Brooks complains that in President Obama's speech, “There was nothing big, like tax reform or entitlement reform,” He credits Republicans, by contrast, for speaking “with epic alarm about the nation’s problems. They are unified behind big tax and welfare state reforms that would purge Washington and shake things up.” Yes, they are. Never mind that the drumbeat of this epic alarm and the militant, anti-government unity of the GOP are what have forced the nation into the sorry state it is today. The Occupy Wall Street movement fingers Wall Street, of course, but bought-and-paid-for politicians are responsible for allowing Wall Street and other big corporate interests to tank the economy and turn the American dream into an impossible dream for ordinary Americans.
Brooks further complains that President Obama's SOTU speech contained “a series of modest proposals that poll well.” It's an election year, Mr. Brooks. In election years, first-term Presidents do not use their major speeches to promote policies that voters abhor. The U.S. Constitution requires that presidents “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Although not Constitutionally required to speak on the state of the union annually, all modern presidents have done so. Therefore, “necessary and expedient measures” would be those measures that the president could reasonably expect the Congress to enact in the course of the coming year. In any presidential election year, with any Congress, even one of the president's own party, it is only reasonable to expect the Congress to adopt “modest proposals” – ones that would carry the nation through to the next presidency and next Congress. When the House of Representatives is controlled by the extraordinary do-nothing, Republican Tea Party, as it is today, the President would be a blithering fool if he asked such a Congress to adopt the “sweeping proposals” that are indeed necessary to return the federal government to the sound fiscal policies of the post-World War II boom years. The Congress is not going to act on such proposals.
In general, modern first-term presidents have used their election-year State of the Union addresses to set the themes of their campaigns for a second term. Franklin Roosevelt used his 1936 SOTU speech “to attack critics of the New Deal.” The theme of Ronald Reagan's 1984 speech was “There is renewed energy and optimism throughout the land.” Bill Clinton used his 1996 address to announce that “the era of big government is over.”
Brooks concedes that President Obama also had “some big themes in the speech.” Brooks doesn't mention the big themes because President Obama's overarching views do not sit well with David Brooks. As Helen Cooper of the New York Times wrote in her report on the President's address, Obama called for “an economy 'built to last,'” a phrase that comes “from the auto industry he helped save.” The President, Cooper wrote, “sketched out, albeit vaguely, what he called a blueprint for economic growth in which the wealthy play by the same rules as ordinary Americans.” David Brooks does not want the wealthy to have to play by the same rules the rest of us do. He prefers, instead, the Simpson-Bowles-Peterson prescriptions to slash spending at the expense of the needy and maintain relatively low contributions from the wealthy and super-wealthy. Economic fairness, where “everybody gets a fair shot” – one of President Obama's “big themes” – is anathema to a Brooksian worldview.
President Obama's other “big themes” were national unity and “reclaiming the American values” that led to the post-World War II boom. As I outlined in a previous column titled “A History Lesson for David Brooks,” these are precisely the values – and government policies – that the conservative movement, of which Brooks is a part, has for decades fought tooth-and-nail and by every means possible to dismantle. President Obama used his bully pulpit to try to bully an obstreperous, calcified Congress into taking a few small steps for humankind toward a massive course change that will eventually undo the disastrous, decades-in-the-making policies that have moved us away from the “American promise” the President hopes to restore. David Brooks says he longs for “transformational..., ground-shifting” policies. So does President Obama. But Brooks wants the “transformation” to put the final nail in the coffin of fairness and equal opportunity for success.
Thanks largely to the influence of Occupy Wall Street, President Obama at long last wants the nation to shift again toward a set of policies that foster an environment in which “everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, “The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive.” It is an epic clash that pits President Obama against David Brooks and his ilk. It is Obama and Occupy vs. One Percenters like Pete Peterson who use their vast resources to set all the rules in their own favor. It is fundamental fairness vs. greed.
Is an epic clash big enough for you, Mr. Brooks?
5 Comments
Reader Comments (5)
Epic clash ! I love the sound. There are only few of us that are certain that an epic clash is inevitable. Our current course is an effort to maintain sort of a status quo.
In reality, extreme measures are needed to effect a change in our course. As we slowly nickle and dime our way along, the number of employed Americans will slowly increase but the basic problem with our econmomy will not move. The income of working Americans has been stagnant for at least two decades. Each year more and more workers slide out of the middle class. As the numbers of damaged Americans increases, there will be protests. Protests destined to be met with cops, courts and clubs.
Occupy Wall Street demonstrated just a little of what we can expect.
A Republican House and Senate will hasten the unrest. A powerless President with only one house will not be able to create enough change.
The only chance for a peaceful and prosperous Nation is a Democratic House and Senate and a brave President. We will get this now if we are very lucky or we will get it after the Republican debacle.
As Ryan Lizza says in his New Yorker piece on The Obama Memos, Obama has learned in the past three years that "the Presidency is an office uniquely ill-suited for enacting sweeping change. Presidents are buffeted and constrained by the currents of political change. They don't control them." Given that we have at this time a great divide between the major parties and one of those parties ideologically extreme with candidates running for the presidency unfit for the job, Obama's clay feet look mighty good. The change we need in this country might come with our own revolution––right now the OWS are the closest entity we have––until then we'll muddle through and pretend that big money doesn't control us.
P.S. I just remembered watching a panel discussion that Pete Peterson was chairing with Ruben, Clinton, and others whom I don't recall, but they were all on the same page with their fear mongering sky falling debt business, licking their chops at the prospect of more money for those that have the most. Pete is married to Joan Ganz Gooney, the Muffets gal who gave us such a gift. One wonders what Kermit would say about our greedy/ green world.
@ P.D. Pepe. Thanks for making that important point about the "power" of the presidency. While presidents can usually do quite a bit on the international front, they are pretty constrained domestically, even when their own party is in power in the Congress. LBJ was something of an exception, but that's because he really knew how to pull the chains of his former colleagues. He'd been doing it for years.
Still, look how long it took to get civil rights legislation through. Even in the "modern" movement, Thurgood Marshall was winning desegregation cases in the late 1930s. And civil rights seems like such a no-brainer in "the land of the free." Even though most of the big-shot national politicians (including Presidents Nixon, Ford & Carter) on both sides of the aisle favored the Equal Rights Amendment -- another no-brainer -- it didn't happen. (I think it is reintroduced, pro forma, every Congress.)
What President Obama is proposing -- thanks to the Occupy movement -- is a course reversal from the decades-long steady march away from equality of opportunity. Even if Congress weren't awash in special-interest money that is dead-set on stopping that course reversal, which it is, he could not just wave a magic wand and get Congress to "do the right thing." He'll have a chance to do a little if he is re-elected with a strong majority, but that's a big "if." I think there's a good chance the election will be a squeaker. I just hope it's not another squeaker that goes to the most powerful voters in the nation: the Supremes. That will not work out well for democracy. Besides, a lot of the anti-people movement happens at the state level, and we will always be replete with yahoos in state government. Becomin a state legislator seems to be a common career choice for yahoos.
@ P.D. Pepe. You're right about Peterson. He has been brilliant about insinuating himself into the conversation as a "nonpartisan voice of reason." If you read a few of those articles I linked, you'll be sick. One of them mentions that Clinton-Rubin, et al. conference. Peterson also kissed the rings of Messrs. Simpson & Bowles, not that they needed much ring-kissing to decide that ordinary Americans needed to "tighten their belts" so fat cats wouldn't have to.
If I'm not mistaken, once when I complained about Peterson in the past, a liberal wrote to me about how mean I was to a man who did so much good work. The way I see the pattern of how people on the right "do good work" is this: (a) do everything you can to make millions (or billions!). Cheat, bribe and steal to do it. Step on everybody. (b) Once you're a multi-millionare or billionaire, give money to the causes that interest you. Get a lot of awards for it. Get your picture in the paper. You're a great person! (c) Except for the occasional photo-op in a soup kitchen or with a class of cute, needy 4th-graders, do not do any actual good work yourself.