President Obama seems full of double talk these days, all smoke and mirrors, as Angelina Jolie reportedly has described him. (I’m loathe to borrow words from a celebrity but it is a spot on assessment.) Listening to the president’s comments lately, one would think the Republicans were in the governing majority over the past year and it was their fault the president couldn’t push through his costly, government expansion agenda.
This is of course despite the reality that last year, the Democrats had solid majorities in both the House and Senate. Now that Obama is not delivering on his promises he’s blaming everything on “the previous administration and the previous Congresses” and the $1.3 trillion debt he inherited. But neither President Bush nor congressional Republicans were in charge last year. Let’s review:
- President Obama got Congress to pass the $787 billion stimulus and promised it would create 3.5 million jobs and unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8%. Neither happened: unemployment surged to 10% and a mere 600,000 jobs may have been created.
- The president promised the Making Home Affordable program would help 4 million borrows avoid foreclosure. It has maybe helped 110,000 homeowners since February 2009.
- Banks received billions in bailout money. In return, they have hoarded cash, reduced consumer lending and reward themselves by paying employees $145 billion in 2009, about 18% more than 2008.
- Obama promised to pass a $1 trillion healthcare reform bill. He had about 12 months and solid Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. It didn’t happen.
The president promised he would bring “change to Washington that people could believe in.” Didn’t happen; instead he brought an extreme liberal ideologue agenda to Washington.
Now that the president’s agenda is in tatters, and Democrats no longer have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate thanks to Scott Brown, the president wants to “work with Republicans” to get the country back on track. Until Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, neither the president nor Democratic congressmen showed any interest in working with the Republicans on anything, specifically healthcare reform. As polls showed mounting disapproval from Americans for the healthcare reform bill, Democrats and the president became even more resolute in passing it.
But now, the Democrats’ solid majority has been cracked by Brown’s win, even Democrats are backing off their “we’re in charge and can do whatever we want” attitude. This probably has something to do with 58% of Americans believing the country was headed in the wrong direction (WSJ/NBC poll) and the upcoming 2010 midterm election. But since his SOTU speech, the president revealed he really doesn’t intend on working with Republicans and last week’s speech was “smoke and mirrors.” President Obama is digging in his heels more than ever. Since releasing his $3.8 trillion budget for 2011, he’s vowed to fight, fight, fight for the same broken, partisan spending agenda of last year. His budget will result in the nation’s debt rising to $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years. And once again Obama is offering up the same old porridge of $1 trillion in proposed taxes on so-called wealthy Americans, which was rejected last year.
Obama has been quoted saying: “What I will not welcome-what I reject- is the same old grandstanding when the cameras are on, and the same irresponsible budget policies when the cameras are off.” Sounds like Obama is talking about himself. But who knows what to believe coming out of the president’s mouth. What’s clear as many reporters have noted is that the Obama spell has been broken. Americans aren’t buying the magic anymore and may be viewing the president more and more as a one termer. Looks like the “tea partiers”‘ weren’t just a few right wing mobs after all (as many liberals and some conservatives suggested last summer) but represented the anger felt by most of the American people.
10 responses so far
1 teabag // Feb 4, 2010 at 4:24 pm
You have Obama derangement syndrome in a big, big way.
There is a great form of treatment. It entails stopping listening to Rush and watch ing Beck. Then read some articles with facts and stuff in them. That might cure you. Probably not.
2 balconesfault // Feb 4, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Again, check out Ronald Reagan’s 1983 SOTU – two years after taking office:
“The problems we inherited were far worse than most inside and out of government had expected; the recession was deeper than most inside and out of government had predicted. Curing those problems has taken more time and a higher toll than any of us wanted.”
But now, the Democrats’ solid majority has been cracked by Brown’s win
Out of curiousity – do you think the Republicans ever had a “solid majority” in the last 20 years?
Because 58-41-1 (I can’t really call Lieberman in the Dems camp, even if he caucuses with them) is still a pretty solid majority to me.
No, it doesn’t mean that you can pass legislation when the entire Republican caucus has determined not to allow you to pass legislation … but the American public will get to judge whether they enjoyed seeing healthcare spending jump to 17% of GNP while tens of millions are still without insurance.
And they’ll know that one party had a plan for how government would close that gap – and one party had obstructionism.
3 sinz54 // Feb 4, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Crystal Wright:
I’m convinced that Angelina Jolie is going to enter national politics someday. Someday she’ll be POTUS. Or at least Secretary of State.
4 sinz54 // Feb 4, 2010 at 9:22 pm
balconesfault:
It’s turning out to not be a working majority. I don’t remember the last time that a POTUS had a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate and yet got so little of his agenda accomplished.
That’s the unintended consequence of backing “Blue Dog” and “Fighting Dem” and other flavors of moderate Dems in center-right districts in the 2006 and 2008 elections. It worked to the extent that the Dems won majorities in Congress. But once they got to Congress, these moderate Dems balked at supporting the liberal agendas of Obama and Pelosi. Many of them are to the right of either Obama or Pelosi, and intend to win re-election by promising to remain that way.
The liberal “netroots” of the Daily KOS, gleeful at their big electoral wins in 2006 and 2008, didn’t anticipate that would happen.
5 balconesfault // Feb 4, 2010 at 11:03 pm
I don’t remember the last time that a POTUS had a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate and yet got so little of his agenda accomplished.
I suspect we’ll see that from here out, however. In the new climate, for example, George Bush could never have passed his tax cut package – it would never have made the floor
Meanwhile, the House still passed a very strong healthcare bill even with those Blue Dog Dems. In fact, Pelosi didn’t even have to really whip them to get it passed.
The problem is that in the Senate, with an opposition dedicated to lockstep opposition, you needed unanimity. And I’m not even sure expectations of unanimity are healthy for a party.
That said, as I noted before – I think Harry Reid should have been much tougher. I think that voting against a bill shows that you don’t favor it. Voting to filibuster a bill shows that you fundamentally don’t trust the people who are crafting the bill. A Dem who would vote to filibuster key legislation from even coming to the floor shouldn’t have any leadership positions, since at that point his signal to the country is that Democrats cannot be trusted.
A strong Senate Majority leader would have taken this position to the public. Reid signaled last spring with his allowing Lieberman to keep his Committee Chair even after he campaigned for McCain that there would never be any serious reprecussions for out and out party disloyalty (and again – I’m not calling voting against a bill disloyal – I’m calling filibustering your party’s legislation disloyal). It wasn’t a surprise that he was walked all over during the healthcare bill given the amount of insurance company money pouring into the coffers of certain Senators.
6 GOProud // Feb 5, 2010 at 12:16 pm
It’s interesting how the Democrats and farLeft have tried to take the highly successful campaign tactic of “Just Blame it on Bush” into a governing strategy. But it ain’t working for them because governing is about leadership, not sound bytes.
It’s nearly an epidemic tactic for Democrats. On Wed evening’s SOTS speech, Michigan’s 2 term Democrat governor, Jenny 2-penny Granholm, tried to claim that her 7+ years of failure to solve Michigan’s budget crisis was all due to the former GOP governor John Engler. More hype about Hope. More hype about Change. No leadership again.
It’s been 8 years and it’s still “Just Blame” the other guy. Stunning.
Rather than admitting it’s failed leadership as Democrats brought us to this point. Amazing game of denial that the voters are finally smart to start seeing through… and the Democrats still don’t get “it”.
I think David Alexrod has lost his grip on the shallow political reality he thought was his mandate.
7 GOProud // Feb 5, 2010 at 12:31 pm
With all due respect to BlankHead’s usual defense of all-things-Democrat, the truth is exactly as Sinz54 points out: the Democrats have had an unprecedented clutch on the engine of govt and they’ve failed to advance their agenda because they failed to lead.
Leadership is about knowing when and where to compromise. But the Democrat leadership began with a premise of “We won; we get to decide”… shutting out GOPers at every turn and sometimes famously while the camera rolls and Obama told the House GOP leadership their ideas on the budget were DOA at a WH meeting Obama called! Hey Obama, put down the beer summit sloganeering and show basic humility and hospitality to those you’ve asked to speak and meet with, ok? I’m betting you’re a ball hog on the b’ball court, too.
Health care reform could have been achieved in 4-5 months if the WH and the hardcore farLeft Democrats were willing to compromise… “1/4tr of a loaf is always better than just the crumbs in Congress” (Jerry Ford, 1965). A jobs bill could happen, like the Bush era TARP bill, if compromise was a spirit the WH embraced. Bush got what he wanted in that package, in trade, the democrats got to control the fate of 50% of it when Obama came in. Fair enough; compromise worked.
But the Democrats’ ego wouldn’t allow compromise to occur on health care and now countless other efforts. They misjudged their own side’s strength and resolve to hold a liberal course.
Blaming Bush or the GOP won’t work any better than playing the “Ego Rules” game. “We Won; we get to decide”. Well, now you’re losing and we get to help you lose big. Karma, baby.
8 LFC // Feb 5, 2010 at 1:29 pm
GOPProud, I guess you were out of the country for the first 3-4 Bush years, where Clinton was blamed for everything.
BTW, the problems with the economy can absolutely be laid at George W’s feet. Obama has addressed them with real action and things have reversed course, they just aren’t good yet. (You obviously are used to instant gratification.) On the flip side, since you mention leadership, what concrete steps have the GOP leadership proposed to help the economy. Ooooh, oooh, oooh! I bet I can guess! Tax cuts?
9 SteveinCH // Feb 6, 2010 at 11:39 am
LFC,
The problems with the economy should not be laid at the feet of any President. Government does not control the economy (thank God) and it is the height of folly to assume it does. Can government affect the economy on the margin through fiscal policy and more substantially via regulatory and legal restrictions, sure. Does that mean government controls the economy, nope.
Once you accept this, you can’t lay the problems for the economy on any President. Now the budget is a separate matter. If President Obama would like to lay the interest on the runup in the debt during the Bush administration at the feet of Bush, that’s cool by me. The rest is on him. He and his party control the government. They can pass legislation should they choose to do so. The fact that his budget runs deficits between 3/4 of a trillion and trillion through 2020 is all on him. Bush didn’t sneak in and rewrite his budget. He wrote it. He believes it’s right and like it or hate it, it’s his.
Same was true for Bush, same will be true for the next guy
10 rwanat // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I would be interested in your take on Senator Richard Shelby’s blocking action.
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