I've been hoping against hope now that Labor Day's here, President Obama will bring HOPE back....that he'll listen to people OTHER than the cautious "let's replay the 90's" chorus of Rahm, Robert Rubin's disciples, etc.
and I woke up to the R-&-D tax incentive for small businesses.....another half-measure that'll do nothing to put a dent in 9-point-6 unemployment before the election. and my stomach bottomed out..... and the puzzle fell into place.
The pattern I've been sensing at the edge of my awareness isn't one I'm necessarily happy with -- I want progressive action NOW.. If Pres. Obama were to listen to ANY of the Clinton people, it SHOULD be former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. The Nobel Committee gave Paul Krugman a prize for economics... you'd think the president would tap HIS brain.
However, the president has said all along he's going for the long term -- Every half measure he's taken, the sell-out of the public option, the giveaway to Wall St. in the reform bill, seems to put another building block in place at the FOUNDATION of economic recovery. It's not a quick shot of gas to get the car going -- it's re-paving the road so the shocks don't shatter. The fact that REAL roads need re-paving and bridges need re-building isn't what he's doing... and that's why he could lose congress in NOvember.
The pattern I'm seeing -- laying the foundation stones of the 21st century-- is at the heart of even the r-and-d tax credit. My college economics classes LOVED moves like that... because, as the phrase went, all things being equal, that gives incentive to pour MORE money into long-term economic growth... and for the past 30 years, all we've incentivized was SHORT term bookkeeping. Now, I think he'd do better with a windfall profits tax that has an exception for r-and-D...something done in the 50s... but Pres. Obama uses carrots, not sticks.
Every time my mother watched him speak in 2008 -- every time she saw him... she said, "Abraham Lincoln. He's Lincoln." and in many ways, she's right... Lincoln was in trouble in 1864... nothing he did made anyone happy... his conduct of the war, his bad luck with cautious generals. His aim was always long-term.
I have to think Pres. Obama is aiming the same way... while dodging the lies and mud the oppositions slings at him. I don't think what he's doing will help him in the short-term -- or is enough even to help him in 2012... the thing that could help him THERE is running against a Sarah Palin. Long-term, I think he'll have built a solid foundation... buidling ON health care reform and financial reform etc.
thoughts??