Promises to keep

In 2008, an intelligent, compassionate, and eloquent Barack Obama was swept into the Presidency, becoming the nation's first Black president, auguring a new day and "promises to keep" (Frost) for a better America.

Unfortunately, our president made some 500 promises he hasn't kept . Here's a composite of the better known ones:

Create a tax credit of $500 for workers

Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes

Train and equip the Afghan armed forces

End the use of torture

Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

Restrict warrantless wiretaps

Seek verifiable reductions in nuclear stockpiles

Centralize ethics and lobbying information for voters

Require more disclosure and a waiting period for earmarks

Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials

Secure the borders

Provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants

Reform mandatory minimum sentences

Secure nuclear weapons materials in four years

Strengthen antitrust enforcement

Create new financial regulations

Sign a "universal" health care bill

Create 5 million "green" jobs

Reduce oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030

Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming

Cut the cost of a typical family's health insurance premium by up to $2,500 a year

Now our President wants a second term. He'll probably get it, considering the power of incumbency, with more broken promises to follow.

The Obama administration prides itself...

The Obama administration prides itself on having saved Detroit's auto industry with its proviso of bailout money.  Of course, this wasn't the case for prosperous Ford Motor company, which enjoyed substantial profits despite the downturn in the economy with the onset of the 2008 recession.  Clearly, the demise of Chrysler and GM had its source elsewhere, or in mismanagement.  While GM and Chrysler have largely repaid the government, the fact remains that such bailouts have resulted in a trillion dollars of new debt.  Sooner or later, we will have to pay the piper as we approach the Eurozone's  present dilemma.  

Both Republicans and Democrats have made matters worse by approving the Obama sponsored payroll tax cut, resulting in a diversion of 2% from Social Security funding, a vital program already in serious trouble.  Republicans have further contributed to our economic malaise by holding out for no new income tax revenues.  What is needed is a balance of stimulus money in programs that can work along with cuts in pork barrel spending and a provision for adequate tax revenue to pay for programs that do matter.  Germany is today's model in this regard, to the envy of its neighbors.  

Ironically, Obama's economic policies with their lavish spending, exacerbated by Republican intransigence on new tax revenue, threaten all of us.  Unfortunately, this administration seems bent on rewarding incompetence, and frequently, even with regard to malfeasance on the part of banks, the auto industry, and even home owners.

I strongly believe that government does better when it encourages the private sector, reducing deficit spending, limiting tax subsidies, reforming tax laws to broaden the tax base, etc.

To our peril, in our rush to ever increasing Federal encroachment on the private sector, we have retreated from those principles set in motion by the founding fathers, rewarding diligence and industry, that has distinguished the American experiment from Europe's welfare state and propelled its prosperity.  

I would offer one final caution:  implementing new tax revenue without corresponding spending discipline only encourages government to spend even more.

What I have written is encapsulated in Benjamin Franklin's observation on the new American republic:  "The expense of our civil government we have always borne, and can easily bear, because it is small.  A virtuous and laborious people may be cheaply governed" (Letter to William Strahan, February 16, 1784).

Mr. President, teach us to believe again

A century ago, or in 1911, Teddy Roosevelt traveled to Osawatomie, Kansas, delivering a message of progressive populism that stirred a nation and has become known as the “New Nationalism” speech. In that speech he championed a new America founded upon genuine democracy and social justice: an 8-hour work day; minimum wage guarantee; insurance for the elderly, unemployed, and disabled; political reform; and a progressive income tax. Teddy just happened to be a Republican.

Yesterday, President Obama gave the greatest speech in his political career--not only with his inveterate eloquence, but more importantly, in his compassion for our millions in economic stress, largely through no fault of their own, victims of an oligarchy of the wealthy, the conspiracy of corporate and banking interests, the callousness and cowardice of our political leadership. I’ve heard or read many great speeches over a lifetime. This one, delivered in obscure Osawatomie, Kansas, where Teddy Roosevelt spoke long before, may herald a new Obama in a likely second term, no longer under partisan pressure, enabled and willing to implement the dream he articulated so ably in 2008, only to retreat repeatedly from that vision of peace, prosperity, and social equality. We would like to believe. Teach us how. (See my end comments.)

Excerpt:

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune.  “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us.  If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger.  Sure, there will be winners and losers.  But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else.  And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government.  It fits well on a bumper sticker.  Here’s the problem:  It doesn’t work.  It’s never worked.  It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression.  It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s.  And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. 

Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history, and what did they get us?  The slowest job growth in half a century.  Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class – things like education and infrastructure; science and technology; Medicare and Social Security. 

Remember that in those years, thanks to some of the same folks who are running Congress now, we had weak regulation and little oversight, and what did that get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity, and denied care to the patients who were sick.  Mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford.  A financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy. 
We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.  We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy.  It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future.  It doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down.  It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.  

Look at the statistics.  In the last few decades, the average income of the top one percent has gone up by more than 250%, to $1.2 million per year.  For the top one hundredth of one percent, the average income is now $27 million per year.  The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more.  And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about six percent.

This kind of inequality – a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression – hurts us all.  When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom.  America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity – that’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made.  It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy.  It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder.  And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them – that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans. 

More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America:  that this is the place where you can make it if you try.  We tell people that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, hard work can get you into the middle class; and that your children will have the chance to do even better than you.  That’s why immigrants from around the world flocked to our shores. 

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk.  A few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult.  By 1980, that chance fell to around 40%.  And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a 1 in 3 chance of making it to the middle class. 

It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal.  But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work?  That’s inexcusable.  It’s wrong.  It flies in the face of everything we stand for.

Postscript:

Mr. President,

We would like to believe you, but works are more convincing than words. The Occupy Wall Street movement with its many unemployed, debt-ridden students, disenfranchised homeowners, disillusioned returning veterans is just as much about the failure of government as it is about the egregious wrongs of an unfair distribution of wealth. We’re tired of politicians and their manipulations,their evasions and opportunism.

Mr. President, teach us how to believe again.

Sincerely,

The American people

Holding the President's feet to the fire

If you go to the Obama campaign site Obama, you’ll read its boast of the EPA initiating restrictions on mercury and other pollutants from coal and oil fired power plants during the President’s tenure.

Just recently, the Obama administration announced its reaching agreement with the nation’s auto manufacturers to increase vehicle fuel efficiency to 54.5 mpg by 2025,

Perhaps the best news for environmentalists is the State Department’s recent announcement that it would delay construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to review its previously approved routing, ultimately deciding its verdict after the 2012 elections.

These seeming environmental breakthroughs, while making good copy, masquerade sobering truths.

Take the Keystone delay, for example. While this change from approval to delay has apparently rekindled environmentalist enthusiasm for Obama, Greens should be forewarned it probably reflects politics rather than sincere commitment.

You may remember that just last August hundreds of protestors against the pipeline, which would transport carbon-heavy tar sands from Canada to the Gulf, were arrested outside the White House, leading many environmentalists to think seriously about not supporting the President’s reelection.

This caution has apparently been tossed to the winds by the Keystone delay. I think this is a mistake. (See Rekindle.) Obama is simply just another politician governed by pragmatics, hence quite willing to pander rather than stick to principle in order to keep power. The Keystone Project delay is about re-routing only, not abnegation, and environmentalists are foolish not to note the difference as well as its ominous time-line.

Underscoring my suspicion is Obama’s earlier September decision to shelve new EPA proposals on smog. The President justified his decision on the basis of not wanting to jeopardize the economy by imposing new pressures on industry and business. Republican House speaker Boehner had argued that one of the EPA’s proposals would have cost $90b. Never mind, however, the consequences for those millions with respiratory problems. Clean Air Watch called Obama’s turnaround “political cowardice.” I agree.

As for the original Keystone plan that routed the pipeline incredulously through the sensitive Oragulla Aquifer, it was the Obama administration that signed on.

Won't anything ever change in Washington? If we hold our ground and not conflate rhetoric with meaningful change, it will.

The bottom line is that we must hold the President’s feet to the fire.

Iraq, Not Obama, Ends U.S. Presence in Iraq

Yesterday, President Obama informed the nation that all U. S. troops in Iraq would be coming home by year’s end and that he had kept his promise to end the Iraq war.

News which normally should have made me glad made me angry instead. The truth is our negotiations to retain a residual force in Iraq failed when its government steadfastly refused to grant remaining troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Ironically, Iraq democracy, an American created anomaly, forced us out.

Additionally, it was George W. Bush who set the withdrawal deadline for U. S. troop withdrawal by the end of 2011, not Obama, unless the Iraqis were willing to extend their presence. Time

I had been watching Tamara Hall’s newscast on MSNBC and had to listen to her excitingly saying that the President was going into the 2012 election years with several foreign policy triumphs to his credit. Nor was there any correction of the record or the circumstances of the withdrawal on the part of the two guests analysts who also appeared. As is, the mission of the several thousand troops that Obama sought to keep in Iraq will probably be assumed by private contractors, and so it’s a change in name only.

While I’m glad our children are coming home, given the high price they and the Iraqi people have paid, I find the political dissembling of Obama, obviously trying to buoy up his reelection chances in a time of ebbing popularity, hard to forgive or forget. Politicizing the withdrawal as well as distorting its circumstances is just another one of those contradictions to that transparency he promised us nearly three years ago.

In the long term, Americans are unlikely to be very impressed should our economic woes continue into the elections. Of course, the Republicans may default the election by running a goon up against him.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost faith in both parties.

I’d love to know what you think, pro or con.

--rj

Obama's assault on Social Security

Although vociferously claiming entitlement programs aren’t on the table in securing deficit reductions, the President’s recent actions prove his rhetoric to be little more than political chicanery in upholding the integrity of Social Security, for an example. In an effort to stimulate the economy by putting more money into our pocketbooks, President Obama has proposed continuing the payroll tax reduction (now 4.1%) for Social Security. In fact, he wants to cut the Social Security payroll tax still further, or to 3.1% of earnings below the traditional maximum of 6.2% on $106,800 income. This amounts to a $240 billion dollar funding hit on Social Security, a program already in trouble due to changing age demographics. In 25-years, it will only be able to pay out $75.00 on every $100.00 owed in benefits.

More specifically, his proposal represents a direct raid on the Social Security Trust Fund, short-changing our young people. As is, his proposal cuts $175 million from the employment payroll contributions and $65 billion in employment contributions. The President’s new, massive stimulus package before Congress, $440 billion, draws 55% of its funding from Social Security funding. You do the math. It’s simply untenable, an indulgence in political opportunism, betraying American workers and their future.

Compounding the demographic and political pressures on Social Security, today’s massive unemployment has ignited a rush in applications for disability income (SSDI). According to the government’s own figures, applications showed a 21% increase just between 2008 and 2009. While the rising number of aging baby boomers may account for some of this increase, it seems more likely this sudden swell has is origin in our down economy. Frankly, one has to suspect Social Security is being used as a ruse for welfare in many instances. Obtaining benefits also qualifies one for Medicare, no matter one’s age.

In its defense, the Social Security administration argues it has strict monitoring procedures in place to assure legitimacy in the application process, with only 30% of applications approved. This is true, however, only at the initial application stage. While denied applications going through the appeal process can take up to 2-years, persistence pays and ultimately most applicants, or 67%, get their benefits approved before an Administrative Law Judge. Meanwhile, legal representation for applicants has turned into a lucrative specialty.

What’s mind-numbing is that this deluge in disability applications is leading some trustees of the Social Security disability program recommending Congress reallocate money from the Social Security Retirement program to offset deficits in disability funding!

As is, the present and proposed cuts in Social Security payroll taxes don’t offer assistance to the many unemployed, retired, disabled or those, like teachers, who are ineligible for SS. More substantially, short-changing Social Security exacerbates its perilous future.

Backdoor amnesty granted by Obama administration

On Thursday, with the Congress out on vacation and the media and public preoccupied with the dismal economy and an approaching weekend, the White House announced a new immigration policy. It had been rumored to be coming down the pike several months ago by conservative adversaries. Then the shoe dropped, Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, announcing that “non-dangerous” immigrants will be allowed to remain in the U. S., the priority shifting to deporting criminals. Some 300,000 pending cases involving illegals will be reviewed and those absolved allowed to apply for work permits. Certainly this change represents a political plus for an embattled president, who has been losing voter support and could use the shoring up of the Latino vote as he heads towards next year’s elections. For the nation, I believe the policy does an injury with ongoing consequences.

1. Immigration reform should be legislated by the Congress. Yes, the Congress has been reluctant to act and just recently voted down the Dream Act. That doesn’t justify the administration circumventing the Congress to get its way. Had the Congress not acted at the last hour to lift the debt ceiling, it’s conceivable the President might have invoked the 14th Amendment to get around Congress. I think you see where I’m going. Where does it end? Policy shouldn’t be made by fiat.

2. Some argue in favor of this change. Principally, why should young people who have come here early, some serving in our military; others now in college, be sent out of the only country they really know? Truth is, not all illegals came here as youngsters. Anyway, if illegals are inconvenienced, then this is their fault for jumping the queue. We do have an immigration process that allows some 500,000 Mexicans, for example, to enter our country legally each year. It’s unfair, as some of them have said, to let those who’ve jumped the line now stay.

3. And then there’s our unsettling economy, possibly about to go back into recession. Even when legal immigrants come here, a third end up on public support. Many choose to reside in states like California and New York, states riddled with huge public debt. Recently, California governor, Jerry Brown granted in-state tuition rights to illegals, this in the most financially troubled state in the country. The story repeats itself elsewhere amidst the political pandering, the public be damned.

4. Some argue that immigration reform is what the public wants. Thus, this is a good move on the part of the Obama administration. Yes, most of us do want immigration reform, but one not involving massive amnesty for an estimated 11 to 20 million undocumented. Think about the discrepancy in those numbers. We don’t even know how many illegals are in our country. I fault the Republicans as well as Democrats, however, as several years ago there was a bill in Congress to lower the number of immigrants admitted and employ criteria resembling Canada’s point system in exchange for amnesty. Borders would be enforced. Then again, maybe the Republicans were on to something—that administration promises were simply no more than means to an end. Enforce the borders now, and we’ll talk of reform. As is, the promised wall has yet to be completed, employers who hire illegals aren’t scrutinized or are granted minimal fines for violations if caught, and the government has steered away from mandating the very reliable E-Verify procedure to ascertain eligibility for employment.

5. The fundamental flaw in the administration’s new backdoor amnesty approach is that it’s likely to exacerbate the flow of illegals from all over the world into the U.S. After all, unless you get into serious trouble with the law, you’re safe. Hey, bring the family! By the way, when we talk of amnesty, we forget that family members can then come too. 11 million, the lesser figure, suddenly swells to 40 million residents at the very least, and you want to give these people work permits as well when millions of own people can’t find work? Suddenly people who don’t belong here are their competitors. 9.1 percent of our working population is currently out-of-work; more so our Black brothers and sisters at 16 percent. I tell you, we’re playing with social dynamite.

6. By the way, our biggest problem isn’t with Latin Americans wading across the Rio Grande. It’s with those overstaying their visas. The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy will soon be upon us. 18 of its 19 perpetrators had overstayed their visas. Ten years later, we still don’t have a handle on overstayed visas as I reported in an earlier post. But then, who the hell cares? Certainly not the Obama administration.

The kidnapping of a nation

Many are doubtless giving a sigh of relief at the apparent compromise in DC, resulting in the lifting of the deficit ceiling and avoidance of the first-time ever debacle of a U. S. unable to honor its debts. The terms of this deal, however, may turn out worse than insolvency, the cure worse than the disease.

1. Who are the winners?

Clearly this is a victory for the Tea Party wing of the Republican party, with its insistence on a balanced budget, meaning spending cuts, and no increase in taxes. While they had also resisted raising the deficit ceiling, it represents their only instance of compromise.

2. Who are the losers?

President Obama: Americans may not perceive it this way, but it's the President, who blinked, despite initially insisting on a package that would raise taxes for those earning more than $250,000 a year. We should have gotten wind of this pattern when at the end of 2010 he caved in to Tea Party demands of not raising tax revenue in exchange for extending unemployment compensation.

Democrats: This agreement curtails the New Deal/Great Society mandates foundational to the Party's outreach to the indigent, working poor, and middle class. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, social mainstays for many, will see cuts, even as inflation increases and medical costs escalate. Cuts will affect our National Parks, environmental safeguards, education, etc. The costs in lost revenue to the States is yet to be reckoned in. As Steven Cohen, Director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, has it: "All of President Obama's brainpower, charisma and speaking skills have not translated into clear, crisp, leadership. Instead, I see just another calculating, poll-driven politico. His re-election campaign dominates his Presidency." Huffington Post Politics, Aug.1, 2011.

Republicans: The GOP will be the primary recipient of public rage in the 2012 elections for their subservience to their Tea Party wing. Ironically, the GOP faces a high probability of the Tea Party running as a third party in 2012, should Republicans nominate a more moderate conservative such as Romney.

The average American: Ironically, our down economy, now into its third year, requires more cash infusion, not less, as a temporary means to stimulating the market place. Had the present legislation been in effect at the outset of the Great Recession in 2008, a hand-cuffed president would not have been able to bail out Chrysler and General Motors, for example. Three years later, these companies have paid back their loans and added 150,000 workers. Making spending cuts are likely to put out whatever blue embers there are, plunging us this time into world depression on a scale paralleling the 1930s.

3. Are there other consequences?

The worst is yet to come. As you're probably aware, this agreement calls for a Super Committee composed of six Republicans and six Democrats to suggest further budget areas for cutting. If the Committee stalemates or the Congress balks, automatic cuts will ensue. Not only will entitlement programs be targeted as major areas for cutting, but the Defense Department as well, potentially hazarding our national security. What we lose is our flexibility to respond to crisis, whether economic or military.

This imbroglio hasn't really been about cutting spending. It's been ideological, a small core of die-hard conservatives operating as an insurgency to overthrow big government. Holding our country hostage, they have been quite willing to shove Americans over the cliff unless their ransom gets paid.

A letter to Congress

The other night, President Obama asked Americans to contact their reps in Congress and urge them to pass a responsible deficit cutting bill. Many of you did that, resulting in a mammoth switchboard overload. My wife resorted to email, writing the following message:

Senator McConnell,

Please, please, please use your unparalleled power to limit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., in the proposed budget. It is utter nonsense that we of the middle class get trampled on every time there is a financial crisis in this country.

My husband (retired) and I (close to retirement) have worked hard and, as millions of others in our tax bracket, deserve some consideration here. The GOP, mainly that damned Tea Party faction, is more than likely forcing us to look outside this once great nation for more comfortable living. Funny--I love my country; it's getting so I just can't afford it.

Please help put a stop to this foolishness. If our government fails in this crisis, we will have lost all hope.

The psychology behind Obama's decision making

It's Monday and a new day begins for troubled markets as party chiefs once again try to resolve the deficit impasse that threatens a financial meltdown with global implications. Nevertheless, I remain optimistic that cooler heads will prevail and a deal will be struck, though perhaps to no one's liking. Whatever we do, it's probable our credit rating will drop from triple to double A, resulting in higher borrowing interest for everybody.

In this post, however, my focus is on the psychological dynamics at work in our President's seeming inability to provide firm, creative, leadership across the board. Quite frankly, he lacks leadership spunk, the resourcefulness of occasionally putting up his dukes, or more bluntly, becoming a just plain son-of-a-bitch, Harry Truman style if you will. Mind you, we're in a war, economically speaking, with high stakes. We can't afford taking the wrong options. As on a real battlefield, leaders must develop a strategy and prove decisive in its execution. Our president, however, a kind man, lacks the killing instinct to get the job done. It's never a straight path for him. He'd rather waddle. In my previous post, I spoke loud and clear on the President's tendency to put up the white flag prematurely, undermining his promises, and in the process, giving strength to the opposition, who increasingly perceive him as vulnerable.

Why is he this way? With the increasing advances in neurobiology comes a possible answer. Medical researchers can now map and measure the brain's capacity to respond to our emotions. Frankly, some of us are wired to be hot, or emotionally sensitive; conversely, there are the cold types, or those said to have "ice in their veins." I suspect good relief pitchers in baseball belong to this tribe. The worst of the cold types, of course, are the sociopaths, who can shoot 76 teens in a Norwegian camp and argue afterwards how it was necessary. Neurology has grown so advanced that we can even detect who the sociopaths are.

In the realm of finance, an offshoot of neurology has been the development of neuroeconomics, or the study of the cognitive processes at work behind financial decision-making. Let's take a case scenario: Investors in Wall Street who consistently earn little tend to be markedly conservative, with little appetite for risk. A few losses and they quickly panic. Often they'll opt for investing in bonds rather than equities, even though over a sustained period, and despite market downturns, the latter out perform bonds. This conservatism, rampant among the hot types, has given rise to what's known as "myopic loss aversion." As British psychologist Kevin Dutton remarks, "Emotion, it would seem, is so oriented toward risk aversion that even when the benefits outweigh the losses it henpecks our brains into erring on the side of caution" (Split Second Persuasion, 20011, p. 208).

Our president, surely one of the more cautious and feeling presidents we've known, unfortunately mirrors the hot-wired grouping of those undermined by an excessive capacity for empathy. He can see, or better, feel both sides. The result: consensus or compromise, whittling down previous commitment.

In the business model, you may not like it, but the ruthless prove the most successful entrepreneurs, whether Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. In his now classic studies, Harvard's Stanley Rachman studied bomb disposal experts with 10-years or more experience, specifically those decorated and undecorated. What separates the great ones from the merely good? Rachman made a startling find: the heart rate of the undecorated remained stable, even though subject to high stress. However, here's the thumper, the heart rate of the decorated proved unstable. It went down!

Rachman discovered something else: not only did successful risk-taking have a physiological basis, but something additional was in the mix--confidence (Stanley Rachman, "Fear and Courage: A Psychological Perspective," Social Research 71(1) (2004),14976).

Obama is fond of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps intuitively in seeking a mentor of what he would like in himself. While we obviously aren't able to map Lincoln's brain via an fMRI, we can presume he had the necessary prerequisite of confidence to make the crucial, hard decisions necessary to preserving the Union, whether in opposing the expansion of slavery, declaring war, changing generals, or issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. In the previous century, three presidents again demonstrated this confidence factor, the Roosevelts, and Ronald Reagan. Regardless of your politics, they inspired a nation with their own confidence and took us from the dark places into the light.

Unfortuately, Obama, a hot type, isn't wired this way. In truth, he's more Carteresque than vintage Lincoln. Compassion and equity surely have a place, but not when their offspring is paralysis.

Keeping the faith

In a recent riveting analysis of decision making by President Obama, Praising the Hostage Takers, liberal Paul Leob painfully laments the President’s overweening zeal for compromise.  

Will Obama ever hold the Republicans accountable for their reckless and destructive actions? No matter how outrageous their demands, he keeps giving them legitimacy, first resisting, then compromising, then praising the result as bipartisanship. He's forgotten the basic lesson of negotiation -- you don't hand everything over before you start, particularly to people who have utter contempt for your values and goals. He's also forgotten the importance of fighting for your principles, so people have a reason to support you.

As I write, top brass from both parties are scrambling to come up with something feasible by Monday morning.  Ultimately, the parties will strike an agreement on easing the deficit crisis, though it’s likely to be bad news for most of us, with options for changing the cost-of living formula for social security, applying a means test to both, and eliminating the mortgage deduction among those on the table.  Meanwhile, no tax increase on incomes above $250, 000.  It’s no secret there’s been a massive transfer of wealth going on to the upper class for some time, ultimately creating something like what you have in South America: you’re basically poor or well off.  The upcoming scenario simply expedites that trend.


In my own case, a retired prof with a still working spouse, my own income from social security and a retirement annuity invested in over the years has been declining even as inflation heats up and Medicare premiums and deductibles soar.  Meanwhile, I’ve not received any cost-of-living payout in social security due to inflation in the last two years. That doesn’t stop the Feds from taxing my social security heavily, as they count my wife’s income as total family income.  It’s worse for others.

The scandal is that fifty percent of Americans pay no tax at all.  Family size, mortgage exemptions, low wages, etc., contribute to this scenario.  Unlike South America, in our country, the poor get attended to and the wealthy get their loopholes.  Wall Street and the banks get their bailouts.  You and I, the middle class, we’re the pack mules

But I want to get back to Obama.  In campaigning for the presidency, he posed as the people’s protector.  On the other hand, he hasn’t walked the talk since getting elected. Loeb, gives us a disturbing litany of what the President has “compromised” away:

Obama's almost pathological devotion to compromise started early in his presidency. Republicans and a handful of corporate-funded Democrats used the Senate filibuster to block action on issue after critical issue. Instead of calling them to account and marshalling public pressure against them, Obama responded as if their intransigence was reasonable, giving them instant political cover. He did this on health care, financial regulation, and attempts to pass a sufficiently large economic stimulus. On climate change, he tried to prove his reasonableness by allowing offshore oil drilling (just before the BP oil disaster) while securing not a single vote in return. Republican Lindsay Graham was planning to offer precisely this enticement to convince borderline Senators to support at least some price on carbon, and said Obama effectively killed the bill by leaving him with nothing to offer people Obama similarly refused to take a firm stand on ending the Bush tax cuts, which he could have simply let expire. He's now retreating on the debt ceiling battle, saying he might have to sign off on a deal that cuts spending now a the vague promise of reforming taxes later.

Anything to get the deficit ceiling raised:  erosion of social security, betrayal of the environment, continuation of the Bush tax cuts, perpetuation of corporate loopholes, et cetera ad infinitem! Obama might take a lesson from Ronald Reagan, who raised the deficit several times during his presidency.  Up against it on several occasions, the Great Communicator would take his case to the American people.  And he always won.

Mr. President, call the Tea Party bluff.  No deficit agreement?  So be it! We’ll get through, but the Tea Party won’t.

Mr. President, if nothing else, exercise your Constitution option.  Raise the deficit!  Pay the bills!

We don’t need a Chamberlain buying peace for now, mindless of tomorrow. You don’t betray the American people to placate the opposition.

You want to be liked?  I tell you this: Keep your promises and to paraphrase Carole King, “they’ll come running.”