Well, He Did It

There is little I enjoy more than seeing President Obama pissed off. His poise and equanimity, even when being shouted down on the floor of Congress during the State of the Union, can be maddening at times. It was thus highly gratifying to see that flash of anger in Obama’s eyes yesterday afternoon when he refused to accept Rep. Paul Ryan’s far-right, radical remaking of a less generous, less compassionate, less sound America. (You can watch the speech here. He gets fired up—for him, at least, starting around minute 22.)

Most importantly, Obama finally made the moral case for government, and for the social safety net that must be protected. He described these programs as “commitments” to our fellow-citizens, commitments that are essential parts of his—and our—“vision for America that we want to see five years, 10 years, 20 years down the road.” And he tied that radical shift to the moral bankruptcy of insisting on greater tax cuts for the wealthy:

[T]his is a vision that says even though Americans can't afford to invest in education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can't afford to maintain our commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that. […]

They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. That's not right. And it's not going to happen as long as I'm President.

This vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. … There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's not a vision of the America I know.

The America I know is generous and compassionate. It's a land of opportunity and optimism. Yes, we take responsibility for ourselves, but we also take responsibility for each other; for the country we want and the future that we share.

Obama made a direct moral case for the preservation of our nation’s commitments to the poor, the sick, the elderly, recalling my favorite line from his 2004 speech that I mentioned yesterday:

But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.

This is the argument we have been waiting for. Obama included his usual homage to coming together as a nation, Republicans and Democrats bridging the divide, etc etc. But before that, he shredded Ryan’s plan not for its fishy numbers, its fake accounting, or its massive hypocrisy, but for its radical cruelty. “It’s not right,” he said of Ryan’s plan. Sticking with our promises is. Thank you, Mr. President, for finally saying so.

The Democrats’ Message Isn’t Resonating

This morning, CNN released a new poll [pdf] that suggests the White House and Democrats have so far failed to make their argument about the radical nature of the Republicans’ budget plan. While a large majority, 68 percent, agree that Republican proposals “unfairly favor some groups more than others,” a bare majority says that the GOP plans do not go “too far.” Here are some of the internals:

Question 14: In your view, do current Republican proposals to cut spending go too far, or not?

	Total	White	Non-White	65+	Under $50k
Too far	47%	38%	67%	41%	47%
Not too far	51%	59%	33%	53%	51%

Question 15: Do Republicans proposals to cut spending apply fairly to all groups in society, or do they unfairly favor some groups more than others?

	Total	White	Non-White	65+	Under $50k
Fair	29%	31%	25%	36%	27%
Unfair	68%	65%	75%	59%	72%

In combining some of the internals, I particularly wanted to look at seniors and poorer people, who have the most to lose in Paul Ryan’s budget. His plan would severely cut Medicaid funding for the poor and would end up requiring seniors to pay far more of their health care expenses.

On the one hand, these numbers show that people understand the unfair impact of Ryan’s budget. But the “too far” question suggests that, even if they understand the unfairness of the plan, they don’t seem to be too bothered by it. I draw two conclusions from this.

First, the Democrats’ message is not reaching the larger public. Ryan’s cuts so obviously favor the rich (slashing upper bracket taxes to the lowest point since 1931) that the plan on its face is unfair. The public doesn’t have to hear that from the left; any straight reporting of the facts of the plan make that clear. The “too far” question makes it clear that the left’s core critique—that the plan is radical—is not getting out to the people, or that the people aren’t buying it.

Second, these numbers emphasize how little the public has heard from Democrats and President Obama on the moral implications of the budget—on the morality of righting our fiscal house solely through the sacrifices of the lower and middle classes. During December’s tax deal, in which Obama extended the tax cuts for the uber-wealthy in exchange for tax cuts for everyone else, the President never framed the issue on what is morally right, except to say that it is wrong to raise taxes. He didn’t talk about the moral bankruptcy of handing out government welfare to those who are doing better than ever, who are richer than the majority of the rest of the nation combined. Nor did he talk about the moral responsibility we owe to those less fortunate, the moral duty of government to provide a robust safety net that protects those whose luck has run. These are not just questions of numbers and budgets and what we can afford; these are questions of the moral purpose of our government, questions that the leader of the Democratic Party, who made himself famous in a speech emphasizing that we are our brother’s keeper, needs to be making.

If Americans recognize that the Republicans' proposals are wildly unfair, but disagree that they go “too far,” that doesn’t point to idiocy or hypocrisy, or even confusion. It points to Obama’s failure to embrace the moral message of government. Let’s hope he starts making that case this afternoon.

UPDATE: WSJ Was Wrong—And So Was I (Hopefully)

This morning I quoted an anonymously-sourced Wall Street Journal article indicating that the White House “has opened the door to a deal with Republicans” to link the debt ceiling vote to significant spending cuts. I and other commentators used this to argue that Obama seemed, well, bad at negotiating. I am not so sure I am wrong on that point, but I shouldn’t be so quick to condemn, since White House Press Secretary Jay Carney implicitly refuted the WSJ’s account this afternoon.

In comparatively strong language, Carney insisted that the debt ceiling vote “will” pass, and that it should and will be disconnected from policy positions regarding the long-term debt:

Q: And one last one. What’s the relationship between the speech and the debt ceiling vote

MR. CARNEY: The speech and the debt ceiling? We don’t believe there is a relationship between the two, and we don’t believe, going back to questions I had yesterday, that there should be a link between efforts to address our long-term deficit problem and debt problem and the imperative of raising the debt ceiling, which the President and all the leaders of Congress have said has to be done.

It will happen, because everyone recognizes the consequences of not doing it, which would be to throw the global economy into chaos, to halt on a dime the economic recovery that we’ve been experiencing and fought so hard to help foster. This is not an alternative. And we are confident that the Congress will vote accordingly.

This is encouraging. Similarly encouraging was Carney’s refutation of the notion that Obama, in his debt speech on Wednesday, would be whole-heartedly embracing the Simpson-Bowles debt plan, about which previously he had been lukewarm. These are encouraging news items, though of course the original stories—regarding the debt ceiling vote and the Simpson-Bowles plan—were presumably based on some sort of authoritative source leaking this stuff to reporters. Let’s just hope that Carney is the one in the loop on this stuff.

Is This Any Way to Negotiate?

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama was frequently portrayed as some sort of Jedi knight/chess master who could see three moves ahead and outplay all his opponents. Either those descriptions were laughably off-base, or Obama had to hand in his light saber upon entering the White House.

In this latest fight over the budget, remember that Speaker Boehner originally demanded $32 billion in cuts. Democrats said this would devastate the economy. The eventual “compromise” to stave off government shutdown implemented $39 billion in cuts. Democrats praised the “biggest annual spending cut in history.” A very odd way for Democrats—who control the Senate and the White House—to meet Republicans in the middle.

The very next day after the shutdown was averted, Speaker Boehner saddled up for the next fight, over raising the debt ceiling (a routine but economically essential act that prevents the United States from going into default and potentially triggering a second worldwide recession). Boehner made it clear that, once again, he’d be taking the government hostage until he got what he wanted:

On Saturday night House Speaker John Boehner declared, "The president says, 'I want you to send me a clean bill.' Guess what, Mr. President. Not a chance you're going to get a clean bill."

Boehner argued that "there's no plan to deal with the debt we're facing," and that Republicans would not vote to increase the limit unless Democrats conceded something "really, really big."

That was Saturday night. Three days later, the Wall Street Journal reports that Obama is now open to a “deal” with Republicans, in which he’s support additional cuts in exchange for this routine, economically essential vote on raising the debt ceiling.

This is a very odd way to negotiate. It is literally guaranteed to give the Republicans—who again control only one house of Congress—at least part of what they want. More damaging, it continues Obama’s ceding of the policy argument to the GOP: that government’s top priority right now should not be reducing unemployment, investing in infrastructure and technology, strengthening education, or moving to a new clean energy economy, but only to cut cut cut and focus on the debt (without, of course, any tax hikes). This is not only insane politically (polls show that the GOP’s plans are insanely unpopular [pdf]), but it is a betrayal of the policies Obama ran on. He is smarter than this. Or is that just the remnants of the Jedi-knight-narrative again?

Koh Defends Legality of Libyan Intervention

Speaking at Yale Law School yesterday, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh ardently defended the Obama administration’s record on human rights and international affairs, including the legality of its intervention in Libya without Congressional approval. He emphasized the Obama administration’s shift in posture toward international institutions, like the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Council. “We would change the default from hostility to engagement,” Koh said of the administration’s goal.

He emphasized that the American “actions in Libya are legal under international law and domestic law,” highlighting a quote from Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in which he insisted that the intervention in Libya was not “going to war.” Koh agreed:

KOH: Is a no-fly-zone-plus a war? I don’t think so. I’ve never thought so. I have never thought so. … I would not support an action I thought to be illegal, and this one I believe in my heart to be on the right side of the line.

It’s clear Koh was trying hard to convince the law school audience that not only were the Administration’s actions defensible, but that Koh himself believed them to be legal—and that he wouldn’t support them otherwise. Throughout the talk, Koh repeated that, while it was his job to defend decisions made by the Administration, he would never do so if he thought the decision was not legally permissible. He expressed frustration that people seem to assume he doesn’t believe what he is saying, whether he is opining on the legality of drone strikes, defending indefinite detention, or explaining the Administration’s failure to close Guantanamo. (We haven’t shut the prison camp, he said, “because we can’t do it ourselves. We need help from our allies in Congress and the Courts.”)

Later in the speech, Koh listed the significant differences between the Bush administration and the Obama administration’s approach to what he calls the law of 9/11. One of those differences, Koh said, was that, unlike his predecessor, Obama does not claim the entire war as a battlefield. “We do not call it a Global War on Terror,” Koh said. At the same time, he defended the targeting of al Qaeda operatives, be they in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia. It’s unclear exactly what the difference is between claiming the world as a battlefield and asserting the right to target enemies anywhere in the world.

Koh acknowledged the differences between the Bush and Obama approaches were “subtle,” but said that a Yale Law School audience should be able to distinguish them. While I do think there are significant differences—and that liberals are far too quick to lump the two administrations together—on this one point, apparently, my subtlety detector fails the Yale Law School test.

The Perils of Following the Clinton Model

President Obama and the Democrats headed off a government shutdown late Friday night by agreeing to a plan that, just months earlier, they had warned would potentially cripple the weak economy and result in tens of thousands of additional jobs lost.

But, somewhat infuriatingly, now Obama is selling the deal as a courageous and bold strategy that he, essentially endorses. Ezra Klein writes that Obama is following the Bill Clinton strategy straight toward reelection:

The Obama White House is looking toward the Clinton model. After all, Clinton also suffered a major setback in his first midterm, Clinton also faced down a hardline Republican Congress, Clinton also suffered major policy defeats, and yet Clinton, as the story goes, managed to co-opt the conservative agenda and remake himself into a successful centrist. The Obama administration has even hired many of Clinton’s top aides to help them recapture that late-90s magic.

Klein notes that this myth “misses something important” in ignoring how the booming economy—and not Clinton’s centrist triangulation—was the essential ingredient in creating Clinton’s successes.

But that’s not the only thing this myth misses. By co-opting the conservative agenda and remaking himself as a successful centrist, Clinton passed some seriously conservative legislation that continues to wreak enormously damaging consequences, from the perspective of liberals. The three most obvious—and most odious—bills are the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and the draconian cuts and restrictions to the Legal Services Corporation.

A quick primer:

· The PLRA: Passed in April of 1996, it severely restricts prisoners’ abilities to bring lawsuits that challenge the conditions of their confinement. The law requires them to jump through enormous hoops before suing the prison that allege constitutional violations in the facility, such as inadequate health care, overcrowding, or physical abuse.

·AEDPA: Part of the Republicans’ Contract with America, AEDPA gathered steam following the Oklahoma City bombing and was passed the same day as the PLRA. AEDPA ushered in unprecedented restrictions on habeas corpus appeals. It forces federal courts to defer to state court judgments so long as they were not unreasonable, even when the federal court acknowledges that the decision was incorrect as a matter of law.

·LSC: The Legal Services Corporation was created in 1974 to ensure that poor people have equal access to justice. Also in 1996, Congress imposed draconian restrictions on the type of work LSC could do, the most damaging of which was banning LSC from bringing class action suits against the government. Clinton signed these cuts into law as part of his wide-ranging welfare reform.

The story goes that Clinton, in a masterful stroke, came out of the 1995 and early 1996 shutdowns by moving to the center, alienated the far-right Republican House, and effectively took up the cry of centrism that carried him straight to re-election 10 months later. But this story obscures the seriously long-lasting and far-reaching policy damage that Clinton’s triangulation wrought. If Obama’s goal is only to get re-elected, his strategy of embracing the cut-the-debt-at-all-costs rhetoric is smart. But if his goal is to protect progressive priorities, and to avoid doing lasting policy-level damage, he needs to pause before following Clinton’s road to centrism.