With reports that President Obama has put cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the bargaining table just to get concessions on some tax loopholes, it has become a time for action.

I have commented on one of Paul Krugman’s articles The Obama-Keynes Mystery that leading like-minded economists must demand an emergency meeting with the president.

There is wonderment in the community of economists on how President Obama can be going down the economic path he is choosing in the face of all the evidence against taking that path.  They wonder if he even understand Keynes’ insights on how the economy works on a national and international scale.

First, the economic delegation must insist that the President explain his economic philosophy.  They need to ask pointed questions.  Does the President think there can be a self-sustaining recovery with the current way wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few?  Does he really believe that the only way to stimulate job growth is by giving incentives to the wealthy and corporations despite the fact that there is insufficient demand for the goods that these investments would produce?  Does he have any understanding of why there is unlikely to be enough demand even if he managed to get the country back to work?  In this case, as soon as the government scales back it stimulus, the economy will fall back into recession.  We cannot afford a never ending government stimulus package.  He needs to get the job done as efficiently as possible, as lastingly as possible, and then withdraw from government stimulus.  Just as in war, decisive victory is not accomplished by starting with too few resources and slowly building up.

The President needs to explain his understanding devoid of political considerations.  If they can get him to first understand how the economy works, then they can get down to figuring out how to make fixing the economy happen, given the present state of politics.

Any of President Obama’s current supporters or people who think they might support his re-election in 2012 need to get behind this call for an intervention.  This is the only way we will save his presidency for him.  Without this intervention, it makes no difference how loyal you are to Obama, he has a serious chance of being thrown out of office if his budget compromise turns out to be as horrible as we are beginning to suspect.

In his bid to become President, his campaign wisely figured out the only strategy that could lead to victory and then they figured out the tactics to make it happen.  They realized there were less bold strategies, but they new they would not lead to success. Where is that version of Obama now?