It's Not That Complicated

I'm not following the political ins and outs as I once did, like way back in October. But having spent my two cents on the tax cut deal for the edification of an ever-shrinking public, I have to say that I watched President Obama's press conference and I'm not in the least confused.

Others apparently are. Clive Cook in the Atlantic called Obama's press conference this week his most interesting, and I can buy that. But he felt Obama contradicted himself: he blamed the need for this tax cut deal on GOPers who "held hostage" middle class tax cuts and unemployment insurance, unless tax cuts for the megawealthy oligarchy continue. But at the same time, he criticized progressive critics for demanding purity, when that would mean millions of middle class and poor Americans would be paying more taxes and the chronic unemployed would get nothing. As Cook put it:

Good Lord. One minute, he's reassuring progressives. We are good and they are evil. It's victims and hostage-takers, no less. Just be patient, our time will come, and accounts with the enemy will be settled. Next minute, he's rebuking the same progressives. Spare me your sanctimonious purism. It's un-American. We have good-faith differences of opinion. "This country was founded on compromise."

I simply don't see a contradiction, even theoretically, and I certainly don't see that Obama was contradicting himself. He said that although progressives are basically right on this issue, he had to compromise in order to get what was more important, and progressive ought to be smart enough to see that.

This is the difference between politics and governing. Progressives can build up their egoes and media profiles with angry demands, and progressive groups can scare up more contributions because as everyone in the politics biz knows, you raise money for opposition. Fine. But Barack Obama has a different job. He's President. He has a country to worry about, and things to get done.

I keep going back to my touchstone here, the lessons I learned at the ripe old age of 16, listening to what Ted Sorenson and JFK said about what they did in the early 60s. When they enacted what became Medicare, started the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, the Peace Corps, the first raise in the minimum wage in awhile, the Treat Ban Treaty and sent to Congress what became the Voting Rights Act.

Maybe their critique of "liberals" was more discreet, but I judged Obama's words as a rebuke intended to throw some reality into the situation so that progressives might see that demanding purism only gets them what they got in the 2010 elections, as well as not being able to effectively govern.

I have absolutely no problem with Bernie Sanders talking for more than eight hours on the Senate floor opposing tax cuts for the wealthy:"How can I get by on one house?" Sanders railed, sarcastically. "I need five houses, ten houses. I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power." I am personally sickened to the point of physical disgust by Wall Street oligarchs and their GOPer servants. The Bush tax cuts for them are obscene. But even the pre-Bush taxes on the superwealthly were too low. And while it is a disgustingly high price to pay to give ordinary people a much needed break in their taxes in this unsettled economy, it has to be done. Temporarily.

There are I am sure progressives or even non-progressives who believe President Obama is wrong about the economy, that the tax cuts for the middle class aren't going to do what he hopes they will do and therefore aren't worth it, and especially aren't worth the continued tax cuts for the wealthy. But the anger is coming from those who make this an absolute moral argument, an absolute ideological argument and an absolute party-political argument, and that's the "sanctimonious" purity President Obama went after, and he was right to do so. Of course those tax cuts are immoral. It's hardly the only immoral thing government does, but the tradeoff is a moral good: that little bit of money means a lot to people who are strapped, within an economy that offers fewer opportunities. I for one am more interested in keeping my earned income tax credit than in the obscenely wealthly continuing to pay less than they did eight years ago.

As for those who think President Obama has alienated his progressive base and therefore hurts himself politically (including folks I often agree with, like E.J. Dionne) I don't see it that way. I think a lot of middle class people, in trouble or not far from it, or who are vulnerable enough to imagine it, would look at that press conference and say, he's standing up against everybody for us. He's standing up against the GOPers, because of what he got them to give to the middle class, to struggling families, to the unemployed. He's standing up against people in his own party, and he's not apologizing for it. And he's being straight about it with everybody:

"So my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there. What is helping the American people live out their lives? What is giving them more opportunity? What is growing the economy? What is making us more competitive? And at any given juncture, there are going to be times where my preferred option, what I am absolutely positive is right, I can’t get done.

And so then my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or tack a little bit that way, because I’m keeping my eye on the long term and the long fight -- not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term?"

As for his general argument, he's made it before--the way that Social Security and Medicare started small, as highly compromised programs, etc. But he threw one more example in there that for me was more of a key to his thinking:

"This country was founded on compromise. I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding."

Though the man who was once called America's first black President agrees that this deal is good for the country, this is the perspective of the man who is our first actual black President. Think about it.

Update: Last words on this topic: The reason this happened now is time--the Bush tax cuts for both the wealthy and the middle class would disappear January 1 if nothing is done. That put the GOPers under the gun as well as Obama. Now if the election had turned out better for the Dems, Obama would be in better position now. But later in January, when the new Congress is sworn in, GOPers will be in better position to do what they want. If not for the Jan. 1 deadline, they would have waited. So that's the leverage Obama had to get concessions for this deal. Plus he faced the imminent ending of unemployment insurance payments to several million people.

This is the political reality: both sides needed to make a deal now. Obama got a pretty good one. Those who believe they would have gotten a better deal following their strategy have to convince me that (a) They're smarter than Obama, and (b) they are in the White House or Congress and in the room with the negotiators, so they're doing more than armchair arm-twisting. I mean, we can all speculate, but let's respect the fact that we aren't actually there, and he is... There are more arguments pro and con summarized in an exchange at Salon.