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A Message From Progressive Americans to President Obama: Ten Things to Avoid

By Alternet Staff · 21 Jan 2009

As Inauguration Day arrives, the citizens of our country are on the edge of their collective seats waiting to see who the real Barack Obama is, and how he will step up to address the worst economic crisis since the Depression. Adding to his burden, Obama is following George W. Bush, who may go down as the most failed and destructive president in history.

As a result, in addition to the financial disaster, Obama inherits two wars and a huge array of counterproductive policies perpetuated by conservatives over the past eight years, many of which are making the resolution of our current problems far more daunting. Obama may very well be facing the most difficult challenges any new president in history has ever faced upon taking office. By any measure, he has an incredibly difficult task. 

Obama moves into the White House as a brilliant, attractive and popular figure, with enormous good will across the globe. But he immediately steps into a maelstrom of crises that have no clear solution, nor an obvious blueprint.

As the economy spirals downward, more people have become jobless in the past three months than have in 38 years, and many millions more Americans are losing their health care -- more than 50 million now. Simultaneously, many states are on the verge of bankruptcy as services in every sector rapidly deteriorate, and businesses across the board suffer setbacks and make layoffs. And every day of decline has the effect of less tax revenue and resources for services and governing, adding to the vicious cycle.

What should, and what will, Obama do? And how could he screw it up, given the fact that pretty much everything is riding on him getting things right the first time in the early stages of his administration? As we all wait to see what happens, there is no question that Obama, at least in terms of getting elected, has been a brilliant politician.

His election to the White House as a young upstart, half-white, half African, one-term senator from Illinois is probably the single most impressive electoral accomplishment in the past 100 years. But the big question on the table is how Obama translates his prodigious skills as a communicator, and his powerful mandate, into a governing strategy that can tackle the gargantuan problems on his plate?  

The Potential Perils of Post-Partisanship 

Obama's well-known and articulated penchant for post-partisanship and compromise, and the signals emerging from his team, suggest he is trying to thread the needle and find just the right combination to balance the political situation and keep everyone on his side. He and is team are also famous for saying, in their self-appointed "pragmatic," post-ideological way, that they only want to do what works.

But therein lies a massive contradiction in the Obama approach. Politico has reported that Obama wants 80 votes in the Senate in favor of his stimulus package, which means a good number of Republicans and the "Blue Dog" business-supporting Democrats voting aye. How many compromises for political expediency will need to be made to produce those votes, and will the expediency come at a cost of what works?

In terms of some of the specifics of the plan that have surfaced, it will contain somewhere in the vicinity of 40 percent in tax cuts. Are large tax cuts doing what works, or are they what will be attractive to the conservatives? As Bob Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future underscores, "tax cuts come in a distant second to public investment in actually creating jobs."

And even though some of the tax cuts will go to a tax credit for low- and middle-income people, it seems pretty clear that with losses in housing values, debt hanging over their heads and retirement accounts ransacked, people will not be spending any small amount of money they might pocket.

And as much as $150 billion will go to business, including the Republicans' desire to allow businesses to write off current losses retroactively against taxes paid on profits over the past five years. Not a recipe for success. 

Centrism Is for Phonies

Politics is almost always about ideology and partisanship as most understand despite Obama's insistence that he prefers to do it otherwise.  But for most, post-partisanship is really another word for "centrism," a theme that has been a centerpiece of inaugural addresses for more than 150 years, Mark Leibovich explained in last Sunday's New York Times. It is standard, rather predictable fare for emerging political figures to bemoan the extremes of both parties and the divisive politics of previous regimes. 

Tom Frank rails in the Wall Street Journal, "There is no branch of American political expression more trite, more smug, more hollow than centrism," which seems to find its most enthusiastic audience inside the Beltway and in the American media.  "[W]hat the Beltway centrist characteristically longs for is not so much to transcend politics but to close off debate on the grounds that he -- and the vast silent middle for which he stands -- knows beyond question what is to be done," Frank says.

And in reality, "The real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against 'both extremes' but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism. Centrism's institutional triumphs have been won mainly, if not entirely, within the Democratic Party. Its greatest exponent, President Bill Clinton, persistently used his own movement as a foil in his great game of triangulation."

Frank bitingly adds: "And centrism's achievements? Well, there's NAFTA, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There's the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There's the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party's left. Triumphs all."

The Politics of Delay

Perhaps given some time, Obama may have been able to fashion a new style of politics that would transcend the same old, same old. But conservative Republicans dance to a very different drummer than the Democrats, and they have given little indication they are about to change their stripes.

For virtually their entire eight years, the Bush administration paid no attention to the Democrats. They rammed home a rash of highly ideological and destructive deregulations, tax cuts and executive policies that in the end were shocking in their disregard for the future, leaving us in the worst social and economic situation in 75 years. Yet it is these same discredited and marginalized politicians -- particularly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio -- who are already calling for frankly absurd elements in a stimulus package, including their tired old quest for a permanent reduction in capital gains and income taxes for business and the wealthy.

In case no one has noticed, the Democrats have the biggest majorities in both houses since 1981. With Roland Burris now seated from Illinois, and Al Franken likely to seated from Minnesota, Democrats will have 58 votes in the Senate, two shy of the 60-vote support majority needed to cut off debate, according to Senate rules. It would be shocking if Obama, with all his political skills and the pressure of this gigantic crisis, can't get 60 votes for the strongest stimulus possible.

A further problem is post-partisanship translates to delay; it is a style of inclusion, compromise and deliberation, which runs contrary to the state of emergency we find ourselves in. Obama insists that we need swift and bold action, and many Democrats were talking about having legislation on his desk when he takes over. But that was ludicrously optimistic.  

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California is now saying she wants a completed bill on the president's desk by mid-February or else no spring break for the members. Time will tell if no vacation is enough of an incentive for the Republicans, but the prospect is a bit dubious. The Republican leaders are calling for hearings and scorn speed.

Borosage points out: "Delay will simply embolden lobbyists swarming to get their special interests built into the plan." That is the situation we find ourselves in.

The 10 Potential Mistakes 

Mistake I: Screwing Up the Stimulus Plan

We do not know what will work in terms of jump-starting the economy, but there is growing consensus that if there will be an error, it will be because an economic stimulus is too small, not too big.

Screwing up the stimulus could be a combination of factors including: watering it down and making it too small because of Republican resistance, or larding it up with tax breaks that will not provide the necessary kick to the economy; not spending the money in the most efficient ways, the methods that will bring the most bang for the buck; focusing too much on building highways and perpetrating a culture that will undermine efforts to address climate change; and finally, and perhaps most importantly, to try to escape the perpetual quick-fix mentality that has dominated economic, social and corporate  policy for so long. 

James Galbraith emphasizes in his article, "Stimulus Is for Suckers: We Need a Recovery Plan that Will Last for Years": 

"The historical role of a stimulus is to kick things off, to grease the wheels of credit, to get things 'moving again.' But the effect ends when the stimulus does, when the sugar shock wears off. Compulsive budget balancers who prescribe a 'targeted and temporary' policy, followed by long-term cuts to entitlements, don't understand the patient. This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed. But we also need recovery policies that will continue for years.

"First, we must fix housing. We need, as in the 1930s, a Home Owners' Loan Corporation to restructure failed mortgages on sustainable terms.

“Second, we must backstop state and local governments with federal funds. Otherwise, falling property (and other) tax revenues will implode their budgets, forcing destructive cuts in public services and layoffs.

“Third, we should support the incomes of the elderly, whose nest eggs have been hit hard by the stock market collapse.

“Fourth, we should cut taxes on working Americans. Obama has proposed to effectively offset the first $500 of Social Security taxes with a refundable credit. It's a good idea, but can be expanded.

“Finally, we must change how we produce energy, how we consume it, and above all, how much greenhouse gas we emit. That's a long-term proposition that will require research and reconstruction on a grand scale." 

In terms of the efficiency of the spending, according to an analysis by economist Mark Zandi of Moody's (who happens to be a conservative Republican), a dollar spent on infrastructure gives the economy a boost of $1.59; a dollar in aid to cash-strapped states gets $1.36 back in economic activity, and each buck spent on food stamps provides $1.73 worth of stimulus. Meanwhile, each dollar spent on corporate tax breaks results in an economic boost of 30 cents; a dollar for reducing capital gains taxes results in 37 cents worth of stimulus, and each dollar in lost revenues from making Bush's tax cuts permanent gives the economy a miniscule 29-cent lift.

Where Obama puts his money really matters. Sara Robinson writes, "It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small -- or too late -- and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s." 

Mistake II: Escalate the War in Afghanistan & Continue the Occupation in Iraq 

Does Obama feel like he has to appear tough with his own war, oddly known as the good war, but one that huge numbers of experienced hands make clear is a recipe for huge disaster? Looking at history, it seems like the word quagmire was created for Afghanistan. You would think that Obama would grasp that with our unbelievable economic challenges, we can't even afford to escalate in Afghanistan, regardless of moral issues or questions of national interest. 

But if we do, we are asking for big trouble. Robert Dreyfuss writes that surging troops into Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, "will only provide the Taliban with many more targets, sparking Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspiring more recruits for the insurgency. Tariq Ali says that pacifying the country would require at least 200,000 more troops, beyond the 62,000 U.S. and NATO forces there now, and that it would necessitate laying waste huge parts of Afghanistan. Many Afghan watchers consider the war unwinnable, and they point out that in the 1980s the Soviet Union, with far more troops, had engaged in a brutal nine-year counterinsurgency war -- and lost." 

Dreyfuss quotes Chas Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council and a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia:

"We need to recall the reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place. … Our purpose was to deny the use of Afghan territory to terrorists with global reach. That was, and is, an attainable objective. It is a limited objective that can be achieved at reasonable cost. We must return to a ruthless focus on this objective. We cannot afford to pursue goals, however worthy, that contradict or undermine it. The reform of Afghan politics, society and mores must wait." 

Bob Herbert wrote in a recent New York Times column, "Our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us. ... It does not require a wholesale occupation. It does not require the endless funneling of human treasure and countless billions of taxpayer dollars to the Afghan government at the expense of rebuilding the United States, which is falling apart before our very eyes."

And for Obama’s approach to Iraq, the less direct involvement and military presence the United States has in Iraq, the better chance Iraq has to recover, and the better chance the world has to avoid even deeper military conflicts in the region. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq was a radical act that continues to send destabilizing shockwaves through the Middle East and geopolitics.

Currently, Obama talks about leaving in Iraq only “noncombat” troops, which is as an oxymoronic concept as “clean coal.” As long as U.S. troops remain in Iraq -- and realistically, all indicators point to at least a semi-permanent presence of tens of thousands of soldiers and constant air patrolling -- Iraq will continue to have major internal political problems and problematic relations with neighboring states in the region. 

Mistake III: Settle for a Health Care Plan That Doesn’t Include a Competitive Government-Sponsored 'Medicare for All' Program 

On the campaign trail, Obama hammered away at the need for lowering health care costs and making care accessible and affordable for all Americans. He promised to establish a National Health Insurance Exchange, which would offer a new public insurance plan alongside existing private options.

Obama's a compromiser, but it's crucial for him to avoid compromising away the public

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