JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 14, 2010
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President Obama has been very careful to avoid anything that might smack of a "Mission Accomplished" moment on the economy. In Buffalo yesterday he really let loose:
“We can say beyond a shadow of the doubt today we are headed in the right direction,’’ Mr. Obama told a crowd of about 250 people during a swing through this economically depressed city. “All those tough steps we took –- they’re working, despite all the naysayers who were predicting failure a year ago’’
And here he is at a fundraiser that night, putting a finer point on things:
[W]e got our mops and our brooms out, we’re cleaning stuff out, and [Republicans are] sitting there saying, ‘Hold the broom better.’ (Laughter.) ‘That's not how you mop.’ (Laughter.) Don’t tell me how to mop. Pick up a mop! … But that wasn’t their strategy; it was not their strategy from day one. And I’m not making this up. This is public record. They’ve said in interviews: We made a political decision. We stood nothing to gain from cooperating. We knew things were going to be bad. And we figured, if we didn't do anything and if it didn’t work out so well, maybe the other side would take the blame. They’ve done their best to gum up the works; to make things look broken; to say no to every single thing. … So after they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. (Laughter.) No! (Laughter and applause.) You can’t drive!
I think we can see his main political theme for 2010 and 2012 taking shape here: Republicans screwed the country up, Obama got to work fixing it, Republicans took an ultra-partisan stance on every issue, and if you give them power they'll screw things up again. It's quite simple, and has the added virtue of being true.
If the economy recovers to the point where Americans start to enjoy higher living standards, he's going to have a powerful argument against Republicans, who predicted doom and disaster. Of course, if the economy double-dips, he's screwed no matter what. Might as well position himself to get as much of the potential upside as possible. At some point there's little to gain in hedging your bets.
3 comments
Small problem being that fiscal austerity measures globally are set to upturn all those best laid plans, as the latest Minsky moment reignites the financial crisis. Riders on the storm we are. In any case, it is definitely not true to say that Republicans screwed it up and Obama fixed it, though I understand that the point regards more the frighteningly craven Republicans inability to govern than an assertion of binary culpability. Amongst politicians, it is fair to say the Republicans and in particular the Bush administration bear the greatest culpability. Things became so totally unhinged during their watch- with savings rates, current account deficits, financial leverage, etc. etc. etc. all going to unprecedented extremes portending catastrophe- giving them no excuse not to act, let alone investigate, and yet they did neither. That was an inexcusable and criminally negligent display of incompetence. The same type of incompetence and corruption that marked that administration and those Congresses in so many other ways from the failure to act on the intelligence and red flags leading up to 9/11 to the catastrophes of Katrina and Iraq on down. It is not, however, fair to say they deserve all the blame- there is plenty of that here to go around. While things were nowhere near that out of control under Clinton, for example, they were problematic. People forget that the housing bubble was largely bequeathed by the TMT stock market bubble and its powerfully problematic impact on the world economy. The choice was between reinvigorating the credit bubble, or seeing it wreak its wrath, and the authorities clearly chose the former. What needed to happen in the 90s was for people to get the courage to act on our profligacy, and burgeoning credit bubble and speculative financial apparatus. But they likewise did nothing, and at a tremendous cost to our people (even as it was far more easy to carry on the delusion in that day- the dollar was strong, our trade deficit was growing but not out of control, we were running fiscal surpluses, the world was at peace, leaders were talking about and trying to address the big problems, etc. etc.). Essentially, our failure as a society is as broad as it has been thorough. Sadly, all the terrible hell it has accrued lays in front of us.
- I Majorajam
May 14, 2010 at 11:25am
This is a great theme to campaign on. And it does have the virtue of verisimilitude. I can see the political commercials now. The words Barack Obama says here are spoken and a rogues gallery of faces are paraded past the viewer: those of John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner., Jim Bunning, et al.
- liberal reformer
May 14, 2010 at 11:25am
For this to stick, you have to answer the question: What piece of legislation proposed by the dems did Bush veto in 2006, 2007, 2008 that would have prevented this? There is none. This is a shared failure. And in fact, Obama merrily voted the party line when he was in office, including the bailout that really failed to do anything except prop up the fat cats that should have been permitted to fail. The bigger question is when will his supporters acknowledge his contribution to this mess? It remains incredible to me that Dems let their party off the hook for things like Iraq, the housing bubble, excesses on wall street, etc. They watch dem leaders push all this, and then the sh*t hits the fan, they do whatever they can to blame someone else OTHER than dear leader. Case in point: Gulf oil spill. The old guard is still trying to find a way to blame Cheney for all this. No way no how could it have anything to do with Obama permitting drilling without permits, failed inspections, lax inspections... Sad.
- seattleeng
May 15, 2010 at 10:48am