They used to say that Richard Nixon had a “secret plan” in the 1968 presidential campaign to end the Vietnam War. Pres. Barack Obama outdid Nixon with a secret plan to control the deficit.
He kept telling us of all the virtues of his plan. It was balanced, responsible, courageous, and fair. It was just very, very secret.
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Obama favored a $4 trillion “grand bargain” that now looks dead. It allegedly contained $3 trillion in cuts and $1 trillion in new revenues over ten years. But no one could learn with any certainty what the specific new cuts were, or the specific new revenues. They were the great mystery at the heart of the debt-limit debate.
How extraordinary is the spectacle of the president of a country beset with a debt crisis who claims to have a big, game-changing plan to alleviate it — that he keeps all to himself. He’d whisper it in the ear of House Speaker John Boehner behind closed doors in the White House, but the erstwhile champion of transparency didn’t dare make it public.
Why was the president who rode into the White House on a wave of overexposure, who wrote two memoirs and is constantly on TV, so shy and retiring about this one matter? Few things would be more galvanizing in the nation’s budgetary politics than a liberal Democrat breaking ranks on entitlements. It would make possible changes heretofore unthinkable, and partly redeem Obama’s promise of post-partisan government.
Surely the cuts Obama bragged about in the abstract wouldn’t have quite materialized in the particular. If they had, he’d have faced an intra-party revolt. If you’re the president at a time of massive red ink and you want to be an effective leader, you either need to be the head of a party that cares about the debt, or you need to be brave. Obama is neither.
He offered a dead-on-arrival budget this year, then revised it with a gauzy speech impossible for the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate. A few months ago, he demanded that the debt limit be increased with no spending reductions whatsoever. Senate Democrats famously have passed no budget for more than two years. The Democrats are a self-styled governing party that can’t truly govern because their predilections are so unsuited to the new era.
Obama and his team have warned repeatedly during the past few weeks that a failure to increase the debt limit could lead to a disastrous downgrade of our debt by the rating agencies. That’s only half the story. The ratings agencies are warning that failing to do something serious about the underlying debt will itself bring a downgrade. For almost three years, Obama made worse the very problem that will lead to a version of his disaster scenario.
Even if he thought deficit spending was necessary to fight the recession he inherited, he could have simultaneously taken action to address the long-term debt. Instead, he added a couple more unsustainable health-care entitlements. In the cause of fighting for additional government programs, he identified and fought for $500 billion in Medicare cuts. Then he was relatively specific and inarguably bold. Now he has the plan that dare not speak its name.
Appropriately enough, the locus of the negotiations over the debt limit have passed from the White House to Capitol Hill, where House Republicans have produced a plan for matching spending cuts to an increase in the debt limit. It is only their adamantine insistence on beginning to deal with the debt that made Obama’s initial preference for no cuts whatsoever a non-starter. If there are substantial cuts without a tax increase, it will be a tribute to their notorious “inflexibility.”
Of course, the cuts will fall short of the $6 trillion over ten years that Republicans voted for in the Ryan budget. Obama’s specific counter to that budget is . . . nonexistent. On the debt, he’s an expert at letting others lead by default.
Are you having a laugh? I am. The dear leader and his Co. have 'courageously' self-destructed. Thank you very much. A glass of Veuve Clicquot or Tattingers please.
This is spot on. Obama's lack of leadership on this issue extends back before he submitted his budget. He could have embraced the recommendations of his Bowles-Simpson commission, but he instead punted. He could have used the State of the Union address to get the country ready to make some sacrifices, but again punted. He wanted to sail through the annual budget process without having to do anything of substance. He thought the debt ceiling would be increased, pro forma, though he had voted against an increase when he was a Senator. We are facing a long drawn-out crisis and he just wants to punt the issue past the next election. This guy is not a leader.
It is clear he likes the idea of being President but he doesn't like actually having to do the hard work of being President. He clearly likes being the head of his party, but struggles with being the leader of the entire country, when half the people don't buy into the myth that he is a man with a world-class intellect and temperament. He is not used to people not fawning over his every pronouncement.
Obama, Reid, Boehner, Senate Dems, Senate Republicans, House Republicans, House Dems....
They're like a bunch of kids who've found the Halloween Candy stash and have gone on a sugar binge.
The only people acting as "the adult in the room", are the Tea Party, holding some of our Representatives to do what we sent them to do, and take away the candy (and there WILL be a crash after the sugar high ends) Just like all kids who've lost the battle with the adult, they are trying to negotiate to continue the behavior - testing our will.
Only now that there is a fair sized minority in the House will we able to finally enforce our "no".
Oh, and Moody's and S&P should have downgraded our debt years ago. They're no better than our representatives, playing at the "rating game" (all we need is Jim Lange to host).
First they hint only by increased borrowing can we maintain our AAA rating. How? By suckering in more lenders who will never be repaid? Can we say "Ponzi"!
Now they say a proof of a change to our habits and $4 trillion in cuts is required to avoid a downgrade. Talk about coming late to the party! But No one is talking those numbers, regardless of how small and ineffective they are. Yet, in both Obama's and Boehner's speeches last night - they ignored the skunk that the ratings companies threw in the room!
We have an abundance of lack of leadership on this issue, but granted - Obama is the only participant who has yet to show any cards.
"For almost three years, Obama made worse the very problem that will lead to a version of his disaster scenario."
Socialism in a nutshell. Create the problems that socialism is supposed to address, to precipitate the necessity for government action.
While Rahm Emanuel was quite revealing about not wasting crises, we musn't forget that socialists rarely waste an opportunity to CREATE a good crisis to exploit.
I hope it's clear to the GOP that this IS NOT 1996. And Obama's not in Kansas anymore, either.
The amount of times I find myself saying, "How can anybody support Obama, Pelosi, Reid? The facts of why it should be impossible are right there, in front of their nose," has gone from daily to multiple times per day.
Worthless leader Obama is a COWARD. We need to ridicule him as such, in the Saul Alinsky tradition. He has not presented a detailed deficit reduction plan because he does not have the guts to defend one.
"The amount of times I find myself saying, "How can anybody support Obama, Pelosi, Reid? The facts of why it should be impossible are right there, in front of their nose," has gone from daily to multiple times per day."
So true. But you have to understand that people actually BELIEVE the nonsense they spout. Think of similar posters here on the boards--you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. They deny their thirst because they truly believe they are not thirsty.
Obama is ever the "con man" on this critical issue as on everything else. Yet, I saw a poll yesterday that said that 45% of Americans think Obama is doing a good job as President. Scary! A large part of the voting population hasn't a clue as to what is happening to this country.
Hello everyone - He's not a leader, he's a follower, or even less. Remember how many times he voted present in Illinois? That's a very broad hint about his lack of leadership.
Hi Rich, in reading your post, i flashed onto the ferocious screen of the supposed Wizard of Oz, with the instruction, "Pay NO attention to the little man behind the curtain..." THANK you for a much needed and reflective laugh.
"For almost three years, Obama made worse the very problem that will lead to a version of his disaster scenario."
Obama has only himself to blame for this situation. If he hadn't decided to take the whole world on his shoulders, and break onto the scene like a super-man, and start the insane spending spree, 2010 would have come and gone like a whimper. But the people reacted and they wanted the madness stopped. That is why we are in this predicament. There would be no discussion of a debt ceiling if Obama hadn't let his ego get the best of him and think he could do what ever he wanted in D.C., like he was conditioned to think in Chicago.
The worst part of progressives is they don't have a plan on where they want to progress, just as long as they aren't doing anything like their parents did or have to accept the meta-narratives.
This calls to mind Nancy Pelosi's famous line, which she delivered with a straight face: "We have to pass this bill so that we can find out what's in it."
Like Nanny Pelosi everything they do turns out to be a suprise even to them. The President's plan cannot be made public because of three possible reasons
a. no one has a need to know.
b. Its so secret that even the President doesn't know what it is or
c he is too much of a security risk so he would have to shoot a hair off his head if the follicle knew about it.
Would it surprise anyone here to realize Obama believed in his stimulus and when it failed- he had no Plan B. Or to double down [if that pesky 2010 wipeout hadn't happened.]
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