Obama’s Only Radicalism Is Sticking to His Word:
Commentary by Albert R. Hunt
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republicans and self-styled conservatives, like Captain Renault in “Casablanca,” are shocked -- shocked -- that President Barack Obama is trying to govern as candidate Obama promised he would.
They are disturbed that Obama’s “radical” initiatives on the budget and economic-stimulus package would massively increase the size and scope of government and encourage class warfare in America.
House Republican leader John Boehner declared “the era of big government is back,” and ex-presidential candidate Mitt Romney laid out the challenge: “Make sure that America stays America.” Romney’s one-time rival, Mike Huckabee, one-upped him: “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”
The most powerful of all Republican agenda-setters, radio talk show star Rush Limbaugh, said in a speech to conservative activists that Obama is taking the U.S. on such an ill-fated course that it’s imperative his presidency should fail.
Some express sadness that these policies are forcing them to abandon Obama; others are surprised he hasn’t turned out to be a moderate. “I thought Obama was going to go to the center,” Republican consultant Mike Murphy says.
The reality is Obama never had the Murphys or those other critics, unless they were delusional. On every major initiative -- health care, energy, education and, most definitely, taxes - - his plans mirror what he offered in campaign speeches, in the debates and on his Web site.
Reflection of Values
The Obama budget “is a reflection of the president’s values and what he talked about during the campaign,” says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was a Republican House member until he joined the Cabinet.
The only significant adjustments in the agenda have been in dealing with the financial crisis, which is much deeper than anyone expected. Given the enormity of the challenges, there is doubt, even among Democrats, that these policies will work.
The president hasn’t, however, suddenly lurched to the left, alienating mainstream moderates who otherwise would have been in his corner.
The Marxist analogies and Limbaughisms underscore this reality, as do the broadsides from the Republican National Committee and other critics; many are trivial.
Senator John McCain calls Obama’s behavior “disgraceful,” because the president supports a spending bill that contains funds earmarked by members of Congress for specific projects. Obama had vowed to reduce the number of so- called earmarks, some of which are meritorious. While he needs to push Democrats harder to eliminate the projects for symbolic reasons, this spending is economically irrelevant.
Big Spenders
The Republican National Committee’s fact sheets emphasize process issues or clichés like big spending and the hypocrisy of preaching, and not practicing, bipartisanship.
The central charge about stiffing Republicans revolves around the stimulus package. It is true that House Republicans were cut out of the action, and the bill did have some unrelated and indefensible measures.
Yet Obama and his advisers made a calculation: Either a big bill could be passed quickly, without the Republicans, or they could engage in a protracted legislative process involving more Republicans. They decided speed was essential.
The greater danger with the $787 billion package is that it may not be enough. That’s the view of Alan Greenspan and his successor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Neither is a likely member of what Huckabee and some other Republicans warn will become the “United Socialist States of America.”
Battle Over Taxes
It is the tax issue that most infuriates Republicans, who have traded on the subject for decades.
Republicans are making a big deal of a minor provision in Obama’s budget that would curtail the tax deductions wealthier Americans can take for charitable contributions. Even Democrats such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus joined the chorus, saying this would clobber the faith-based organizations that are “the backbone of our communities.”
The problem is many of these church-defending politicians were champions of eliminating the estate tax during George W. Bush’s presidency. That, says Michael Graetz, a Yale Law School professor and former Treasury official who has written a book about the issue, would have reduced charitable giving by about 17 percent.
Estate Tax
Whatever the merits of the Obama proposal, he says, its impact wouldn’t be as large as eliminating the estate tax. And the primary victims would be universities, art museums and possibly hospitals, not churches, which depend more on small givers.
The larger charge is that Obama’s plans amount to ugly class warfare, an effort to soak productive people’s wealth and redistribute it to the less productive, to pit the rich against everyone else.
Returning tax rates to the levels of the late-1990s -- which is what the Obama proposal would do -- seems a rather benign form of class warfare.
If class warfare is the subject, there have been few more pitched battles than in the past eight years, when under Bush’s tax and spending priorities, more benefits flowed to the affluent than to the working class. Income and wealth disparity grew significantly.
Bush’s efforts weren’t mean-spirited; he genuinely thought that reducing the tax burden on the wealthy ultimately would lift everyone. It didn’t work.
And there are legitimate criticisms of Obama’s agenda. It certainly hasn’t instilled confidence in either investors or consumers.
Stale Alternatives
Yet most of the carping is either irresponsible -- a business news cable network demagogically sought to frighten people -- or the same old stale alternatives: more tax cuts for the wealthy, smaller government and more deregulation. It’s as if the last eight years have been expunged.
That’s why Limbaugh has emerged as such a force and why prominent Republicans beg for his blessing. Limbaugh claims at least 20 million people listen to him daily; the Obama White House cites polls saying a larger number of Americans view him as a buffoon.
Limbaugh and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel agree, however, that everyone should read the talkmeister’s recent rant to his fellow conservatives at their convention. Go to wwwrushlimbaugh.com and search for the transcript.
(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.) |
