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The American Presidency: World Tour!
moniker
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The only problem with Barack Obama’s move to the centre is that he’s not moving far enough
The Economist wrote:THE reaction to Jesse Helms’s death on July 4th is a reminder of how bipolar American politics has become. The right praised him as a man of principle who also overflowed with the milk of human kindness. The left retorted—rightly, in our view—that he was also a bigot and a bully (see article). But at least conservatives and liberals have discovered one thing they can agree on: that Barack Obama is a cynical opportunist, a flip-flopper and a shape-changer, a man who brushes aside his principles with the same nonchalance that lesser mortals reserve for their dandruff.
Bob Herbert of the New York Times worries that Mr Obama is “not just tacking gently to the centre. He’s lurching right when it suits him, and he’s zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.†Some 22,000 people have protested on his website about his change of heart on wiretapping. A group called “Recreate68†promises to complain about his move to the centre at the Democratic convention in Denver in August.
For its part, the right has discovered that Mr Obama is not a “hard left†liberal, as it had previously thought, but a standard-issue politician who will “say and do anything to get electedâ€. Charles Krauthammer calls him a “man of seasonal principlesâ€. Bo Snerdley, Rush Limbaugh’s sidekick, describes him as “the first black Clintonâ€. “Has there ever in recent political memory been so much calculation and bad faith by a politician who has made so much of eschewing both?â€, asks Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review.
This is all overstated. Mr Obama was always clear that he was running for the presidency of the United States, not the chairmanship of MoveOn.org. He has repeatedly presented himself as a post-partisan problem-solver who wants to work with Republicans as well as Democrats. His enthusiasm for “faith-based†social services is long held. Even on the issue that first endeared him to the left—the Iraq war—he made it abundantly clear that he was opposed to that particular war, not to the exercise of American power. Still, there is no doubt that he has engaged in a bit of vigorous repositioning in the past few weeks.
The old Obama pledged to take public financing in the general election. The new one will spend what it takes. The old Obama pledged to filibuster a bill giving legal immunity to telecoms companies that co-operated with the government on terrorist surveillance. The new one supports the bill. The old Obama failed to wear a flag pin. The new Obama talks about patriotism in a sea of American flags, praises General David Petraeus, the chief commander in Iraq, raises doubts about partial-birth abortion, agrees with the Supreme Court on gun rights, supports the death penalty for child-rapists and embraces faith-based social work.
But isn’t moving to the centre just sensible politics as the primary turns into a general election? Ronald Reagan devoted a great deal of energy to persuading people that he was not a trigger-happy ideologue. Bill Clinton sold himself as a New Democrat who felt Middle America’s pain. George Bush initially styled himself a “compassionate conservativeâ€. The likes of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, on the left, and Barry Goldwater, on the right, may have won brownie points from their supporters for sticking to their principles. But they went down to calamitous defeats. The oddity of this election cycle is not that Mr Obama is moving to the centre but that John McCain is moving to the right.
Mr Obama’s flip-flop on public finance is certainly cynical (and his willingness to justify it as an act of high principle even more so). But polls suggest that Americans are happy with a certain amount of flip-flopping: Mr Bush has all but destroyed the market in stubborn consistency. And Mr Obama’s hard-edged cynicism also helps to quell one of the biggest doubts about his candidacy—that he is too naive and soft-minded to hold the most powerful job in the world.
Mr Obama is capitalising not only on his huge fund-raising advantage over Mr McCain but also on his rival’s problems with his base. He is occupying the middle ground in order to reassure white voters that he shares their values. This is no airy-fairy liberal who is going to allow himself to be pushed around by Middle Eastern despots. This is a shrewd opportunist at work.
John Kerry’s shadow
The vital question is not whether Mr Obama is changing his positions but whether he is changing them for better or worse. Here the picture is largely positive. His new-found enthusiasm for NAFTA and free trade could help to avert a prosperity-destroying drift to protectionism. Indeed, his chief economics adviser, Jason Furman, sounds like the very model of good sense. Mr Obama’s willingness to support wiretapping in certain circumstances suggests that he is trying to strike a balance between security and privacy in what he calls a “dangerous worldâ€: the policy challenge is not to pursue vendettas against the Bush administration but to find a reasonable set of rules to govern surveillance. His repositioning on the Iraq war represents a recognition that the situation on the ground in Iraq has changed dramatically.
If there is a problem with all this repositioning, it is that it is not going far enough for most American moderates. Mr Obama has punted on partial-birth abortion rather than denouncing the whole gruesome procedure. He has insisted on putting restrictions on faith-based social services that most churches find unacceptable. On July 3rd he held not one but two press conferences on Iraq—one in which he seemed to suggest that he would adjust his policy in the light of new realities, another in which he insisted that his position “has not changedâ€. Mr Obama needs to embrace centrism as a matter of conviction rather than flirting with it as an instrument of political expediency. Otherwise the accusations of flip-flopping that did John Kerry so much harm in 2004 will begin to bite.
Though his 'shift to the center' is generally more overplayed than reality should suggest.
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You would think, given the past eight years, that people would want a president who is comfortable taking an initial position, evaluating the facts, and then changing position based on better information. Changing one's mind is GOOD, especially when the opposite is the equivalent of a guy willing to drive 200 miles in the wrong direction just because that's the way he decided to go 200 miles ago.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
I'd been long under the impression that the real "crisis" was that the Social Security fund was routinely raided to fund non-SS government programs when politicians wanted to spend money without raising taxes or borrowing more from China. Anyone know how true this is?
It's because "flip-flop" doesn't mean "change your mind", it's become synonymous with "pander" or "tell them what they want to hear." Accusing a politician of "flip-flopping" is saying that they're being disingenuous.
Social Security is a disgrace because it's social security and not not-social security. Which would be a program that John McCain supports. Screw you old people, you should have stopped us from raiding the trust fund when you had the chance.
The running list for this week:
1) Called Social Security a disgrace and displayed an apparently confusion on how the system works since the substance for his complaint was simply a word for word description of social security
2) McCain's top economic advisor called the American people whiners, followed by the poor attempt at disowning the advisor with McCain's claim that he didn't speak for McCain despite the fact at the time he'd explicitly been sent to an interview as McCain's economic surrogate (which to your credit was mentioned)
3) The Iraqi government's call for a time table and McCain's convoluted attempt to square this fact with his refusal to honor a pledge to withdraw no matter what if the Iraqi government asked the US to do so
4) McCain's economic plan being almost completely substance-free and near universally derided by experts, which included:
5) The idea that McCain will bring troops home and win the Iraq war within 4 years (which no one can explain the specific reasoning or plan behind) and that reducing the amount of spending on the Iraq war (which has been funded entirely with deficit spending) will create money that can be used to pay down the deficit
6) A misleading statement (or outright lie) about the nature of economist support for McCain's budget (they signed a letter saying they agreed with his generally conservative economic principles which made no mention of his budget plan and was sent well before it was even formed)
7) ANOTHER joke about killing Iranians
8) McCain flatly denying ever saying he was not an expert on economics, despite having said it twice on two different occasions (for which video is available)
9) McCain distorting his support of GI benefits and lieing about his awards/rating from veterans groups, which he was promptly called on by veterans and again is on video
10) A somewaht odd and baseless statement on Afghanistan/Pakistan that again speaks to an underlying lack of knowledge about the situation
11) A damaging blow to the McCain's campaign effort to court women voters when he refused to answer a question on inequalities in medical access (coverage for viagara vs birth control), combined with a repeat of the claim by Sen. McCain that he can't say what hsi current position or thoughts on the issue were because he didn't know how he voted (which refers back to an embarassing past incident where Sen McCain refused to say whether he thought condoms stopped the transmission of AIDS because he didn't know his voting record on the issue)
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Every time I've seen "flip-flop" used, it's been used in place of "he used to be on this side of an issue, and now he's on the opposite side." When they want to say "pander" they say "pander."
Now, I was 14 in 2000, but if that's true what were they doing? Were they actually fellating him on camera and not just metaphorically? Did they supply hookers? Sacrifice their first born?
It's still used in a "having your cake and eating it too" manner. I voted for the bill before I voted against it, as stupid as that bruhaha was, it's held up as a shining example.
By law, all Social Security surpluses* must be "invested" in Treasuries. Treasuries are the bonds (IOUs) that the federal government issues to finance its deficit spending. So in a very real sense the Trust Fund consists of nothing but promises from the federal government to pay up in the future.
This is called intra-governmental debt, basically moving items on your balance sheet to where they suit you. There is no "raiding" that happens from time to time. Literally every dollar of surplus* goes straight to government spending.
* A surplus here refers to tax revenues from current workers exceeding pay-outs to current retires. It is not a surplus in the private sector sense of a defined benefit pension system (Social Security is of this type) that has more money on hand than necessary to pay all future claims, i.e. being more than fully funded. Social Security is underfunded to a hilarious degree, since the promises of future benefits are outrageous and completely unaffordable to this country.
Care to provide a list of throwable cartoon items that aren't inappropriate? o_O
The Daily Show used to love him.
And you can see their conflict when making fun of him. He's a nice guy, everyone used to like him. Now they're stuck in a position to ravage a good friend they think is wrong.
I can get that feeling, but at some point you have to wonder why Everyone seems to be unhappy about taking shots at his legitimate what the shit moments (that economic plan alone, let's leave gaffs out of it. what the shit? Win war .. profit!??).
In this context? Watermelon, fried chicken, grape drink, mentholated cigarettes, nooses, burning crosses, and white women.
Right, my money going directly to someone else -> welfare entitlement
My money being held in escrow until I need it later -> insurance
SSI was never created to be an entitlement system, which is why removing the income cap is anathema.
Cite please.
Why do we need a government program of saving our own money? Couldn't they just put a sign up at banks that says "put 10% into a retirement fund or you'll be sorry!"
I thought the whole point of SS was that when you were old or in Circumstances you still got a bit of a check to keep you alive, even if you'd been too poor to save for retirement.
Something I can actually agree with. Everyone pays, everyone gets their investment back.
It's the only thing that keeps the system in place at all. As soon as income caps and whatnot start coming into the picture, wave goodbye to Social Security.
http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=ODVlMGQ3NWNlNWYzOGVkYzUxODMzNGM4MDVhNjM5Mzk=
So we're down to just assigning positive or negative terms to prove our point? Current workers pay money in, the money goes into a big pool, money goes out to individual retirees. The system isn't a checking account you open with the government it's a paired tax and expenditure program.
This line of argument is basically complaining that social security isn't something else altogether. It's not anything wrong with the program itself.
The bolded part is completely correct. So, challenges on this point are stupid.
SS was created so old people do not die of starvation and extreme poverty, basically.
I'd really like to see numbers on that. I really strongly feel this whole thing is politicians blaming the "system" for their (and their predecessors) fuck ups but have no proof of that.
McCain is way out of touch with reality. Barring a constitutional amendment we're never going to have the government sitting on billions of dollars it could be spending, not unless we're all wearing money hats or something.
You only get that check so long as you put money into the Social Security system. My grandma had when she worked before the war, but not enough for some reason. So they only had my Grandpa's check in the mail when he retired. (Plus his pension and other crap for being a carpenter then foreman.) It essentially is the process of saving your money for later, just not using your actual money. That goes out to existing retirees who already payed into the system for earlier generations. When you get to be the age of a Wal~Mart greeter the new generation of working stiffs pays cash into the fund to ensure you get the check you're entitled to.
Hunh. Interesting. So do you get a standard check, say $50 a week (or whatever), once you retire, regardless of the fact that you paid in $400 a week or $4 a week when you were working? Because I mean, unless it's more efficient than simply shoving cash into a mattress I don't get the point.
People are stupid. We have a negative savings rate. SS is a way of making sure our grandparents dont die in some gutter because they blew too much of their money when they were younger.
No idea what he actually gets, and I wouldn't ever think of asking. I don't think it's a standard, nominal amount across the spectrum, regardless of your actual contribution to the system.
Loss Aversion and people tending to figure "Oh I have plenty of time to worry about that later" would result in a shitton of old people having no money if we followed a voluntary contribution plan.
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I'm sorry, but I got to the point where they claimed they lost the upper middle class because they were too successfull and had to stop reading.
I don't know if subsisting on social security would let them afford living in the gutter in the first place. Those rents are outrageous.
It's really rather sad at the state of finances in our society writ large, though. I mean, I have a Roth at 23, and without any real debts, yet I feel like I'm behind where I should be. Even though I'm way the fuck ahead of the jackasses who make up the average.
Also, the part where they completely ignored that the GOP stopped being the party of responsible fiscal behavior somewhere during the Reagan administration. It's not "tax-and-spend" vs. "fiscal responsibility", it's "tax-and-spend" vs. "dont-tax-but-spend-anyway".
I prefer the term 'indebt and spend Republican.' Has the same simplicity as 'tax and spend liberal' rather than trying to explain why deficit spending is, in general, bad. It just sucks that you can't use the 'conservative' moniker since that doesn't actually apply logically. Even though fiscal conservatives don't really exist on the hill much anymore.
Oh, that makes sense, then. So it's basically a financial seatbelt law.
There's a difference between social insurance and social welfare.
from wiki
Yeah..people setting aside 10% of their income for retirement from a young age voluntarily? Not going to happen. Banks already have a sign saying to put money aside for retirement, and many people do, because the retirement money you get back from social security is not going to be enough.
I understand why the government writes itself IOU's, and spends the money it gets. If the system isn't able to support itself it is part of a greater problem of an aging work force. If the money was just left in a giant pot it would depreciate. And if you invest it into something, someone will complain about what you invested it into and who gets to make that decision, regardless of the return on investment.
It might look really bad that the government was spending money that was suppose to be held to pay for your retirement, but really, you befitted indirectly from the roads/schools or whatever they spent it on to better the country. If you have a problem with how your government is spending money that is really a different issue.