I just t listened to President Obama’s speech here in Chicago where the DNC is meeting. (I’m not a member but DNC events are open.) It was interesting to hear the reaction of Democratic leaders from across the country.
As you can imagine folks were very enthusiastic about both the style and substance of his speech. Especially positive reactions around support of unions and tax equity.
Anyone else have any thoughts? Did anyone go to a watch party with other Democrats? BTW, I am always encouraging Democrats to gather together. A watch party can be an easy way to gather people. If someone organized a group, share a story about how you did it.
Please share widely!
People can’t afford to wait 14 months.
David, Thanks for promoting this. I was also impressed with the delivery.
I was sent the 2012 bumper sticker. I haven’t put it on. I will put it on now, and hope the fight and the backbone equal the content and the delivery – and will do my bit starting with the bumper sticker. Listened at home with my son – I was much to tired to “go anywhere” but due to the marvels of modern times, I had the President’s speech live in my own viewing space. Good night, all.
n/t
I think he set the stage to dare the Republicans to vote against this, and they will, and then he can hammer them for voting against jobs. He can pull a Truman and criticize them as the do nothing Congress and he can tie their anchor around the neck of the eventual nominee. This was a political pre-emptive strike and I am glad he finally realized the best defense is a good offense.
The speech seems decent, from the reports I’ve read, but the proposals still strike me as weak defensive maneuvers waiting for the tides to change. I’ll support it, but only as a first step down a new path of economic/fiscal thinking. More will be needed, and in a hurry, to get the country out of the current morass. The best thing the Pres could do to get the unemployed back to work is to create statewide and local positions towards his reelection effort.
but how they get paid for was not. Why do we have to wait two weeks to find out how it gets paid for? What will be cut to offset this new $450B in spending? Has anyone heard from John Kerry since he’s on the committee which will decide what gets cut?
We need to see the details…
At least I know I would be able to absorb them better in writing. He DID talk about tweeking entitlements, closing tax loopholes and raising taxes on the wealthy.
Here is the link to the CSPAN video of the meeting – – Kerry is about 43 minutes in. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JointSel
Here is the text version from his web site – http://kerry.senate.gov/press/release/?id=87ea22d6-6aac-4e26-ae1a-6866ffdc7791
I had been looking for any Kerry comments since he was named to the committee. Before the meeting, there was an article where Kerry was quoted:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/super-congress-super-committee-members_n_952606.html
After Obama’s speech, it is clear that the Democrats on that committee were in line with Obama’s emphasis on the need to make jobs priority one.
Before that, there are several Senate speeches that he gave on the issue – when the Republicans were pushing their budget plan that can be viewed at ( http://www.c-spanvideo.org/johnkerry ) He also gave this speech on the Republican budget and his view of what should be done:
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/04/john-kerry-calls-for-depression-era-public-works-program.php
At the hearing yesterday, Max Baucus spoke of meeting with his friends and constituents after being named to the committee – and saying that their reaction was all the same – that they were glad to have him there, but they were sorry for him because it will be tough. I would guess that that is how anyone would feel having a legislator they respect assigned to that committee – especially among Democrats.
It is important, but it is a lose/lose situation. The results need to be compared with the alternative if they fail – the triggered cuts. The agreed upon structure of this committee do not lend themselves to keeping anyone happy. But, that said, having watched Kerry manage the START treaty on the Senate floor, he is an excellent choice for the committee. It says a lot that he accepted this assignment, when he could easily have argued his work on the SFRC precluded it.
didn’t get to watch it but I’ve read the gist of his plan and seems about the same as usual. He seemed more feisty, but to me it’s too little too late. I will probably vote for him, but I will not promote him. No lawn sign on my lawn, or bumper sticker. No positive words coming off of these lips. However, I will continue to educate people about what the Republican agenda is and how the Republicans are working hard to lower the standard of living for America’s working middle class.
To me, it was yet another ideological speech from an ideological president.
The ideology is Centrism, and the premise is that Obama will either succeed or at least reap political rewards with voters for proposing modest, reasonable progress on the margin, which splits the differences in Washington.
I cal this an ideology because, unlike pragmatism, it learns nothing from experience. It’s true that most isms are absolute, and this one is relative, but it is still ideological at its core.
$450 B is real money, but not enough of it, moreover I’ll be surprised if half of it survives. To be fair, tax cuts are probably the only thing that could pour some life into the economy quickly.
However, we are reaping the bitter fruits of Centrism in Obama’s failure to be bold with real stimulus and financial re-regulation at the start of his term. All predictable and predicted by economists, but analysis never could stand up to ideology.
In that light his delivery did not impress me. He took obvious pleasure in standing in the center of Washington and calling everybody out. In light of recent experience that struck me as naive and weak.
I do not relish the role of wet blanket and of course I hope his proposals, as described, somehow pass and that he is reelected.
However, I watched the Senate and House debates on it and especially in the Senate where 60 votes were needed, it was a struggle to get it passed. At that point there were 58 Democratic Senators, some of them conservative. They succeeded in getting just three Republicans, Specter, Snowe and Collins.
Even if the President were more liberal or progressive, I really don’t see how a more progressive package could have passed. So, I would say that Obama mixed whatever progressiveness he had with a lot of pragmatism.
that he could not have done better.
I do not think his insistence on splitting every difference is pragmatic. I think real pragmatism would have come on stronger, won more, and turned short-term defeats into liabilities for those who defeated him.
Obama has less of an ideology than an attitude. His strong beliefs seem more about how we do things rather than what actually gets done.
His plans are more assertive than previous ones, and will hopefully be effective against the GOP (since they will obstruct whatever they can). But it will take more commitment, idealism, and at least political results before I have respect for Obama.
President Obama may have sounded like a Republican at times during the speech, and I was not entirely pleased with his plan. But you sound like some of the most extreme Republicans out there when you suggest that you do not respect him. He’s the President. Say that you want more commitment, more idealism and more results. Criticize his policies, his excessive caution, his “attitude,” and his seeming aloofness. You should, however, respect him.
The man in it has to earn respect. For me, it’s been a while since we had an occupant who rose to that challenge.
I tried–with great difficulty–to respect the office when Bush did what he did to it.
I really don’t respect the job Obama has done. At times, I’ve not been respectful to him. I actually try not to be, but sometimes my temper gets the better of me.
President Obama is proposing to destroy the revenue stream that supports the already weakened Social Security and Medicare system. He is doing what generations of Republicans — most recently, President George W. Bush, failed to do — destroying Social Security.
He has implicitly endorsed the worst aspect of the Republican narrative: that spending increases must be “balanced” by tax cuts somewhere else.
This “Jobs” bill will accomplish far too little.
I am, frankly, disgusted.
I’d love to believe that the policies will prove to be as comforting as the rhetoric. I would like nothing better than to see my cynicism proven wrong. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I get the impression that Obama was trying to sound like he did on the 2008 campaign trail. I liked the long-overdue focus on jobs and the principle of having the very wealthy contribute their fair share to a government that has created an environment so conducive to their prosperity.
But…as I’ve learned to expect with Obama, the devil will lie in the details and the execution. It isn’t clear how big and fast a turnaround we are likely to get out of $450 billion. I would like to see how that number squares with models run by economists such as Krugman, Thoma, and Stiglitz.
How the money is spent also makes a difference. Tax cuts to people of modest means can help, but not if they paid for by spending cuts that support the same group.
A nod was made to trade policies regarding environmental regulation and (I believe) working conditions. I’m glad to see this finally being mentioned. But again, this was nice on principle, short on details. Contrary to his 2008 campaign promise to revisit/reform NAFTA (I believe this is true, please correct me if not), Obama has pushed for additional trade agreements similar to NAFTA, sans reforms.
I am greatly concerned that moves will be made to chip away at our bedrock social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the guise of paying for a jobs program. If the cuts to these programs are made in a way that is felt immediately, they will undercut the jobs effort by decreasing demand. Cuts to Social Security make no sense to me. Like the majority of the country, my preferred way to make up for any future SS shortfall will be to lift the income cap on contributions, rather than to reduce benefits. (I also oppose the current payroll tax cut, which is another way to weaken SS’s long-term finances. A discussion in itself.) Medicare/Medicaid face problems but these are due to health care costs, not the fact that these are government programs. The fix should be to control health care costs (other countries can do this, so we know it’s possible), not to shift the cost burden to individuals.
I do not recall any mention of cuts to the defense budget. I am outraged at the prospect of seeing struggling seniors and vulnerable children go without in order to keep our bloated military programs intact.
Link
I highly recommend the entire column. Krugman doesn’t think the plan will become law, but hopes that it will spark a much-needed public debate and demand for action regarding jobs.
Has anyone seen the bill? Does anyone know when the administration is going to submit the bill which needs to be passed NOW?
Lots on good words from Obama supporters about his speech and this proposal but where’s the beef. Spending (like shopping) is easy, but the tough part comes when the bill needs to be paid.
The good news in my mind is the Republicans may go along with this proposal if the offset is paying for it by cutting existing excessive government spending.
We should withhold comment until we hear… “the rest of the story.”
it is too small. It might make some difference, but not as much as we need. We have a $1 trillion/year demand shortfall and this doesn’t get us halfway there. Indeed, since extending UI and the SS tax holiday is just maintaining status quo, the increase in aggregate demand will be far smaller than even the $447 billion, and that’s under the best-case scenario. If it gets through as proposed. Which it won’t. And if they “pay for it” with more slashing at the federal level, the effect is nil.
My big problem with the specifics is that I see this Social Security withholding holiday as a Trojan Horse for the evisceration of the program. Already, in 2011, 1/3 of the workers’ contributions that normally would have been collected are not being collected. In 2012, under this proposal, that would be half of the workers’ contributions AND the employers’ contributions. A huge reduction in intake for the program. And what stimulative effect? This part of the package provides nothing to those not working, and those who do receive slightly larger paychecks may hang on to the money in these uncertain times. The goal is to get demand up; this may not help much.
My fear is that both the GOP and Obama, who long has spoken of the need for SS “reform,” will use the funding shortfall they’ve created as an excuse to slash SS benefits. Back in December there were those who warned the GOP would hammer Obama/Dems as “raising taxes” if they let the SS withholding return to the prior level. But it was Obama who issued that very warning in yesterday’s speech. So when does SS withholding go back to “normal”?
The aid to states and cities is good. Overall, better than nothing. Maybe. But it should have been bigger and differently constructed. I think the House GOP is unlikely to pass anything decent, so why not go in big and campaign on it?
My big problem with the specifics is that I see this Social Security withholding holiday as a Trojan Horse for the evisceration of the program. Already, in 2011, 1/3 of the workers’ contributions that normally would have been collected are not being collected.
In these times,
The HIRE Act forgave the employer portion of SS payments for anyone hired off of unempoyment from March to December, and offers an additional credit if they are still employed 1 year later. And ALL of that comes out of SS, which is supposedly deficient. Weird emphasis.
Know what? Why is it more important to ‘put a teacher back to work’ than a truck driver or supermarket cashier? Answer – because if we target public sector jobs like teachers, ‘first responders’, etc., we can give the money to the states. Who hoarded the LAST round of infrastructure bank money (remember Aloisi, who was going to ‘create even more long term jobs’ sometime in the unspecified future?). It’s not that there weren’t ‘shovel ready’ jobs – it’s that the states just slapped ARRA signs on projects already in thier pipeline and spent the money that would have gone to that elsewhere.
And how did that help the private sector, exactly?
These cookie-cutter spending packages are stimulating the EXACT SAME SECTORS over and over, which does nothing for the wider economy. It’s like the galvanic response you get when you stimulate the muscle of a dead frog in biology class – but that juice isn’t reanimating the dead tissue.
Of course, the whole crisis thing is bogus, but Obama buys into it.
The goal of the stimulus is to employ people and keep people employed. If a state worker loses a job, and a private sector woker gains one, there’s no net gain for the economy. I’d like to see more money go to infrastructure and unemployed construction workers (to name one group), but there is extreme pressure on cities and towns to cut essential services. So there are two reasons to pump money into the states.
As much as I like your metaphor, there is an economic rationale for what’s happening. The political rationale, of course, is that your party doesn’t really believe in doing anything other than cutting taxes–mostly for the rich, which is not that stimulative–and has a detrimental effect on public services.
what I mean, in this case for education cuts. For the record, I am not affected by these cuts, nor am I personally likely to be.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/09/our-children-and-grandchildren.html