The thing Obama and the Democrats don’t seem to understand is that the ublic would have their back if they knew the facts. And thus, the Democrats need to articulate the facts: clearly, concisely (a challenge, I know), and consistently.
They would not have to give in at all on issues like Medicare, matching debt reduction with spending reduction dollar-for-dollar, and refusing all new revenue if they would put it out to the American people the way Lou Dubose did in the little-read but much-respected Washington Spectator of July 15. You can read the article here, if you happen to subscribe to that wonderful little newsletter.
So let me summarize some of Dubose’s points:
- Under George W. Bush, the government raised the debt ceiling eight times—something that had not had to be done in the last three years of the Clinton administration, because Clinton turned the Reagan/George H.W. Bush deficits into a surplus.
- George W. Bush’s first tax cut cost the government $1.3 trillion in lost revenue. His second tax cut added another $350 billion to the deficit. And his Medicare prescription bill (wildly considered a giveaway to the pharmaceutical giants) was an unfunded mandate of more than $600 billion.
- These huge additions to the deficit don’t even count the enormous cost of our illegal and very expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; according to the National Priorities Project, the cost of these two wars is more than $1221 trillion as I write this, and escalating rapidly every second. You can actually watch the numbers jump at its Cost of War website.
Dubose quotes economist Chad’s Stone’ testimony at a Jont Economic Committee hearing June 21:
The economic downturn, tax cuts enacted under President Bush, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire federal budget deficit over the next 10 years.
The tax cuts alone, Stone concludes, represent 6 percent of GDP right now—but if they are not reversed, public debt will be an unimaginable 95 percent of GDP by 2019—not a legacy we want to saddle our children with.
So if I were Obama or Pelosi or Reid, or any Democrat who wants to win his or her next election, I’d be out there every day, telling the press and the public:
- Spending cuts on programs for the poor and on economic stimulus measures like energy conservation programs make no sense when you’re trying to bring the country out of a big recession
- Bush and the Republicans squandered the surplus on wars and tax cuts; that was a failed strategy and now it’s time to do it differently
- The poor and middle class have already sacrificed far more than their share, including the shriveling of their investments, while billionaires and huge corporations have done very well of late
- Public servants are actually paid far less than they would get for jobs with similar levels of responsibility in the private sector; they are dedicated teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., who keep society functioning, and who deserve to be treated better than to be the whipping boys for government spending zealots
- If you want to look at spending cuts, look at the military—that’s a lace with a lot more fat to cut
- A one-sided set of demands with no room for negotiation is not a compromise, and is not acceptable.
- Revenue growth has to be part of any deficit discussion
- These deficits are of the GOP’s own making, as is the financial crisis that resulted from combining the big tax cuts with nearly complete lack of oversight under Bush—doing it again won’t solve the problem
- We need good, clean jobs to rebuld the econmy, and the way to get them is through a Marshall Plan-style effort to get us off carbon and nuclear and into safe energy and deep conservation (I’ve written about this several times; see, for instance, my blog posts “Where is the LEFT Challenge to Obama?” and “Why the Democrats Lost: Failure to Be Bold”)
Etcetera.
In short, the Dems (and I’ve said this before) have to get much better at framing and messaging. They should study George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant. They need to understand that politics is about marketing, and the reason they lose so often is because they don’t have a clue about marketing. And they need to identify Republicans as the bad guys concerning why the American people have NOT gotten so much of the “Change” mantra that got Obama elected. Otherwise, he will deserve to lose next year.
