Is This ‘The Reveal’ We’ve Been Waiting For?
For those of you who don’t know what “the reveal” is just google “The Reveal” & Obama and a post by yours truly should be in the top 50 results. If that is too much work for your lazy ass, just read this quote from Henry IV, Part 1
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
What follows is no “The American President” smack down… but it is something.
By Greg Sargent
* Obama team aggressively moving to reset the dynamic on jobs: The notable thing about the current standoff over Obama’s jobs bill is that the White House seems to be aggressively trying to reset a dynamic that has repeatedly bedeviled the President in the past.
Yesterday Republicans came out against Obama’s plan to fund his proposal largely by raising taxes on the rich, and signaled a willingness to entertain passing only parts of his jobs bill. But Obama and his advisers continue to rebuff the GOP’s overtures, such as they are. Rather than signaling a willingness to compromise at the outset, as Obama and Dems repeatedly have done previously, Obama advisers continue to insist the GOP must pass his whole jobs package.
The exchange this morning on ABC News between Obama senior adviser David Axelrod and George Stepanopoulos is notable:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it all or nothing?
AXELROD: The President has a package. The package works together. We need to do many things to get this economy moving and people back to work, not just one thing. Tokenism isn’t enough. We want them to pass the plan. The American people want them to pass the plan. We don’t want to play games. We don’t want to engage in brinkmanship. We want to put people back to work. This package will do that. They ought to act now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So it’s all or nothing?
AXELROD: We want them to act now on this package. We’re not in a negotiation to break up the package. It’s not an a la carte menu. It is a strategy to get this country moving.
Stephanopoulos is echoing the GOP framing of the debate here, but Axelrod isn’t taking the bait. Even if Obama advisers don’t expect the plan to pass in its current form, and are staking out this hard line only to strengthen their leverage, that alone is notable, and represents an effort to try a new approach, one rooted in a more accurate reading of the current political reality than the one that drove Obama’s approach in past standoffs. Make no mistake: If this approach holds, it’s a major reset.
One of literature’s great reveals.
Nonetheless, Obama has more to lose from a failure of the jobs bill than the GOP does. He’ll negotiate (shudder).
The GOP was ready to bring the entire country to default to avoid taxing the rich. They’ll have no problem voting down a jobs bill that will cut unemployment by 1% at best.
They will extract something painful that does long-term damage, provide just enough votes to pass the jobs bill, and then still run against spending and unemployment.
The President will sign it, because of the hostages, you know.
Reminds me of when Obama was holding out for revenue in the debt deal.
“Obama has more to lose from a failure of the jobs bill than the GOP does.”
I’m not so sure. If anybody has the chance to run a Harry Truman type campaign – it is Obama.
They are just testing what lies they are going to use to try to win re-election. The joke around the White House is that there is a liberal born every minute.
I’m tired of setting up can’t-miss traps for the GOP and ending up caught in them ourselves.
If you are, just think about how much more sick the President must feel.
I don’t let that trouble me much.
jason, I hate to tell you this but there is no reveal.
Consider the following headline from the Financial Times: “Obama to Propose Medicare and Medicaid Cuts” [it’s gated so I will quote}
“Barack Obama is expected to lay out a plan next week that would cut several hundred billion dollars from Medicare and Medicaid, the large government healthcare schemes for the elderly and the poor, as part of a pitch to cut future deficits by more than $1,500bn.”
snip
“During those discussions in July, the White House had agreed to $425bn in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare – with $150bn extracted from Medicare providers such as doctors and hospitals, $150bn coming from Medicare beneficiaries, and $125bn coming out of reforms to Medicaid, administration officials said at the time. Among the menu of policy ideas to reach those targets were an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare.”
snip
“Mr Obama’s plan could also feature a change in the way the US government measures inflation, switching to a less generous chained-consumer price index. The biggest impact of this measure – which could save between $250bn and $300bn over ten years – would be felt by recipients of Social Security, the retirement scheme.”
So, let’s see: the “Jobs plan” defunds the Social Security tax again; a parallel Medicare/Medicaid cuts bill will follow; and the administration potentially wants to change the way inflation is calculated to screw the poorest recipients of Social Security.
There is no reveal, jason.
I’m beginning to think you guys are the ones who elected a “moderate” Republican.
What’s the difference between Austan Goolsbee and a Republican? One thinks that tax cuts are the best way to stimulate the economy and the other thinks that tax cuts are the only way to simulate the economy.