Obama Ignored American's Long-Term Deficit Worries At Last Night's Press Conference
By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The president did a great job last night at his second prime-time press conference. He has a very reassuring way of speaking, one that is instructive and (at least so far) not lecturing. His closing remarks on the value of patience and persistence were right on the mark.
President Obama held the press conference because he knows there is a lot of anxiety among voters right now. I think he might be misunderstanding the source of that anxiety. Let me explain:
We all know families who have been affected by layoffs, the housing crisis, and the bear market on Wall Street, and those things certainly are creating a lot of fear. But there seems to be just as much nervousness among Americans about the sky-high spending levels the president proposes as "inseparable from this recovery."
Those fears were reflected in some of the questions from reporters last night. A typical one from CNN: whether the president worried "that your daughters, not to mention the next president, will be inheriting an even bigger fiscal mess if the spending goes out of control." AP, CBS, Fox and NBC asked similar questions about the president's budget and spending proposals.
When the president said last night that his budget will cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, the crowd in our family room started laughing. People understand that too much spending and too much borrowing got us into this mess, and they understandably fear that more spending and borrowing will not get us out of it.
While the president was preparing for the press conference yesterday, moderate Democrats in the House and Senate "are performing major surgery" on the President's budget, "in an effort to bring skyrocketing annual deficits under control" reports this morning's Washington Post. The Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee will unveil details of the alternative budget today, and reportedly it'll cut hundred of billions from the President's spending over the next five years. Republicans should jump on that train, and fast.
Three of those Democrats in the Senate—Evan Bayh, Tom Carper and Blanche Lincoln—wrote an op-ed this morning explaining why they're offering alternatives to the President's agenda. Here's the most interesting quote:
Beyond the chessboard of the Senate, nearly half of the U.S. electorate calls itself moderate, and more than half of the rest identify themselves as conservative. That means Democrats could capture every liberal vote and half of the moderates and still lose at the polls. Many independents voted for President Obama and the contours of his change agenda, but they will not rubber-stamp it. They are wary of ideological solutions and are overwhelmingly pragmatic.
President Obama is fond of saying that those who oppose his spending proposals are in favor of doing nothing. "The alternative is to stand pat," he said again last night. At this point, I don't think anyone is advocating doing absolutely nothing.
Most people I know—many of whom include themselves among those moderate and conservative voters Sen. Bayh is referring to—would support a reasonable plan that includes long-term investments in energy, education and infrastructure while somehow addressing rising health care costs. By "reasonable plan" I mean one that doesn't add trillions and trillions to our deficit for the next decade.
A reasonable plan would go a long way toward reassuring nervous Americans who are worried about trillion-dollar deficits stretching as far as the eye can see.
And there are an awful lot of nervous Americans. As Sen. Bayh points out, they're more than half of our electorate.
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Tags: Barack Obama | federal deficit | fiscal policy
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Reader Comments
Get Real People
Capitalism run amok has ruined America's stance in the world and taken down the standard of living with it.
Complete Socialism is not the answer and this country will never go that way as long as the middle class does not dwindle away.The always have been "have nots" are used to their standard of living although they might not like it better than anyone else. The middle class was growing but institutions bent on profits from credit gave extremely high lines of creit and did not care if people had handsfull of credit cards. The were giving credit cards to any college student that had a pulse to boot.
To feed this growth town/cities created sprawl and the load on utilities and roads etc. created mega State jobs. It kept going with no real checks an balance and the 'water wars" were cropping up as the top battle.
Throw all that together on top of allowing Mega Financial Instutions to be created and tripiling the uncovered capital they were allowed with the Bush Era applying a total hands off policy.
Now throw in a Democratic body that told us what they intended -tax and spend to create and He was not going to waste any time getting started.
For two years of the Presidential run offs and the past 2 and a half months the Republicans have not answered with any plan except to scale back.
Take action with risks that buys some time or no action with the potential of an immediate total collapse. Not aggod place to be.
Republicans have already flooded the air waves with their "trash" machine but no answers. They join Mary Cate Cary of offering criticism but no plan. Hell, anyone can be a critic without repsonsibility.
I am no Obama advocate but I felt that if they Republicans remianed they would find a way to hide as much of the dirt from the American people and poured even more money into corporate pockets.
I did not feel the Democrats could come with a plan that did not cost a huge amount of money but at least the would weed out and point out the nitty gritty deep down dirt as they found it so the next regime would be more careful about what they promised along the election trail because we all will be srutinizing who was sleeping with who back when!
I would like to see every critic that has a published column to get together and see what plan they can come up with.
TO RDO of MA
If the only reason you are staying in the states is because it benefits you financially then please move. Shill your false socialist notions elsewhere. The US economy has been regulated since Teddy instituted anti-trust laws, and we haven't been a pure capitalistic economy since. We also have monetary and fiscal policies instituted via the Fed, again we are not at pure capitalistic economy. The capitalistic utopia you've imagined only existed in your head and it was Bush's blind eye that pushed it over the cliff.
Adam Smith said it best, "What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."
Good Bye America As We Know It!
The majority of voters (not just U.S. registered voters) made Obama the President. This same majority does not understand what true democratic elections or capitalism is all about. The majority of those that voted did not consider which President had the best chance in strengthening our economy or country, instead they voted for the person that would personally hand out the most free money to them. So now the sucessful will be supporting the dead-beats. Sure there are some good responsible people that have been unlucky and lost their jobs, however I'll bet they are out looking for another job. But why look here. Just look forward a few years, what incentives do sucessful business people have in staying in this country? Why not go live somewhere else and watch this country fall apart as more and more contributors to our economy are forced to leave so they can reap the benefits of their hard work and live at the standard of living their work and prosperity allows them too. We live in a global economy now, we do not have to be here (in the U.S.A.).
This is not the principles by which our country was founded or has made it flourish for so many years. This is how the socialist countries developed and tried to run things. We all see how well that went over.
Taking a step back however, this is a smart ploy by the democrats since it will make the majority of voters in this country reliant on the government to take care of them, thereby assuring reelections to the candidates that wish to continue this form of big government. These "leaders" will all make their side-deal money so when the country goes bust, they will comfortably survive. They do not care that they are destroying the country we all grew up in.
I'm sure these thoughts will be ignored by those profiting from this government tactic, and the majority of those benefiting from it will not read or be able to read this.
Well good bye America, and it's too bad I will not be around (I will be long gone, since I am in my mid 40's now) when the next revolution happens, in order to take back our once great country, restore the constitution so America can prosper in the world again.
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