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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Friday 25 November 2011
“The blame game is a dreary enterprise, but if we’re destined to play yet another round, let’s go back and at least take a more nuanced view of the ledger.”
Don’t Blame This Mess on Obama
Congress fails. The can is kicked. Cue the finger-pointing at President Obama for failing to lead.
Count me out, this time around.
The collapse of the supercommittee is not Obama’s fault. If he had pushed and prodded and cajoled and horse-traded, the result likely would have been the same. Perhaps even worse, in the sense that the partisan digging-in might have been even more entrenched.
For all the eleventh-hour, “where-was-Obama?” moaning, the bipartisan congressional directive to the White House as the supercommittee did its work was simple: Back off.
That’s right. The message from both Republican and Democratic members of the group was that presidential involvement could only be counterproductive. The more a particular approach was associated with the president, they argued, the harder it would be for Republicans to embrace it. Anything that looked like an Obama “win” would have been unacceptable to Republicans in an election cycle.
Amid the predictable clamor about presidential absence, it’s hard to remember that Obama submitted his own proposal to the supercommittee — much to the consternation of some Democratic members.
The president’s plan was disappointingly timid and riddled with accounting gimmicks, but it went far beyond the $1.2 trillion in savings that the supercommittee failed to produce. Somehow I don’t recall Republicans at the time praising Obama for bravely stepping forward to lead.
The blame game is a dreary enterprise, but if we’re destined to play yet another round, let’s go back and at least take a more nuanced view of the ledger.
The president’s pre-debt-ceiling record on dealing with the deficit is not attractive. He was late to the table when members of Congress were pressing for legislation to create a debt commission.
After that effort failed — a result of unconscionable flip-flopping by Republicans who backed the idea until Obama did — the president moved to appoint his own panel, chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. When the group edged astonishingly close to the necessary supermajority to guarantee that its recommendations would get an up-or-down vote in Congress, the president did nothing to help.
Then, most infuriatingly, once the commission delivered its report, Obama punted, neither endorsing the recommendations nor offering an alternative.
As Bowles, Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, told a Wall Street Journal conference recently, “My belief is that most of the members of the economic team strongly supported it. Like every White House, there’s a small cabal of people that surround the president that he trusts and works with, and I believe it was those Chicago guys, the political team that convinced him that it would be smarter for him to wait and let [House Budget Committee Chairman] Paul Ryan go first, and then he would look like the sensible guy in the game.”
The president finally engaged under the gun of the debt ceiling, and for this he deserves credit. In his quixotic quest for a grand bargain, Obama displayed a willingness to take on entitlement spending, sending his liberal base into a predictable tizzy.
The bargain went bust, but largely because House Speaker John Boehner could not deliver on the $800 billion in tax revenue he dangled.
Once the supercommittee launched, Obama retreated except for the September submission, delivered with a threat to veto any deal that would cut Medicare without also raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Some of the post-failure Obama-blaming has focused on that statement. This is silly. Obama’s threat reflected a reasonable demand for shared sacrifice and, in any event, was superfluous. A cuts-only deal was not going to get to his desk.
Are the president and his political advisers lamenting the supercommittee’s failure? No. For them, failure was a perfectly fine option that reinforced their do-nothing Congress message. But this is different from asserting that the responsibility for failure rests with the president.
Listening to his threat Monday night to veto any effort to defuse the trigger mechanism, I wondered whether weighing in so forcefully a week earlier might have helped concentrate the congressional mind.
Perhaps, but what’s clear is that committee Democrats moved awfully far in the name of compromise. They offered more in Medicare cuts than Simpson-Bowles did — or than Obama did with Boehner, for that matter — and accepted less in the way of tax increases than those two proposals.
For their part, Republicans moved off their position of complete intransigence on taxes. Then they refused to budge. No wonder they’ve moved to the convenient default: blame Obama.
© , Washington Post Writers Group
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ABOUT Ruth Marcus
Ruth Marcus is a columnist and editorial writer for The Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy. Marcus has been with The Post since 1984. She joined the national staff in 1986, covering campaign finance, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court and the White House. From 1999 through 2002, she served as deputy national editor, supervising reporters who covered money and politics, Congress, the Supreme Court, and other national issues. She joined the editorial board in 2003 and began writing a regular column in 2006. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2007. She lives in Maryland with her husband, Jon Leibowitx, their two daughters, and the world’s cutest dog.
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16 comments on "Don’t Blame This Mess on Obama"
December 01, 2011 1:59pm
Yea but we probably wouldn't have even had a supper committee if it wasn't for Obusha.
November 25, 2011 9:43pm
Yes, we can vote the Bums out, but will that do the job? There was a Democratic majority in the House when Obama came in. He should have gotten his healthcare bill through at that time, WITH the public option so sorely needed to control costs. He didn't do anything until the last minute, after the election, and got a half-ass bill passed. Its a shame this is his first job that he's actually worked at. Until his election as president, the only thing he did was run for office, get elected, then run for the next office. If he had the experience, he might have done better. Maybe.
November 25, 2011 8:42pm
Obama has his full share of blame despite the fact that he's operating in the context of global systemic economic collapse and an unworkable political system. Neither are likely to make the American people want to forgive him. Obama is a bloody war monger responsible for the murders of GIs and civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere.
Obama is a pigheaded opponent of civil liberties and rights who condoned, probably ordered the torture of gay/anti war hero Brad Manning, continues the Clinton-Bush policies of kidnapping, torture, murder, the operation concentration camps in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan. He voted to extend the Paytriot Act and supports the use if FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) in internal surveillance.
Obama is a bigot who opposes same sex marriage equality.
Obama is a lap dog of the rich who, along with his Democrat, Teabagger and Republican allies gave two trillion to the rich and insultingly trifling amounts to deal with end unemployment, hunger and homelessness.
As the NY Times correctly pointed on turkey day. “One in three Americans—100 million people—is either poor or perilously close to it.” What they didn't say is that the Republicans and Democrats are unable and unwilling to do anything real about that. In 2010 30 million of those who voted for Obama in 2008 deserted him and his party because Obama is Hoover Redux.
November 25, 2011 10:24pm
Bill Perdue, you are 1000% correct. The Democrats need to dump this Ivy-League creation and get a REAL Democrat in the White House.
November 25, 2011 8:11pm
Well, given the climate, I consider the Super Committee's failure to come up with a plan a win for the 99%. We will get hit some by the taxes going up but since we're already making next to nothing, and more people every day are falling into the poor category, we'll be hit way less than the 1%. It's the only way we'll get the tax rate back up to where the 1% are paying their fair share to fix the country they broke. Plus the big cuts in military spending in the wars will free up lots more money for jobs here at home and help people get back to work. All we have to do is find a way to keep the GOP Grifters from funneling all the money to their rich corporate buddies. We can do that by acting like 2012 Election Day is just like this past Nov. 8th. We get out the vote and put a strong majority of Progressives to the House and get filibuster-proof Progressive control of the Senate, and keep the President who will work with us, not against us. Then we take that money and go all "FDR" and put regulations on the Corporations & Banks and Wall Street, pass a Constitutional Amendment that Corporations are NOT people, start working on the infrastructure of our country and R&D and we put the country to work. It will all happen at the ballot box, next year, be there and be prepared to Occupy the Ballot Box.
November 25, 2011 3:45pm
Obama might or might not be blamed for many things that are wrong with the current political and economic situation. But one blame falls sqarely on his shoulders and it is the most egregious of them all. Obama protected and protects the CEOs of financial intitutions that engaged in the biggest fraud the world has ever seen. As long as he doesn't instruct his Attorney General to prosecute the crimes and criminals of Wall Street, he is as criminal as they are. There is no ifs or buts around that. He is guilty of aiding and abbeting criminals and that is a crime in itself.
November 25, 2011 4:26pm
So come November 2012 when the curtain on the voting booth is pulled closed What will you do?
November 25, 2011 5:12pm
What a bunch of Bull. This Idea of a Super committee was a Scheme from the very beginning. It Gave Cover for raising the Debt Limit { Remember That} When Congress was under a lot of Pressure. "We The people" should be called "We the Saps" for falling for the Potomac TwoStep once again.
This scheme of a Super Committee was never going anywhere. It got the Cap Raised,took pressure off Congress,gave the Committee an excuse for failure with automatic cuts 2 years from now thats if I where a betting person will never happen.
Potomac TwoStep Washingtons famous Dance
One caveat to add.
Did you by chance note that the Debt limit was raised another what 2+ Trillion in overspending and Not One Politician has his or her fingerprint on that historic Event. The Scheme of the Super Committee has come and gone with no Consequence at all to those who participated. They pointed fingers at Each other for one whole news cycle and then with the spotlight off went back to what ever they do. All the time knowing what a bunch of Boobs we all are.
November 25, 2011 1:48pm
We can blame Democrats for agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts until 2012 but not for the continuous Republican stand-offs in Congress. Dems have agreed to all kinds of govt spending cuts but Republicans won't accept taxing the rich even if 70% of the people are for it. Bushanomics has cost $10 trillion and 8 million jobs. GOP's covenant is No Taxes to the Rich even if the rich don't ask for it. Good Obama will veto continuing the Bush's tax giveaway.
November 25, 2011 12:40pm
What mess? Obama won this round... we have major cuts to military spending, and the Bush tax cuts won't be renewed. The "do nothing" option will save more money than any plan the committee could have come up with, and Obama has a whipping boy for his next campaign.
November 25, 2011 12:35pm
is ruth trying out as a writer for snl she is so funny
November 25, 2011 12:04pm
Maybe no one is to blame. I see a similarity between the passive-aggressive leadership of the U.S. Senate by Harry Reid, and the waiting game being played by Obama. We see a Senate gridlocked by needing 60 votes to pass anything, instead of the bluff which should have been called long ago by Reid, to go ahead and let the opponents have a filibuster. Now we have gridlock between the House and Senate, and Obama's advisers must have felt it was too risky to call the bluff of the house Republican leadership to trash the credibility of the U.S. debt by refusing to lift the Debt Ceiling. Obama must be hoping that the 2012 elections will put more Democrats in office and make things simpler. He was not elected to act passive, but all he does now is talk, it seems.
November 25, 2011 11:59am
Of course Obama should be blamed, along with the Democrats in the Congress who have no guts or moral principles to stand up against him.He pushed Simpson-Bowles, and more significantly killed a return to Glass-Steagall in 2010. The view that he is better than the Republicans is brain-dead; he is no different. What we needed was an FDR style bankruptcy reorganization. What we are getting instead is a war president (George Bush III?), working for the financial oligarchy.This is a case where both sides are poison, and the American people are to be sacrificed. Next comes emergency rule.
November 25, 2011 11:46am
I think it is pretty clear that the Rediculous Republicans, and the Democrats both,are out of touch with the people on the deficit issue, the Dems less so, but, there seems to be a split. Some Dems will countanace cuts to Health and social security spending, others are smart enough to see that this is dead wrong. Poll after poll has shown that most people want taxes increased on the rich and Corporations...period. They will not accept further sacrifices of their own, nor should they have to. Further, if there is going to be a real recovery it will only happen when the average citizen has disposable income. Therefore it is job creation, and building a new technolical, and industrial base that should be the focus, along with alternative energy development, and taking back control over who has the right to build manned spacecraft.
November 25, 2011 11:03am
WHAT HAS AMERICA BECOME ?!! 1936 GERMANY?!!?
OWS / 99%, FIGHT BACK !!
OWS and the 99% have the Power! “BUYING POWER.” It’s about time we used it. WE CAN INSTANTLY STOP THE FLOW OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Here’s how.
STRANGLE THE COMPANIES THAT ARE STRANGLING US!
Companies want our money, but they don’t want to help America get back on its feet?
We are being starved, now let’s starve those greedy corporations who took our money.
We want companies to hire us, politicians to vote for us, and this is how to force it.
We have an incredible mobile army of millions and millions and millions of people!
Let’s combine the power that we all have. VOTE, by NOT spending.
Stop buying as much as you can. Stop buying from ALL of the big corporations, retailers and banks; Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Costco, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Sears, Lowe’s, Supervalu, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Georgia Pacific, RJR, Brown & Williamson, Kraft Global, Sara Lee, Tyson, BP, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobile, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, Ford, Chrysler, GM, Disney, Macy’s, Kohl’s, The Gap, Penny’s, Colgate, Nike, Staples, Office Depot, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Avon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Dean Foods, General Mills, eBay, etc., All of them!
Add your own companies to our list and pass it on.
Don’t use global banks. Move your money from a big bank to a neighborhood bank.
Don’t use your credit cards or ATM’s…at all.
Don’t shop any retail chain stores. Shop local, or mom and pop shops.
Don’t buy gasoline. Walk, take a bus, car pool, or ride a bike.
Don’t buy any extras like music, movies, electronics, or toys…nothing.
BUY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
STOP SPENDING OUR BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.
Greedy global companies will be shocked and not know what to do.
Wall Street, the oil barons, corporate fat cats, stockholders, executives, marketers, retailers, politicians, and President Obama, will be asking us, the 99%, what we want!
“WE” WILL FORCE WALL STREET AND CORPORATIONS TO HELP AMERICA!
We have already started.
V
November 25, 2011 9:36am
I would love to "blame" Obama on this one. When the Democrats failed to overturn the Bush tax cuts, it became impossible to get significant deficit reduction. Obama might have done more on tax revenues, but anyone with any knowledge of the Federal Budget knows there were not going to be enough cuts to offset these losses of revenues. Obama didn't back us into a corner with this insane "super committee," Congress did that to itself. Personally, I'm delighted they failed to reach a compromise as the so-called "automatic" cuts do more than the committee was likely to do for the programs I care about. I think Obama knows that!