The unhappy warrior by Michael Barone September 8, 2011 8:26pm Barack Obama looked and sounded angry in his speech to the joint session of Congress. He bitterly assailed one straw man after another and made reference to a grab bag of proposals which would cost something on the order of $450 billionâassuring us on the one hand that they all had been supported by Republicans as well as Democrats in the past and suggesting that somehow they are going to turn the economy around. He called for further cuts in the payroll tax (which if continued indefinitely would undermine the case of Social Security as something people have earned rather than a form of welfare) and for a further extension of unemployment insurance (perhaps justifiable on humanitarian grounds, but sure to at least marginally raise the unemployment rate over what it would otherwise be). He called for a tax credit for hiring the long-term unemployed (unfortunately, these things can be gamed). He gave a veiled plug for his pet project of high-speed rail (a real dud) and for infrastructure spending generally (but didnât he learn that there arenât really any shovel-ready projects?). He called for a school modernization program (will it result in more jobs than the Seattle weatherization program that cost $22 million and produced 14 jobs?) and for funding more teacher jobs (a political payoff to the teacher unions which together with other unions gave Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle). âWeâll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it would do for the country.â Yeah, sure. Like the screening process that produced that $535,000,000 loan guarantee to now-bankrupt Solyndra. And Congress should pass the free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Except that Congress canât, because Obama hasnât sent them up there yet in his 961 days as president. Obama assured us that this would all be paid for. But as far as I could gather, he punted that part of it to the supercommittee of 12 members set up under the debt ceiling bill. He now blithely charges it with coming up with more than its current goal of $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Oh, and heâs going to announce âa more ambitious deficit planâ that will âstabilize our debt in the long runâ--11 days from now. In the meantime, he called for higher taxes on âa few of the most affluent citizensââas if this could pay for all the spending heâs been backing. Whatâs interesting here is that he seems to have left the way open for a 1986-style tax reform, cutting tax rates and eliminating tax preferences, or at least thatâs how I read these words: âWhile most people in this country struggle to make ends meet, a few of the most affluent citizens and corporations enjoy tax breaks and loopholes that nobody else gets [did he look up at his guest Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, which paid no corporate tax on $14 billion in profits last year?]. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretaryâan outrage he has asked us to fix [actually, Buffett could volunteer to pay more if he wants to]. We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake, and everybody pays their fair share. And I believe the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that, if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order.â As I read it, heâs not insisting on higher tax rates, though he apparently is not ready to agree to a tax reform that is scored as revenue-neutral, as the 1986 act was. Also, if Obama wanted a 1986-type reform, he could have used the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commissionâs recommendations last December as a springboard; instead, he brushed them aside without a murmur. So on balance I donât think heâs serious on this, but there is a glimmer of a possibility that he is. Straw men took a terrible beating from the president. He assailed âtax loopholesâ for oil companies, the chief one of which is that they are treated like other companies classified as manufacturers. The administration proposal is that the five largest oil companies shouldnât be, becauseâwell, because we want to get our hands on more of their money. Todayâs Republicans, he gave us to understand, want to âeliminate most government regulationsâ and âwipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades.â And, he suggested, they would never have created public health schools or the G.I. Bill or research universities. When Barack Obama says, âThis isnât political grandstanding,â you have a pretty good clue that that is exactly what it is. Lest anyone doubt that, consider this from the third-to-last paragraph. âYou should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of the country.â In other words, this was a campaign speech. It might result in passage of some of Obamaâs proposals, and some of them might even do some good. But of course we didnât see the kind of change of direction on policy that Bill Clinton made in 1995 and 1996, which enabled him to rise above his partyâs 45% level of support in the 1994 elections (thatâs the Democratic percentage of the House popular vote) and with 49% of the vote win reelection in 1996. (Ross Perot won 6% that year; polls suggest two points of it would have gone to Clinton had Perot not run.) I donât think these proposals have the potential to turn around the careening economy, I donât think many of them will become law and I donât think this campaign initiative is likely to prove successful. From the demeanor and affect of the unhappy warrior at the podium last night, I suspect he may feel the same way. Since I commented on Michele Bachmannâs makeup after the Republican presidential debate last night, let me make a comment on male neckware today. What is it with pastel ties? Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Boehner were all wearing them tonight, and so was Fox Newsâs Ed Henry, reporting from the White House. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/unhappy-warrior
Sounds like I didn't miss anything by not watching our liar in chief give another one of his stupid speeches.