This piece, Obama’s Hostage Deal, by Paul Krugman shows that after the initial outrage even Krugman is getting weak in the knees.
Well, concerns about the tax deal reflect realism, not purism: Mr. Obama is setting up another hostage situation a year down the road. And given that fact, the last thing we need is the kind of self-indulgent behavior he showed by lashing out at progressives who he feels aren’t giving him enough credit.
Tax cuts for the wealthy are not just bad policy, these tax cuts may be lethal policy.
Obama should be recognizing that the growing disparity between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us will lead to the further decline of this country. Anything that furthers this disparity, such as the tax cuts for the wealthy, just promotes an eventual collapse. Obama promised us in the campaign that he would not let that happen. I could read his lips when he said it.
The end of the era of US supremacy is hastened by these misguided policies. Rather than an orderly transition into the era of Chinese supremacy, Obama may be promoting a chaotic transition. Forget about maintaining our status. That train has already left the station.
By talking only about the bad situation Obama might be creating in the future, Krugman doesn’t make the strongest case against what Obama has already done. If Obama had not set a pattern of letting the opposition establish the ground rules before he comes on the field, he wouldn’t have been faced with the bad set of options he faced.
I know we should have been warning Obama more loudly all along that we would hold him accountable if his behavior screwed up the situation. (Many people have been saying this, but some of us come to this realization too late.) We have to draw the line somewhere even if it is a bit late. If we wait until the next opportunity, then we will lose that one too. It is our responsibility as citizens to hold Obama accountable for the mess he has gotten himself into. We must let him know that we will continue to hold him responsible.
Obama was talking for months about his confidence that he could get compromise from Republicans while they were saying as loudly as they could that there would be no compromise. Instead, he should have been talking about the bad consequences for the Republicans if they continued to obstruct progress. By not letting Obama know that there would be bad consequences for his caving in, we have made the same mistake with Obama that he has made with the Republicans.
I believe that the evidence shows that Keynesian style stimulus can get the economy going again. I also recognize that their is a risk associated with Keynesian stimulus. The less reserve you build up (let alone a huge debt) during boom times, the more risk you run of default and collapse during the down times. By establishing the principle that taxes should be cut and never raised, Obama is giving himself no room to build that reserve that he must build when the economy recovers.
We might have barely gotten away with this, this time. (Bush built a large debt in boom time, which made stimulus more risky to try during the recession.) However, if you set the stage for not taking the proper actions during the following boom, then you are signing the death warrant for our country’s economy. There are a limited number of times we can play this dangerous game before we lose.(Think Russian roulette.)
When I voted for Barack Obama, I thought he had the foresight to recognize this. His current actions seem to show that his vision is much shorter range than I imagined. Moreover, if he cannot see that his Social Security payroll tax holiday is the Republican’s trap to kill off Social Security, then this is just another example that he just isn’t doing the strategic thinking that he should be doing.
Sanders Filibuster: Part 1