stupidity. Seriously. (h/t Agonist.)
President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up to Wednesday’s State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with the plan tell POLITICO.
This is in reaction to polling which shows that Americans are worried about the deficit. Of course, if Obama does this, the economy will not recovery properly, and people will vote against him and Democrats anyway. The correct response, politically and policy-wise, is to fix the economy, in which case people won’t give a damn about the deficit.
I should add, also, that security spending is very ineffective stimulus and even worse development or industrial policy. It’s better than tax cuts, admittedly, but it’s not better than most non-security spending.
I really don’t know what to say about Obama any more, other that the law of Bush is still in effect: no matter how bad you think things are they are always worse than you think, even if you take this law into account. Except it’s now the rule of Obama.
Please re-read my post on getting out.
Mandos
I can’t help but point out: THIS was the lesson learned from the defeat of Martha Coakley. It’s totally unsurprising. He has written off the Democratic base.
Ian Welsh
Yup. And he’s going to pay for it. One term president.
But I’m sure the financial industry will make his retirement a rich one, just like they have with Blair.
If Pelosi has guts she’ll go into opposition: against Obama.
But I’m pretty sure won’t. Which means her days as Speaker are numbered.
Cujo359
If Pelosi wouldn’t oppose Bush, I don’t see why she’d oppose Obama.
Ian Welsh
Bush was giving her a majority. Obama is taking it away. I don’t expect her to act from principle (well, honestly I don’t expect her to act from self-preservation either, but it’s at least plausible, and not laughable.)
BDBlue
The stupid just keeps on coming. See after they get a control of all this discretionary spending, people will be willing to let them cut popular entitlements. So it’s really just a prelude to gutting social security and medicare.
John B.
But, hey! The bloated Pentagon budget is off the table, becuase dontcha know: We at War!
dcblogger
There are things our our friends abroad could do for us.
lambert strether
Sure we’re at war. The only question is, with whom…
tjfxh
“Jimmy” Obama or”Herbert” Obama? My bet is on Herbert.
b.
The man is so bad, it is time to ask who will run in the 2011 primaries against him.
Mandos
Now, the question is: what can we learn from this debacle? If the Coakley loss really was the instigator of this SOTU shift, I suggest that the place to start is to consider the possibilities if Coakley had won.
S Brennan
Mandos,
“If the Coakley loss really was the instigator of this SOTU shift, I suggest that the place to start is to consider the possibilities if Coakley had won.”
I suggest you start be reading up. This was in the works before the election. Instead coming up with cockamamie theory, do a little Googling without asking somebody to do it for you.
You are really starting to sound lame, they announced ahead of time [Rahm in particular] that they were going right either way the election went. Really stupid repetitive posts by you.
Try:
Obama on Coakley election: She wins, working class loses. She loses, Upper crust wins. Have our boy, Mandos come up with some cockamamie theory that blames the voters for telling us to go to hell for repeatedly spitting on them.
Shorter Mandas, bend over and lube up or Obama will screw you!
Mandos
SB: Oh, SB. Of course, they were going to drift further to the right. The only questions were how much, and how they were going to present it. That calculation clearly has shifted to the extent that the base has shown itself, from their perspective, to be unreliable, and the superficial reality of the Coakley situation from the point where she became uncertain has set in.
The Republican base, for example, gave Bush until 2006 before abandoning him. That is because the Republican base has a political programme and strategy that they stick with, and they follow through, even when Bush and Congress disappointed them (they did). That follow-through has given them immense influence and credibilty within the Republican party now.
The Democratic base has no political coherence or follow-through. It’s a collection of wishful thinkers, what Sir Charles aptly calls Dimestore Marxists, and people who think of politics inside the system in schoolyard terms (“blames the voters for telling us to go to hell for repeatedly spitting on them”). It’s like they thought—especially many of the people who didn’t want Obama from 2008—that on election of a Democratic president, the ship of state would be turned hard to port, immediately.
Well, golly, when you decide that you need to work within the system, you have to start with an understanding of the system’s parameters, simple as that. If you’re going to throw a tantrum when it turns out that the system works exactly as designed, well…
It will continue its trajectory into right-wing populism, with an insane base that nevertheless has coherence and follow-through. The Kremlin is not going to be dictated to, until it is.
A Coakley win would have decelerated this trajectory to some small extent. The SOTU to be presented is, by all accounts—especially by people who have a better peephole into the Sublime Porte than either of us—a surprise in its particular form and presentation.
If you don’t think it’s worth decelerating this trajectory, then you should be pleased at this outcome, of course. I disagree. I also doubt that the solutions are going to come from within this incarnation of the political process, at this point, but if they are, then you wouldn’t have seen them until 2014 at the earliest.
S Brennan
I disagree with this unsupported dissertation this is the insanity you decry, problem is, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM OFFERING SOLUTIONS.
“A Coakley win would have decelerated this trajectory to some small extent….If you don’t think it’s worth decelerating this trajectory, then you should be pleased at this outcome, of course.”
BTW, Rahm and his point said almost the same thing to voters, vote for us or we will switch our Black shirts for Brown. I love hearing regurgitated talking points. Sheeesh.
Mandos
And he’s telling you exactly what is going to happen. So, you call his bluff. And then? Well, we’re now starting to see the “And then” part.
Did anybody think about this? Did they have alternate institutions ready to replace the ones they’re kicking? A TV channel or two?
Call back when the base actually has political leverage.
I wish. Then I could afford a trip to Paris and an apartment on Park Ave.
Ian Welsh
“Lick our glorious masters boots, and maybe they’ll take longer before they whip us.”
Mandos
Sure, if you want to think about it that way. Oppressed people follow this calculation 99% of the time. It isn’t because they’re stupid or cowards—it takes a lot of privilege to think about them that way, actually. Take it from someone who has lived his life very fortunate in some ways, but as a member of an unpopular minority in a permanently apologetic stance. Rebellions rarely succeed.
When the oppressed improve their lot, it is because they have acquired some sort of leverage. You think that by not voting for the Democrats, you are acquiring leverage over them? Well, we’re going to see whether that’s true, in a big way in November, maybe. I hope it’s true.
Ian Welsh
And, actually, you’re wrong anyway. Notice that the Senate killed the comission that was meant to gut SS and Medicare? Obama may have moved to the right, the Senate is just running, and they told Obama to take his ideas for losing Dem Senators jobs, and stuff them.
Mandos
So, because they aren’t ready to openly meddle with an always-popular program that Bush couldn’t touch, this is a sign of progress?
Wake me up when they propose the shiny *new* mandate-free health care initiative (that isn’t tort reform). I mean, we’re in Reconciliation Heaven now, right? We can have everything! It’s going to be AWESOME.
Actually, there are signs of hope: voters in Oregon voted in a referendum to tax the rich! May the meme spread. Praise the Lord, seriously. Maybe we can have this in 2020, federally.