I think Ed misses the point, which is that this carefully-bipartisan massive slashing of government spending and entitlements is what Obama had in mind in the first place. Because while the man may be a tool, he is not a fool:
Let’s recap the Barack Obama school of governing and negotiation. First, you get the Republicans to admit that it’s totally unthinkable and utterly insane to let the government default. Second, agree that 50% of the problem – the entire revenue side – is off the table. Third, let the GOP beat concession after concession out of you by bluffing about default. Fourth, get “concessions” from the GOP – in this case, I’ll bet you $100 on Obama obtaining “defense cuts” that amount to snipping a few staplers and pencils from the Pentagon budget – that hand the Republicans a ready-made “He’s a-cuttin’ the Army while our brave men and women are in harm’s way!!” talking point. Fifth, go to the electorate in 2012 with the message that sure, I and the rest of the Democrats signed off on hacking up Social Security and Medicare, but, um, the Republicans wanted to cut them a little more than we ultimately allowed. That sounds like a winner, right? The Mighty Democrats fought bravely to make sure that your benefit cuts would be slightly smaller.
Good luck with that, idiot. This presidency has been like watching a man commit suicide for three years. At first you’re in a frenzy yelling “Stop! Don’t do that to yourself!” but after a while you just want him to hurry up and get it the hell over with already.
I think Ed misses the point, which is that this carefully-bipartisan massive slashing of government spending and entitlements is what Obama had in mind in the first place.
first, none of us actually knows what the president had in mind all along.
second, as a general rule of thumb, it’s usually safer to attribute a bad move to incompetence rather than a grander secret plan.
Unless it’s seen in the larger context of a continuing pattern, with numerous statements and actions that indicated his intent to remake entitlements.
with numerous statements and actions that indicated his intent to remake entitlements.
what statements? overtly the president has pledged to protect both medicare and social security. as for actions, they can just as plausibly be explained by being a bad negotiator. the fact that it happens a lot doesn’t mean he isn’t a bad negotiator. on the contrary, that’s what bad negotiators tend to do.
You really think he named Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to the Catfood Commission because he’s a bad negotiator? Isn’t that a stretch? At what point does Occam’s Razor come down on the side of intent?
You really think he named Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to the Catfood Commission because he’s a bad negotiator
no, that’s not a negotiation problem, that’s more of an ideological problem. obama, for whatever reason, seems to strongly value being a consensus builder who can bring the two parties together on big issues. it’s a pretty silly idea in the context of the actual stances of the two political parties in this country. but that philosophy does reflect something that is highly valued in washington culture right now. that’s what his commission appointment reflects.
but the commission makeup is not related to his problems with negotiations. in fact, the president hasn’t even used his own commission as a basis for negotiations. on the contrary, he’s pretty much ignored the commission recently.
occam’s razor comes down on the side of intent when there is actual evidence of intent. you mentioned statements. statements could show intent. so where are those statements? as i said before, never discount people’s ability to just be a screw up. without direct evidence of intent, i’m always going to go with screw up.
What do you suppose he means when he talks about entitlement reform and shared sacrifice? Apply to this the knowledge that the sacrifice has not been shared, but on one side only.
I think the Catfood Commission is definitely a negotiation problem (or rather reflects the fact that Obama wants to cut “entitlements” in the negotiations). If you want to negotiate and protect Social Security and Medicare, do you appoint people who want to cut them to come up with a plan, which is likely to serve as a blueprint for any negotiation? No. OTOH, if you want to cut Social Security and Medicare, but can’t be seen as wanting to do it and are looking for cover, then such a Commission is something you might do.
What do you suppose he means when he talks about entitlement reform and shared sacrifice?
when he used the term “shared sacrifice” yesterday he was refering to abolishing the tax deduction for corporate jets, and subsidies for oil companies. as for “entitlement reform”, it probably depends on when he uses the phrase. the one time I can think of was about the panel to institute cost control measures in medicare. those panels later became part of the PPACA.
If you want to negotiate and protect Social Security and Medicare, do you appoint people who want to cut them to come up with a plan, which is likely to serve as a blueprint for any negotiation.
but that’s just it, he didn’t use the catfood commission as a blueprint for his budget negotiations. he could have when they were hammering out the budget at the end of 2010, but didn’t. instead, he got up and vowed not to cut social security. the catfood commissions recommendations have been out for some time, the president has had several opportunities to use their recommendations, but he never has.
That’s because progressive groups raised a big enough stink that he backed off. Or don’t you remember the argument over whether he would talk about cutting Social Security in his State of the Union?
That’s because progressive groups raised a big enough stink that he backed off. Or don’t you remember the argument over whether he would talk about cutting Social Security in his State of the Union?
of course i do. but it’s not clear at all whether he ever was. instead, we had a bunch of contradictory leaks, some saying he would and some saying he wouldn’t but all with dubious sourcing about what the president would say at the SOTU. a bunch of progressive bloggers made a stink about it and then no such cuts were announced in the speech. so what happened? the bloggers who yelled took the credit, claiming that he would have announced some cuts if they hadn’t yelled. and everyone else claimed this proved that the pre-SOTU leaks were wrong.
frankly, i think the latter theory is probably more likely. since when has this president listened to the people who were yelling? in that case it seems far more likely that the rumors about the SS announcement were simply wrong. but we’ll probably never know for sure.