April 4, 2012 |
Recently, three articles have been published analyzing
President Obama’s negotiations with Republicans about a deficit
reduction deal (Peter Wallsten, et al., “
Obama’s evolution: Behind the failed ‘grand bargain’ on the debt,”
Washington Post; Jonathan Chait, “
How Obama Tried to Sell Out Liberalism in 2011,”
New York Magazine; Matt Bai, “
Obama vs. Boehner: Who Killed the Debt Deal?”
New York Times Magazine).
All three articles come to essentially the same conclusion: Obama was
willing to make substantial cuts to the crown jewels of
liberalism---Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid---and get little in
return, in order to get a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans.
The details of the proposed deal should be very disturbing to anyone
who believes in Democratic core values and protecting the American
Dream. In addition to substantial cuts to Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid and the domestic budget, Obama was willing to reduce top-end
tax rates, maintain current tax rates on investment income (the reason
millionaires like Mitt Romney pay such low tax rates) and prevent the
expiration of the Bush tax cuts in return for increasing tax revenues by
$800 billion.
That amount is less than half the amount of new revenues recommended
by the co-chairs of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Commission,
but, as it turns out, the $800 billion in “new revenues” was mostly a
mirage. The $800 billion mentioned by the Republican Speaker of the
House, John Boehner, would not have come from increasing taxes on
anyone, especially not the rich, who would have had their taxes cut even
below the Bush tax cut levels, but from nebulous plans to “overhaul the
tax code,” which may or may not have ever gotten through Congress, and
from projecting new revenues based on the largely disproven assumption
that lower tax rates would boost the economy and produce more revenues
(the laughable Laffer Curve). As one of the authors, Jonathan Chait,
characterized it, “The Republican position was that its higher revenue,
in other words, had to be imaginary, theoretical revenue.”
Obama did not reject this proposal. In fact, according to the
Washington Post
article, “[W]hen Boehner brought up economic growth, arguing that his
caucus would not accept tax increases under any other terms,” Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner said, “Yes, we accept that” and Obama’s Chief of
Staff, Bill Daley, is quoted in the
Washington Post article
saying, “We walked away feeling that we were 80 percent there” [to
achieving a deal]. Events intervened, including a proposal by a
bipartisan group of senators for $2 trillion in higher revenues---real
revenue increases, not the imaginary increases Obama apparently was
willing to accept in a deal with Boehner.
In fact, the Gang of Six proposal, which was supported by some very
conservative Republicans, including Senator Lamar Alexander, then the
third-ranking member of the Republican Senate leadership team and
senators Tom Coburn and Saxby Chambliss, contained $2 trillion in real
revenue increases, including higher taxes and stronger protections for
the poor than the deal Obama was negotiating. This caused Bill Daley to
say, “We’d be beat up miserably by Democrats who thought we got
out-negotiated” if Obama took the $800 billion of phony revenue
projections, and no deal was concluded.
Nevertheless, with the prospects of a deal dimming and even with the
embarrassment of the much better Gang of Six proposal in the background,
two days later, according to the
Post, “Working late into the
evening, Obama asked someone to get Boehner on the phone. His message:
I’ll take your last offer.” At this point. Boehner refused to reopen
negotiations and Obama was left at the altar without a mate. But, the
Post article reports that, “White House officials said this week [March 17] that the offer is still on the table.”
Obama’s willingness to bargain away core progressive values of the
Democratic Party in a deficit-reduction deal comes after his meltdown on
a large range of issues dear to progressives: His unconditional support
for Bush's Wall Street bailout; his escalation of the Afghanistan War;
his acceptance of Bush-era limits on civil liberties; his shift from
supporting the healthcare public option and opposing individual mandates
during the 2008 campaign to subverting the public option and backing
individual mandates in 2009; his extension of the Bush tax cuts for the
rich (in exchange for Republicans allowing an extension of unemployment
benefits and aid to cash-strapped states); his withdrawal of strong EPA
rules on clean air; his gratuitous attacks on “the professional Left.”
At times it has seemed that Obama went out of his way to attack
progressives and undermine progressive programs in order to prove he was
truly the post-partisan president he claimed to be. Indeed, as I and
Andrew Sullivan have previously argued, the evidence is pretty
conclusive that
Obama has governed as a conservative.
So, the question for progressives is, “What do we do now?”
Obama supporters would answer that question by arguing that now is
not the time to criticize the president because the
alternative--electing a Republican--would be worse. Now is the time to
mute criticism, because criticism can be embarrassing and dispiriting.
Buck up, Dems, forget issues and actual performance, now is the time for
cheerleaders, not critics. We can reconvene on the issues after Obama
gets re-elected
I think exactly the opposite is true. The only leverage progressives
have on Obama is now, not later, not after the election. After the
election, what is most likely is that Obama will return to his vision of
himself as someone standing above politics, capable of making a “Grand
Bargain” with Republicans, as a serious deficit hawk, as someone willing
to put Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block
before he demands more sacrifices from the rich and well-connected.
The 2012 presidential election is going to be one of the most dismal
and depressing presidential elections in American history. Morale among
Democrats is low because Obama has not been the savior many people
expected and because the 2008 Democratic mandate was squandered so
quickly and for so little. Republicans, on the other hand, likely will
be led by Mitt Romney, a guy who has been pulling an aggregate of 39
percent of votes in the Republican primaries and who has been strongly
opposed by the Tea Party and conservative wings of the party; indeed, if
the conservative Republican votes had not been split among conservative
candidates, Romney would not be the nominee.
Voters also will be bombarded by $3 billion of negative advertising,
which is not likely to increase voting enthusiasm; indeed, much of the
Republican advertising will be designed to suppress voting. Low
enthusiasm elections mean one thing, low turnout and in low-turnout
elections, what do you do? You activate the base voters because base
voters are more likely to vote than occasional voters.
Obama already has figured this out, which is why his State of the
Union address was so populist and progressive (if you leave out the 15
minutes or so of pure pandering to the military). He is smart enough to
realize that he can’t get re-elected talking austerity and cuts to
important social programs that many people, especially his base, like.
He may want to make a Grand Bargain with Republicans, but he can’t do
that now, not with an election looming.
Obama has few progressive achievements to offer his base, but he
knows he’s a skilled wordsmith of populist rhetoric. And this is what
gives progressives power now that they haven’t had for 3-plus years:
Obama needs progressives; he especially needs progressives to vote; he
is reaching out to us; he is beginning to talk our talk.
So, now is the time to make demands on him, to push him to make
promises and commitments--as MoveOn did recently by demanding that he
promise to veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich and by
protests of inaction about mortgage relief at Obama for America sites.
This is also what Bill McKibben’s
350.org
did on the Keystone Pipeline, putting pressure on the president to
reverse a State Department decision to permit the pipeline from Canada
and thereby reaching out to the environmental community, which
heretofore he had largely ignored, but which he needs in November.
Between now and the election, we need to take the lead from actions
like McKibben’s and MoveOn and drive Obama as far to the progressive
side of politics as possible, because if we don’t, once he is freed of
having to run for re-election again, the Grand Bargain will be back on
the table and it will take 20 years, or more, to reverse the damage.
Ironically, by pushing Obama to take more populist positions, we will be
helping to make him more electable, so there is no conflict between
pushing him on issues and re-electing him.
The progressive vehicle for this pressure may now be in sight with
plans by The 99% Spring to train 100,000 people in nonviolent direct
action April 9 to 15 to push a progressive agenda about foreclosure
relief, student debt, protection of Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid, job creation, poverty, pollution, wealth inequality and the
roll-back of tax cuts for the rich. Let us hope this potentially
game-changing force puts its allegiance squarely behind real change, not
protecting the president, or any other politician.
Guy Saperstein is a former civil
rights attorney and past-president of the Sierra Club Foundation. He is a
board member of Brave New Films.
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