BELEAGUERED Barack Obama came out swinging in his State of the Union address this week. The President reverted to his winning campaign gambit of running as an outsider against the bad old ways of Washington, while adding a healthy dose of populism. After the "Massachusetts massacre" loss of the Kennedys' Senate seat, and voters' stunning indictment of his first year in office, Obama had few other options.
The voters' complaints are clear. You bailed out Wall Street and ran up trillions in public debt. You have wasted a year on healthcare reform we don't want. But you let unemployment climb into the double digits, and a quarter of us owe more on our homes than they're worth. Do something!
Obama heard this message loud and clear. With his party's fate in November's congressional elections hinging on employment numbers he can't control, Obama's best hope is using his new change-you-can-believe-in populism to shape perceptions of him and his agenda. But there are three ways it could founder.
First, running for office as an outsider is easy; governing as an outsider is much harder. For much of the country and the world, the President is Washington. Obama admires Ronald Reagan because he was able to pull it off. The great communicator was able to brush off his early stumbles with a winning mixture of folksy charm, down-home bravado and ideological commitment that won over many Democrats. Obama has less time for Bill Clinton because the "comeback kid" came back by tacking squarely to the centre after the carnage of the 1994 congressional elections.
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Today Obama's problem is that he seems to be losing the very voters Reagan won over and Clinton's bowed down to. Centrist Democrats in congress are scared stiff of supporting Obama on issues as diverse as healthcare, finance, and climate change because they fear it may cost them their seats.
Obama's first task is to convince them that supporting his newfound populism will have the opposite effect. But this is Obama's second problem. He just isn't a natural populist. Populism is inherently anti-elitist. Obama's Harvard and Chicago law school pedigree, his aversion to tub thumping, his preference for deliberation, and his faith in the power of reason and knowledge, all conspire against the credibility of his populism. That Obama was able to make his urbane outsiderism a winning formula in 2008 was remarkable. Repeating the feat in office as Middle America's champion is much harder.
But the third and biggest problem with all populism, Obama's included, is that it is much easier to say what you are against than what you are for and how you will get there. Implausible contradictions seem to be the order of the day.
Obama wants to rein in healthcare costs, but he seems willing to accept a reform package that does very little to contain costs. He wants to freeze government spending, but not until he spends a lot more this year to create jobs and build infrastructure.He is committed to winning in Afghanistan, but he will pull out in 2011 come what may.
Governing may be the art of convincing voters that what seem contradictions are, in fact, the path to the promised land. This is his task ahead.
Obama's plan combines what won him office, running against Washington, with what the tenor of the times is calling for, economic populism. Now he must hope that congress buys in, that his jobs agenda works, and that American voters are once again convinced to buy in, too. It has a chance. But no one should bet the farm on it just yet.
Professor Geoffrey Garrett is chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
Source:theaustralian.com.au/
Showing posts with label OSU Reaction to President. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OSU Reaction to President. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The State of Obama
In the wake of the Massachusetts results, there was a lot of chatter among conservative pundits about whether Barack Obama was even capable of executing a strong pivot to the center. Jay Cost was uncertain, Jim Geraghty was skeptical — and Jonathan Last, provocatively, argued that Obama was as likely to prove as stubborn about course corrections as George W. Bush.
For my part, I figured that a pivot to the center was the plan all along — or at least, that it became the plan once Obama’s poll numbers started to sag, and the chances of steamrolling the whole Democratic agenda through Congress in his first two years evaporated. As soon as health care passed, securing his legacy as the true heir of L.B.J. and F.D.R., I assumed that Obama would start channeling the post-1994 Bill Clinton, and spend the run-up to the 2010 midterms talking round-the-clock about jobs, the deficit, and the middle class. And I assumed that he’d be good at it. Not Clinton good, maybe, but impressive all the same. He’s too much of a pragmatist, in the end, and too savvy a politician not to be able to execute a centrist turn when the situation seems to call for it.
But this pivot, if that’s what the White House planned, was contingent on a health care victory. Instead, the legislation has entered a weird political limbo, and taken Obama’s presidency into limbo with it.
That was certainly the impression left by tonight’s State of the Union, which struck me as the speech of a President who doesn’t know what narrative he’s selling. The eloquence was there, but the tone veered wildly — now self-critical, now self-justifying; now scolding, now conciliatory — and so did the substance. At times Obama channeled Clinton, promising to slash the deficit, touting his tax cuts, and floating small-bore, middle class-friendly policy proposals: Child care tax credits, student loan reforms, etc. At times he gave us a taste of what a McCain administration would have been like, pledging spending freezes, championing nuclear power, and bashing earmarks. Then he went populist on the banks, and played the economic nationalist on exports and energy — and, if you listened closely, on campaign finance as well. And large swathes of speech struck exactly the same notes (“don’t blame us, blame Bush” chief among them) that the White House has been striking all year, to diminishing returns.
As for health care — well, I’m still not sure what to make of the health care section, which seemed too tepid if the White House is still hoping to pass the legislation as it is, and too combative if they want to explore a smaller and more bipartisan bill. Yesterday Ezra Klein suggested that the White House has acted confused and uncertain on health care because it is confused and uncertain. That was exactly the sense tonight’s speech left me with — and presidential uncertainty can’t be a good thing for the legislation’s prospects.
I don’t mean to be too hard on the president: All State of the Unions tend to sprawl, and some of the tonal and substantive dissonances I’m picking up on here are inevitable in a big, detailed, cover-the-waterfront kind of address. But if there was ever a night to tighten things up, to narrow the focus, and to figure out a few big things you want to stay and a couple of big impressions you want to leave, then this was it. I came into the S.O.U. with two major questions: How is the administration going to handle health care in the wake of Massachusetts, and what kind of leader is Obama going to become if he has to govern amid a Republican resurgence? The President said a lot of things tonight, but he didn’t really answer either one of them.
Source:douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/
For my part, I figured that a pivot to the center was the plan all along — or at least, that it became the plan once Obama’s poll numbers started to sag, and the chances of steamrolling the whole Democratic agenda through Congress in his first two years evaporated. As soon as health care passed, securing his legacy as the true heir of L.B.J. and F.D.R., I assumed that Obama would start channeling the post-1994 Bill Clinton, and spend the run-up to the 2010 midterms talking round-the-clock about jobs, the deficit, and the middle class. And I assumed that he’d be good at it. Not Clinton good, maybe, but impressive all the same. He’s too much of a pragmatist, in the end, and too savvy a politician not to be able to execute a centrist turn when the situation seems to call for it.
But this pivot, if that’s what the White House planned, was contingent on a health care victory. Instead, the legislation has entered a weird political limbo, and taken Obama’s presidency into limbo with it.
That was certainly the impression left by tonight’s State of the Union, which struck me as the speech of a President who doesn’t know what narrative he’s selling. The eloquence was there, but the tone veered wildly — now self-critical, now self-justifying; now scolding, now conciliatory — and so did the substance. At times Obama channeled Clinton, promising to slash the deficit, touting his tax cuts, and floating small-bore, middle class-friendly policy proposals: Child care tax credits, student loan reforms, etc. At times he gave us a taste of what a McCain administration would have been like, pledging spending freezes, championing nuclear power, and bashing earmarks. Then he went populist on the banks, and played the economic nationalist on exports and energy — and, if you listened closely, on campaign finance as well. And large swathes of speech struck exactly the same notes (“don’t blame us, blame Bush” chief among them) that the White House has been striking all year, to diminishing returns.
As for health care — well, I’m still not sure what to make of the health care section, which seemed too tepid if the White House is still hoping to pass the legislation as it is, and too combative if they want to explore a smaller and more bipartisan bill. Yesterday Ezra Klein suggested that the White House has acted confused and uncertain on health care because it is confused and uncertain. That was exactly the sense tonight’s speech left me with — and presidential uncertainty can’t be a good thing for the legislation’s prospects.
I don’t mean to be too hard on the president: All State of the Unions tend to sprawl, and some of the tonal and substantive dissonances I’m picking up on here are inevitable in a big, detailed, cover-the-waterfront kind of address. But if there was ever a night to tighten things up, to narrow the focus, and to figure out a few big things you want to stay and a couple of big impressions you want to leave, then this was it. I came into the S.O.U. with two major questions: How is the administration going to handle health care in the wake of Massachusetts, and what kind of leader is Obama going to become if he has to govern amid a Republican resurgence? The President said a lot of things tonight, but he didn’t really answer either one of them.
Source:douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/
Obama defines the problems, comes up short on solutions
It's his further misfortune that the public appears to be demanding things that are beyond any president's control — namely a swift end to an economic slump created by years of irresponsibility and less of the massive spending that is, for now, helping to keep things from getting worse.
But that is the nature of the office, and while Obama's State of the Union address Wednesday did a fine job of defining the problems America is facing, convincing solutions seemed to elude him.
To be sure, he cited plenty of plans and made plenty of legitimate claims to success in the past year, nearly all of which have been overshadowed in recent months by his all-consuming focus on health care. He also correctly analyzed the core difficulty — "a Washington where every day is election day," a point scoring contest where solving problems is secondary to political gain and ideological rigidity blocks pragmatic solutions. He made clear that he is going to stay on the course that got him elected president, including pressing for his stalled but worthwhile health care plan.
But there was little indication of what he would do differently to achieve what so far has proved impossible. If he could not change the way Washington works and curb the influence of lobbyists in his first year in office, when he was riding a crest of popularity, it's questionable whether he can do so in his second, amid sagging polls.
Adding to the president's problems is that the impatient national audience seems almost impossible to please. People want cheaper, more affordable medical insurance coverage, but not the tradeoffs that would make that possible. They want jobs, but they're wildly critical of government spending and big deficits.
In a welcome shift, Obama signaled he would begin taking those enormous deficits more seriously, but his proposal to freeze spending lacked coherence. He exempted entitlements, the Pentagon and homeland security, which are hardly immune from wasteful spending. At the same time, he urged passage of a new jobs bill and an array of modest middle-class initiatives, such as lowering student loan payments and expanding the child-care tax credit. (Does everyone in Washington think voters are too dumb to recognize that tax credits are just another form of spending?)
Members of Congress from both parties applauded Obama's calls for fiscal responsibility, but there's been no serious push for deficit reduction there since the 1990s. The Senate couldn't even pass a face-saving bill Tuesday to create a commission to do the job. Like 3-year-olds holding their breath so they don't have to swallow bad-tasting medicine, Republicans insisted they'd vote no unless the panel were barred from considering tax increases, while some Democrats demanded that Social Security be taken off the table.
The true state of the union — and particularly its Congress — is that it is utterly unwilling to come together to make the tough choices that are, in the end, unavoidable.
Only presidents can break that sort of gridlock, and then only when they have overwhelming public support that they can use to pressure Congress.
Obama's speech appeared to be an opening bid to regain that appeal. He heads to Florida today, in full campaign mode, to continue his pitch.
The question is whether he can recapture the disaffected independents who elected him, or whether the thrill is gone for good.
Source:blogs.usatoday.com/
Obama will invest billions in high-speed rail projects
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's State of the Union shout-out for high-speed rail will pump more than $8 billion into dozens of states that include California, Washington, North Carolina and Florida.
Smaller awards also will be made for improvements to existing rail lines. Overall, 31 states will receive funding.
California is one of the big winners, receiving $2.25 billion to help build a high-speed rail system, as well as additional money for other rail projects.
The grants include $1.1 billion for a Chicago-to-St. Louis corridor, $1.25 billion for a Tampa-to-Orlando, Fla., corridor, $244 million for a Chicago-to-Detroit corridor and $810 million for work between Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee. In Ohio, $400 million will pay for work between Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Washington and North Carolina are getting roughly half a billion dollars each, and Florida will hear its good news directly from Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday.
"When the president and vice president show up to make a joint funding announcement, it's a significant announcement," Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
Castor, who'll be flying to Florida with Obama on Air Force One, said White House senior political adviser David Axelrod had advised her that the president's appearance at the University of Tampa would include the delivery of high-speed rail money.
All told, 13 major corridors will receive awards Thursday to help develop new high-speed rail infrastructure or to begin a transition to high-speed rail.
North Carolina, for instance, is receiving $520 million for the Raleigh-to-Charlotte corridor. This will be used for track improvements so that trains can travel at up to 90 mph. The money also will pay for station improvements.
Washington state is receiving $590 million to help eliminate bottlenecks in a corridor that connects Portland, Ore., with Seattle. Because of concerns over safety and freight traffic, the trains currently are limited to 79 mph.
"Anybody who travels the I-5 corridor in our state knows that we need to find new, efficient options to get commuters and commerce moving," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "This funding is the opportunity we've been waiting for to help make these improvements a reality."
Murray, the chairman of the Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee, learned of the funding Wednesday in a phone call from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
California has studied high-speed rail service along four corridors: Los Angeles to Anaheim, Fresno to Bakersfield, Fresno to Merced and San Francisco to San Jose. In addition to the $2.25 billion, the state will receive $99 million for smaller corridors served by conventional trains.
The White House announcement didn't specify where the money must be spent among the California corridors, nor was it immediately apparent how that decision will be made.
"California is far ahead of any other rail corridor in the country," said Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of California, a high-speed rail advocate who spoke to LaHood on Wednesday.
Transportation Department officials were scrambling to organize a California news conference, Costa said.
California had sought roughly $4.7 billion - more than half the amount available nationwide - to help connect Los Angeles and San Francisco with 220 mph trains. State officials never expected to get the full amount.
"Any amount of funding that we get from the stimulus act is a benefit to California and its high-speed rail system," said Jeff Barker, a spokesman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
All told, 24 states submitted 45 corridor applications for high-speed rail funding, which was included as part of a $787 billion economic stimulus package that was approved last February.
Transportation Department officials have said that the funding decisions will be "merit-based." Even so, lawmakers have been pressing hard for their preferred routes.
Les Blumenthal and Barbara Barrett in Washington and E.J. Schultz of The Fresno Bee's Sacramento bureau contributed to this article.)
Source:miamiherald.com/
Smaller awards also will be made for improvements to existing rail lines. Overall, 31 states will receive funding.
California is one of the big winners, receiving $2.25 billion to help build a high-speed rail system, as well as additional money for other rail projects.
The grants include $1.1 billion for a Chicago-to-St. Louis corridor, $1.25 billion for a Tampa-to-Orlando, Fla., corridor, $244 million for a Chicago-to-Detroit corridor and $810 million for work between Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee. In Ohio, $400 million will pay for work between Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Washington and North Carolina are getting roughly half a billion dollars each, and Florida will hear its good news directly from Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday.
"When the president and vice president show up to make a joint funding announcement, it's a significant announcement," Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
Castor, who'll be flying to Florida with Obama on Air Force One, said White House senior political adviser David Axelrod had advised her that the president's appearance at the University of Tampa would include the delivery of high-speed rail money.
All told, 13 major corridors will receive awards Thursday to help develop new high-speed rail infrastructure or to begin a transition to high-speed rail.
North Carolina, for instance, is receiving $520 million for the Raleigh-to-Charlotte corridor. This will be used for track improvements so that trains can travel at up to 90 mph. The money also will pay for station improvements.
Washington state is receiving $590 million to help eliminate bottlenecks in a corridor that connects Portland, Ore., with Seattle. Because of concerns over safety and freight traffic, the trains currently are limited to 79 mph.
"Anybody who travels the I-5 corridor in our state knows that we need to find new, efficient options to get commuters and commerce moving," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "This funding is the opportunity we've been waiting for to help make these improvements a reality."
Murray, the chairman of the Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee, learned of the funding Wednesday in a phone call from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
California has studied high-speed rail service along four corridors: Los Angeles to Anaheim, Fresno to Bakersfield, Fresno to Merced and San Francisco to San Jose. In addition to the $2.25 billion, the state will receive $99 million for smaller corridors served by conventional trains.
The White House announcement didn't specify where the money must be spent among the California corridors, nor was it immediately apparent how that decision will be made.
"California is far ahead of any other rail corridor in the country," said Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of California, a high-speed rail advocate who spoke to LaHood on Wednesday.
Transportation Department officials were scrambling to organize a California news conference, Costa said.
California had sought roughly $4.7 billion - more than half the amount available nationwide - to help connect Los Angeles and San Francisco with 220 mph trains. State officials never expected to get the full amount.
"Any amount of funding that we get from the stimulus act is a benefit to California and its high-speed rail system," said Jeff Barker, a spokesman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
All told, 24 states submitted 45 corridor applications for high-speed rail funding, which was included as part of a $787 billion economic stimulus package that was approved last February.
Transportation Department officials have said that the funding decisions will be "merit-based." Even so, lawmakers have been pressing hard for their preferred routes.
Les Blumenthal and Barbara Barrett in Washington and E.J. Schultz of The Fresno Bee's Sacramento bureau contributed to this article.)
Source:miamiherald.com/
Reaction to President Obama's State of the Union speech
If the administration is serious about creating jobs and getting the deficit under control, it needs to abandon higher taxes. Increasing taxes removes capital from our nation’s job creators and is especially harmful to small businesses.”
Rep. Sam Graves, Republican
“Somewhere along the line, the White House lost its way. Instead of focusing on solutions to help America’s families wade through the wreckage of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, Washington has wasted valuable time wrestling with partisan politics in an effort to rush through drastic reforms that do not directly address our most immediate needs …. The president’s address has lent us all hope — hope that the administration is finally heeding our concerns. It’s about time.”
Rep. Ike Skelton, Democrat
“He extended a hand to Congress, including those in the Republican Party, to work with him on reaching these goals, and it’s obvious that is what Americans want to see in Washington. I hope those in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, take that seriously in the coming months.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Democrat
“I thought it was a good speech. I think he was trying to get back to his commitment to a bipartisan administration by slapping Democrats around by not acting like they’re in the majority, and he slapped Republicans around by saying you can’t just sit there and say ‘no.’ I thought that was smart and accurate, and he led us to believe he has not abandoned health reform. That was the biggest cheer he received from our side.”
“I want less talk, more action. Over the last year the president swerved off course with big government, budget-busting policies. After tonight’s speech I’m not convinced the president recognizes that Americans want sanity brought back to Washington policies … I hope tonight’s spending freeze announcement is a signal the president is serious about making the difficult decisions necessary to tackle the bulk of spending — spiraling entitlements — that threaten to bankrupt our nation.”
KANSAS
“I was glad that he addressed jobs and the deficit. That’s really what the American public wants us to focus on. I have some real disputes with his proposals. I thought he had a good tone, but then he doubled right back around and said, ‘OK, take another look at my health care bill.’ … The American public has rejected that.”
Sen. Sam Brownback, Republican
“I’m very, very disturbed. I think the American people just see way too much partisanship up here. A freeze is certainly a step in the right direction. We can debate whether it’s enough or not. We need to get people back to work and then we need to address the health care situation.”
“I am encouraged by the president’s promises of fiscal responsibility, but his real test is to follow through and convince his own party leaders to put politics aside and put our nation on the right fiscal track …While I did not agree with him on every issue, I agree Americans are struggling and we must reduce the deficit.”
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Republican
“I am pleased the president is concerned with our ever-expanding federal deficit. However, his proposed efforts are a drop in the bucket and inconsistent with the ongoing actions of his party in Congress … The president also must address the recent critical failures of his administration to protect the nation from attempted terrorist attacks. ”
Read more: Reaction to President Obama's State of the Union speech - KansasCity.com
Source:kansascity.com/
Rep. Sam Graves, Republican
“Somewhere along the line, the White House lost its way. Instead of focusing on solutions to help America’s families wade through the wreckage of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, Washington has wasted valuable time wrestling with partisan politics in an effort to rush through drastic reforms that do not directly address our most immediate needs …. The president’s address has lent us all hope — hope that the administration is finally heeding our concerns. It’s about time.”
Rep. Ike Skelton, Democrat
“He extended a hand to Congress, including those in the Republican Party, to work with him on reaching these goals, and it’s obvious that is what Americans want to see in Washington. I hope those in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, take that seriously in the coming months.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Democrat
“I thought it was a good speech. I think he was trying to get back to his commitment to a bipartisan administration by slapping Democrats around by not acting like they’re in the majority, and he slapped Republicans around by saying you can’t just sit there and say ‘no.’ I thought that was smart and accurate, and he led us to believe he has not abandoned health reform. That was the biggest cheer he received from our side.”
“I want less talk, more action. Over the last year the president swerved off course with big government, budget-busting policies. After tonight’s speech I’m not convinced the president recognizes that Americans want sanity brought back to Washington policies … I hope tonight’s spending freeze announcement is a signal the president is serious about making the difficult decisions necessary to tackle the bulk of spending — spiraling entitlements — that threaten to bankrupt our nation.”
KANSAS
“I was glad that he addressed jobs and the deficit. That’s really what the American public wants us to focus on. I have some real disputes with his proposals. I thought he had a good tone, but then he doubled right back around and said, ‘OK, take another look at my health care bill.’ … The American public has rejected that.”
Sen. Sam Brownback, Republican
“I’m very, very disturbed. I think the American people just see way too much partisanship up here. A freeze is certainly a step in the right direction. We can debate whether it’s enough or not. We need to get people back to work and then we need to address the health care situation.”
“I am encouraged by the president’s promises of fiscal responsibility, but his real test is to follow through and convince his own party leaders to put politics aside and put our nation on the right fiscal track …While I did not agree with him on every issue, I agree Americans are struggling and we must reduce the deficit.”
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Republican
“I am pleased the president is concerned with our ever-expanding federal deficit. However, his proposed efforts are a drop in the bucket and inconsistent with the ongoing actions of his party in Congress … The president also must address the recent critical failures of his administration to protect the nation from attempted terrorist attacks. ”
Read more: Reaction to President Obama's State of the Union speech - KansasCity.com
Source:kansascity.com/
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