By Brigitte L. Nacos
Remember those days and weeks of the 2008 election campaign, when candidate Barack Obama inspired many Americans, especially the young, with his yes-we-can optimism? Although his predecessor left behind an economic and fiscal wreck, there was an invigorating essence in the 44th president’s message of change for the better--not just for the upper crust but for all Americans. Nearly three years later, there is little or nothing left of the yes-we-can spirit. And although the recession is technically over for a while, an unemployment rate of more than 9 percent signals that there has not been a change for the better for the mass of Americans. Never mind that the profits of corporations and the wealth of bigwigs have grown significantly.
So, what went wrong with Obama’s promise of yesteryear?
The current political maneuvers surrounding the debt ceiling melodrama may provide some answers. This morning, under the headline “White House thinks it has debt debate high ground,” POLITICO writes that “Obama, vilified by opponents for ducking the debt debate earlier this year, has seized the opportunity to portray himself as the champion of a $4 trillion ‘grand bargain’ on tax and entitlement reform. A senior aide is quoted as saying, “He’s got the high ground. He’s the adult in the room. He’s looking good right now.”
Looking good to whom? Certainly not to the large number of Americans who struggle to make ends meet whether they are employed or unable to find a job. Certainly not to the men and women in uniform who risk their lived to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban and who wouldn’t have neutralized Osama bin Laden and scores of other terrorist leaders without cooperating in their dangerous missions.
Nobody is a champion in the political and partisan infighting in Washington. There is a lack of courageous leadership and the will to do what is right and fair and just regardless of the political consequences.
Just as the pitiful bunch of the Republican “leaders” in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate is held hostage by a tiny number of so-called grass root Tea Party activists, the president is held hostage by reelection consideration and the assumption that Independents and moderate Democrats want him to cooperate and compromise with the opposition regardless of the price. That’s precisely what he did months ago, when he agreed to the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, even for the highest income group, and their devastating effects on the budget deficit. That’s what he did, when he decided on the 30,000 number of the Afghanistan surge, giving the generals not all they wanted and throwing Vice President Joe Biden and other opponents a little bone as well.
To be sure, governing is different from campaigning. But although cynics may not believe this, research has found that literally all presidents make great efforts to translate their campaign promises into actual policies. In most agenda points, not all, presidents are quite successful.
I am no longer sure that Obama will continue this historical trend if he bends over once again and sells out to his Republican opponents in the debt ceiling issue. The more he agrees to slash funds from middle class programs and those for poor, the less he fulfills his promise of change for the better for all. The weaker he gets in his resistance to remove tax subsidies and loopholes for corporations and wealthy individuals, the more he betrays those who believed in his message of change and hope and elected him.
President Obama should finally stand up to Republicans who have left no doubt about their agenda. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said, denying Barack Obama a second term is the predominant goal of his party. There is nothing wrong with an out party trying to unseat the president. But the present Republican calculus of obstruction is dangerous beyond belief. The more the already weak economic engine slows down and even plunges into another recession, the larger the budget deficit grows, and the more severe the misery index for the middle class and the poor becomes, the better the chances are to defeat President Obama in November 2012. That’s behind the Republican obstructionism.
Instead of negotiating with elected officials who put their individual and their party’s self-interest ahead of the national interest, the president should put on his old law professor’s hat, reread, and reconsider Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. This is the text of that provision:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
In other words, it is legitimate for the administration to pay whatever the U.S. government is obligated to pay—certainly in the face of horrific consequences for the domestic and global economic and financial systems.
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