Ruth Marcus Wakes Up From Her Dream: The Washington Post columnist has been dreaming for years that Barack Obama would be a responsible president, but she now seems to realize that's unlikely.
Perhaps Marcus has begun reading Robert Samuelson's columns on our fiscal problems, such as this one from last Thursday.
(Is there any chance that E. J. Dionne, also of the Washington Post, will wake up from his dreams about Obama? I would say the odds are very much against that, but we can hope. Those who know him only through his recent columns may not realize that he was once a pretty good reporter.)
Jerry Brown for president?What makes this especially infuriating is that there are many Republicans — for instance, Paul Ryan — who would be willing to work with Obama, if he were to be "responsible and specific". (In 2005, few Democrats were willing to work with President Bush to reform social security.)
Maybe not, but it's striking how much more responsible and specific the California governor was in his State of the State address Monday than President Obama was in his State of the Union speech the week before.
The man once known as Governor Moonbeam sounded more like Governor Laser Beam when it came to addressing the state's fiscal crisis.
Obama waited until minute 35 to mention the nation's "mountain of debt." He then proposed almost nothing concrete to dig out from under it - certainly nothing politically risky.
Perhaps Marcus has begun reading Robert Samuelson's columns on our fiscal problems, such as this one from last Thursday.
It was a teachable moment - and Barack Obama didn't teach. Unless public opinion changes, we won't end our budget deadlock. As is well-known, Americans want budget deficits curbed. In a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 54 percent urge Congress and the president to "act quickly" and 57 percent prefer spending cuts to tax increases. But there's little support for cuts in Social Security (64 percent opposed), Medicare (56 percent) and Medicaid (47 percent), which together approach half of federal spending. The State of the Union gave Obama the opportunity to confront the contradictions and educate Americans in the unpleasant realities of uncontrolled government. He declined.Because, I believe, he thinks that he won't be re-elected if he tells us unpleasant truths about our budget problems. (Or, possibly, because he does not realize just how bad those problems are. There's no evidence in his career that would suggest that he is very good with numbers, though he may be.)
What we got were empty platitudes. We won't be "buried under a mountain of debt," Obama declared. Heck, we're already buried. We will "win the future." Not by deluding ourselves, we won't. Americans think deficits are someone else's problem that can be cured by taxing the rich (say liberals) or ending wasteful spending (conservatives). Obama indulged these fantasies.
(Is there any chance that E. J. Dionne, also of the Washington Post, will wake up from his dreams about Obama? I would say the odds are very much against that, but we can hope. Those who know him only through his recent columns may not realize that he was once a pretty good reporter.)
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