Barnes: What a Progressive President Might Say
Here’s a January 2007 Melody Barnes op-ed on what a progressive president might say in a Sate of the Union address:
Here at home there is urgent work to do to fight the historically high — and growing — gap between our richest and poorest citizens. While the mean income of households on the low end of the income spectrum — the bottom 20 percent — is just $10,655 a year, the income of the top twenty percent of households averages almost $160,000. That’s 15 times as much. At the same time, according to the latest census figures, the middle class, beset with stagnant wages and mountainous debts, is shrinking. The sad fact is that one of our most cherished values as a society, namely equality of opportunity, is fading as a reality for far too many people. Economists have shown that a child born into a lower-income family has only a 1 percent chance of making it to the top of the income distribution, while children from prosperous families have a 22 percent chance. To restore fairness to our system, I will embark on a multi-faceted approach including increasing our investment in public education, promoting genuine health care reform, and backing a higher minimum wage.
Domestically, no need is more urgent than fixing our broken health care system. Today, nearly 47 million Americans have no health insurance. And those lucky enough to be insured are seeing the cost of their premiums soar. At the same time, the uninsured cannot afford screening for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or even get a flu shot — and our health care system as a whole places far more emphasis on treatment than it does on preventing disease in the first place. As a nation, we dedicate only three percent of our health dollars to health promotion, but over 20 percent of our health care dollars to care in the last year of life. We must guarantee affordable coverage for all Americans. At the same time, we must also overhaul our health care system so that we make wellness and disease prevention a national priority. The Wellness Trust will create incentives for health care providers, employers, schools and individuals to focus on prevention, and preventative care will be available to people outside of a doctor’s office. Preventive services will be covered whether they are delivered in pharmacies, supermarkets, on the job, at senior centers, or elsewhere in the community.
Come January she’ll be running the Domestic Policy Council in the White House. But apparently the idea that Obama’s administration is charting a progressive policy agenda is some kind of conspiracy theory.
64 Responses to “Barnes: What a Progressive President Might Say”
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November 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
The fact that Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller are wrong about almost everything ought to be generally taken into consideration. Who cares what they say? They’re morons.
I don’t understand how people can spend their whole lives thinking about politics, and be so utterly stupid about it.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
i think everybody’s eliding the distinction between social and economic policy. far as i can tell obama’s pretty appointed a bunch of mods for econ and libs for social.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I think using the 160k number is a big mistake. A household made up of a nurse and a firefighter or a plumber and a school teacher could easily be making 160k. Also, when most people think of a household making 10k the mental image is one suffering from some rather serious dysfunction – uncontrolled mental illness, substance abuse, etc.
I think your average voting american is going to identify more with the couple making 160k than the household making 10k.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I notice that Barnes doesn’t actually call for “universal health care” in the text Matt quotes. The only thing she seeks to “guarantee” for all Americans is “affordable” coverage. She doesn’t propose a mandate on individuals to actually buy health insurance. This is of course consistent with Obama’s health care plan, but it’s hardly “progressive.” It’s barely even “center-left.”
November 24th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Can someone let me borrow their lexicon?
November 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The fact that Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller are wrong about almost everything ought to be generally taken into consideration. Who cares what they say? They’re morons
Seems a bit harsh to me. Matt’s a reactionary and gets on my nerves on a consistent basis, but Chris generally isn’t so bad. He’s generally coherent and thoughtful, at least.
But they’re both better than David Sirota or Paul “John Edwards Is Our Only Hope!” Rosenberg.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Clearly he is going to going to govern from the center-right just look a his conservative policy initiatives:
* Raising the highest margin tax rate
* Raising the capital gains tax rate
* Massive expansion of federally funded health coverage
* Withdraw of military from Iraq
* Allow gays in the military
* Ending the use of “enhanced interrogation”
* Closing Gitmo
* Regulating/taxing carbon emissions/fuels
* Tying free trade agreements to labor and environmental standards
* Greater regulation of health insurance eligibility/coverage/pricing
* Easing restrictions on union organizing.
* Expanded federal investment in alternative energy
* Appoint justices to the supreme court who believe in a constitutional right to privacy that extends to abortion.
I look at that list and I cannot see anything that a true progressive — like myself or Chris Bowers — can get behind. This is shaping up to be Cheney’s third-term. OBAMA, WHY HATH THOU FORSAKEN ME? [rends clothing]
November 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Er, which of Obama’s proposals is supposed to qualify as “progressive” rather than “center” or “center-left?”
The “progressive” position on health care used to be “single-payer universal coverage” (because, you know, making money off health insurance is evil). Then it shifted to the right and became just “universal coverage.” Now, apparently, it’s not even “universal coverage” but merely “more coverage.”
This is all part of the broader narrative one might call The Incredible Shrinking Aspirations of the Progressives.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Strannix – yeah, Sirota and Rosenberg suck too, and Bowers is the best of the lot, but he’s still not very good.
Speaking more generally, this whole “Where are the progressives?” business that the left blogosphere has gotten into doesn’t make much sense to me.
Who are the supposed “progressives” (and God, I really, really hate that term, pace Matt’s employer) that Obama should be appointing to things? There’s a lot of complaints about whatever appointees not being to the left enough, but I haven’t heard of any actual leftist candidates for, say, Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of State? For the former, the most discussed alternatives to Geithner were Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, and surely nobody is going to argue that Volcker is a great progressive? For State, our Clinton alternatives were Richardson and Kerry, and maybe Holbrooke – again, nobody known as a “progressive,” whatever the hell that means.
Now, if somebody had plausible leftish candidates for these positions, I’d be happy to hear them, but I’ve not heard any names mentioned. Who do these people want?
And, as TerryS says, what exactly is being looked for in terms of policy? Everything Obama has said he’s intending to do seems pretty good to me. These complaints seem to be formless and without content.
The most basic issue is that I have no idea what people like Stoller and Bowers mean when they talk about “true progressivism.” It seems to be more an attitude than to have much to do with actual policy positions. On foreign policy, for instance, I have no idea what the policy specifics are supposed to – I guess Russ Feingold would be acceptable, but everyone to his right is seemingly a corporatist center-right hawk. On domestic policy I’m even more uncertain of what the model is supposed to be. Labor-left types at Treasury? That just seems wildly impracticable, and not something that anything should have expected.
At any rate, I generally get disappointed whenever the debate ranges between “Obama is betraying the progressive base with his right wing appointments!” and “Why are you so surprised? Obama has always been a center-right corporatist who is not to be trusted!” Both are tedious in the extreme. Can’t we wait until Obama actually starts doing things before becoming disillusioned?
November 24th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I’m kinda ok with all this being considered center-right, if that’s what it takes for conservative friends of mine to get on board. Otherwise, they don’t want to have the taint of ’socialism’ on them.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
John, that’s not fair. I think the general point has a fuzzy merit overall, but not if you inspect too deeply. Samantha Power is someone who has been named and Obama picked her nemesis to be SoS, so she’s out. Susan Rice probably qualifies as a progressive in the way you mean. You can’t really make the argument you’re making unless you cite chapter and verse, which you don’t do.
Meanwhile, I share your impatience with these complaints, and I applaud MY pushing back on the meme.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Clearly Obama will be much more progressive than what we’ve been accustomed to, but I am baffled my the fact that this progressive man wasn’t compelled to include a single genuine liberal economist on his entire economic team. The team is made up of centrists/neoliberals who are a part of the elite consensus that has led us to the abyss.
Another thing that bothers me is the sort of cult of meritocracy that leads commentators to laud a guy like Summers exclusively because “he’s a really smart guy” and he has “stature” while ignoring his actual performance in the relevant jobs he’s had. The reality is that the performance of both Summers and Geithner has ranged from mediocre to disastrous in their various public sector adminstrative positions. For example, while at the World Bank, Summers’s advice to several Eastern European countries wreaked havoc, and during Geithner’s stint at the New York Fed he has overseen a massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street, with the the recent Citigroup bailout the lastest example.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
GWB was a liar in ‘02, so a few pundits are now finding that a convenient meme for the ‘08 President-elect.
As Obama pointed out in The Audacity of Hope (and I paraphase), this is journalistic laziness.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
rosh… Three points
1) It isn’t entirely fair to slam Summers for decisions that he has already repented for (some 90’s degregulation) and/or blame him for events that were beyond his control. He wasn’t in a position to prevent a crisis in eastern europe. I think we want someone who learns from history and changes their opinions over time… so he should be judged by who he is now rather than solely on who he was 10 years ago.
2) Part of the lack of “liberals” is that many of the well-respected liberal economists are in micro/labor. The positions Obama announced today are in macro/finance/monetary policy. Which liberal economist has the relevant expertise to lead treasury right now? Please don’t name someone whose expertise is in micro.
3) Count me as a tithe-paying member of the cult of meritocracy. The alternative is to have the NEC headed by someone who make judgments based on ideology (either conservative or liberal) without understanding the complex effects of the specific policies being complicated. For instance the current head of the NEC is a “good conservative” with no actual training or expertise in economics.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I prefer to look at Obama’s legislative record, rather than speeches. He didn’t really have much of a record before the primaries began, but now he does. It includes his FISA [cough] reform vote granting the telcos retroactive immunity, and working the phones for the Bush + Reid + Pelosi + Obama + Paulson bailout for the big banks. He may well sign single payer (HR 676, 92 co-sponsors) if forced to, but clearly wants to leave the insurance companies’ business model of profit through denial of care in place. And in great contrast to his phone calls on behalf of the banks, he’s made no serious effort on behalf of homeowners. And stimulus package me no stimulus package — mere sanity isn’t the baseline for progressive policies, though after the Bush years we might think so. I applaud Stoller et al for working to push the Overton Window left immediately, instead of passively waiting “til Obama does something,” when by that point pushback will come too late.
Finally, there seem to be a new talking points floating around: “purity.” In a democracy, last I checked — and in great contrast to some other political systems and/or movement — citizens get to push elected officials to adopt policies that reflect their interests and values. That’s hardly “purity.”
November 24th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
You must not have tried very hard to find out anything about Barack Obama’s legislative record, if you don’t think he had much of one before the primaries, and if you think the bills you mention amount to a significant part of what he’s done in the Senate.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I don’t understand all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Obama not being progressive enough. He’s clearly more progressive than any president in my lifetime (admittedly I’m young). He’s more progressive than Clinton, Carter, Kennedy, maybe even LBJ. If you want more than that you would have to move to Sweden or something.
Even small steps in the right direction will make me enthusiastic after the last 8 years; improving on the last six Clinton years will be easy for Obama as well (Gingrich in 94 is as far back as my political memories go).
November 24th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
From an economic standpoint this is silly. Seriously. Obama is a centrist democrat, which is what he ran as. Nothing terrible about it, per se. Just is. The country is generally moving more left, economically, so his policy positions are rather tepid.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
He’s more progressive than Clinton, Carter, Kennedy, maybe even LBJ.
More progressive than Carter? Good grief, what are you smoking?
The country has certainly moved left on some social issues (e.g., gay rights), but on economic issues the overwhelming trend of the past 30 or 40 years has been a move to the right. Tax rates have been slashed. Regulations have been relaxed or eliminated. Trade barriers have been lowered. Economic activity has been increasingly privatized. Inequality has increased. No Republican president of this era would propose anything like Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan. That’s a sign of how far the center of gravity has shifted. The “center” on economic issues today is far to the right of where it was 30 years ago.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
As this debate unfolds, it has become clear to me that Obama has become the epicenter of a redefinition of the American “center” in a more left/liberal/progressive direction.
Very funny. On which issues do you claim the center has been redefined in a more left/liberal/progressive direction? Health care? (Obama isn’t even aiming for universal coverage, let alone single-payer). Taxes? (Obama wants to cut taxes for 95% of taxpayers). Defense? (Obama wants 100,000 more combat personnel, and unspecified increases in spending on military equipment).
The same goes with Republicans who are apparently eager to claim he is a centrist or center-rightist
Yes, that must be why such well-known hotbeds of Republicanism as the New York Times, the Nation and Mother Jones have noted that Obama’s cabinet and staff choices are centrist or center-right, with not a single “progressive” among them.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Uh-Oh.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
DTM,
Please do keep insisting that non-universal health care, tax cuts, and an expansion of the military are “progressive” positions. I’m sure the RNC just loves suckers like you.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
So DTM is now desperately trying to spin tax cuts for 95% of taxpayers, and no tax increase for the remaining 5%, as a “progressive” tax policy. It just gets funnier.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
…. stimulus plan …. cutting taxes for lower- and middle-class workers …. business incentives for energy alternatives and environmentally friendly technologies
Er, those were all Bush policies too. And McCain campaigned on them as well as Obama. So in bizarro DTM world, Bush and McCain are actually “progressives” too.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Yes, undoubtedly the RNC loves it when people describe everything a Democratic President wants to do as “centrist”.
No, the RNC loves it when suckers like you pretend that policies like tax cuts and expansion of the military are “progressive,” because it makes it easier for them to sell their conservative policies as “centrist” by comparison.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Joe from Lowell burbles:
Actually, I did try hard. I got out my microscope and everything. And if you think Obama’s pre-primary legislative record contains anything as “significant” as (a) gutting the Fourth Amendment and destroying the rule of law with FISA [cough] reform and (b) handing $700 billion to Hank Paulson’s golfing buddies without even hearings or effective oversight, I’d like to think what you do consider “significant.” Clue Stick: The Transparency in Government Act doesn’t cut it.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
What was progressive about Carter? He won Mississippi, no way they would vote for even a Southerner if he was a liberal. He was considered a social conservative (like on abortion) and had no major domestic legislation to his credit despite having some of the largest Democratic majorities in histories. The only thing I know he passed was deregulation. His foreign policy was better, but also paved the way for Reagan by returning to a Cold War frame.
The top income tax rate was way higher than it was today, but Carter just inherited that from his predecessors. Is Obama a right-winger if he doesn’t reverse the Reagan tax cuts?
November 24th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
That is why I think it is obviously good for Obama that the growing consensus on all sides is apparently that he is a centrist–
There is no consensus. The progressives who supported Obama are still desperately clinging to the hope that he’s really one of them, despite the clear evidence that he intends to govern as a centrist Democrat in the tradition of Bill Clinton and the DLC. Hardly a day goes by without another “Obama is too a progressive” post from Matt. It’s hard to let go of hope.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
[Carter] was considered a social conservative (like on abortion)
He engaged in the “I’m personally opposed but it should be legal” shtick that is standard for “religious” liberals.
and had no major domestic legislation to his credit despite having some of the largest Democratic majorities in histories.
Yes. He wasn’t just a progressive. He was an incompetent progressive.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
He engaged in the “I’m personally opposed but it should be legal” shtick that is standard for “religious” liberals.
Which was to the right of Ford’s position on abortion.
Carter did not run as a liberal in 1976, and throughout his term was distrusted by liberals. So far as I am aware this was not controversial.
Martin – Samantha Power was certainly not in line for State, and she’s not been in line for any very senior position since she called Hillary a monster in the primaries. Rice is probably going to get something. I agree that I haven’t fully demonstrated the case, but, really, so few positions have been filled that there doesn’t seem to be much point in obsessing over the few he’s named.
Beyond that, Lambert Strether! and Mixner!! Basically agreeing! It’s like a stupid party. Proposition: if Mixner and Lambert Strether agree on something, it is almost certain to be wrong.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I’m pretty impressed with the evidence Mixner’s compiled on Carter’s progressivity.
Let’s see, what was Carter’s primary domestic policy accomplishment? Hm, deregulation. Appointing Volcker. Where was his base of support? Oh yeah, the *South*.
None of this makes him a centrist, of course, just an *incompetent* progressive. Duh! Mixner is a genius! That’s why he spends all his time trying to bring his wisdom to the masses!
November 25th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Re: Carter did not run as a liberal in 1976, and throughout his term was distrusted by liberals. So far as I am aware this was not controversial.
Carter extended some qualified support to the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and to a short-lived center-left junta in El Salvador, had good relations with the left-wing Torrijos regime in Panama, and was openly critical of the right-wing tyrannies in Chile and South Africa. While he might not have been quite as progressive as I’d have liked, he was, on foreign policy, quite clearly the most progressive president the United States has had in a very long time.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:07 am
This is some sort of progressive self-parody web site in which health care reform that virtually eliminate all of the uninsured is still considered insufficiently orthodox because it isn’t structured as a single payer system. Can you guy’s really state with any sort of certainty that a Japan-style system is worse than a UK-style health care system for the US? Have you actually studied this, or is this ideology before reality?
Lambert: Do you think it is smart to judge a president’s intentions NOT based on what he has explicitly proposed, but based on what what bills he introduced or voted for when we was a junior senator? Don’t you think that which types of legislation were achievable might have been influenced by the 49 republicans in the chamber, or for that matter, the other democrats in positions of power on the committees that control the introduction of legislation? What the hell would you expect a progressive democratic senator’s record to look like over the last few year? Should he just have voted no on everything (like Ron Paul), because every bill was tainted with compromise?
Again, which part of the following is center-right?
* Raising the highest margin tax rate
* Raising the capital gains tax rate
* Massive expansion of federally funded health coverage
* Withdraw of military from Iraq
* Allowing gays in the military
* Ending the use of “enhanced interrogation”
* Closing Gitmo
* Regulating/taxing carbon emissions/fuels
* Tying free trade agreements to labor and environmental standards
* Increasing regulation of health insurance eligibility/coverage/pricing
* Easing restrictions on union organizing.
* Expanding federal investment in alternative energy
* Appointing justices to the supreme court who believe in a constitutional right to privacy that extends to abortion.
Every one of those policies is still on the Obama’s agenda, although the order and timing are still very much up for debate. You can say he isn’t a “real” progressive if you want, but if even half of this agenda is enacted in Obama’s first term, it will be the most liberal presidency since LBJ, and probably the third most liberal presidency in the history of the country.
If you want to attack him from the left in order to score some strategic advantage by making him appear centrist, go ahead, I applaud your efforts. However, don’t confuse those PR tactics with honest debate about issues.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:46 am
It’s all about ownership of a label. The loud populists would have you believe that leftist populism is the only way a person can be progressive. I tend to detest populism in all forms (i see it as little more than demagoguery) so it’s hard for me to get behind most progressive bloggers.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Proposition: if Mixner and Lambert Strether agree on something, it is almost certain to be wrong.
Another proposition: John doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I would stand by my suggestion that this is “wrong” in a way that is very helpful to Obama and by extension to those who think making his policy proposals into realities would be a positive development
It is unlikely to help him among those who were hoping he would be a progressive president rather than centrist one. Obama’s campaign platform and rhetoric were sufficiently vague that progressives who desperately wanted to believe he was one them could convince themselves of that. Now, reality is starting to intrude, and discontent on the left is growing as progressives realize he was playing them.
Of course, if you’ll be satisfied with any shift to left, no matter how slight, after 8 years of Bushism, Obama probably won’t disappoint you. But that’s the Incredible Shrinking Aspirations I was referring to earlier.
November 25th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Poor Mixie hasn’t noticed that he’s worn out his current strawman in the same way a bad dog wears out a plush toy.
November 25th, 2008 at 2:11 am
TerryS,
but if even half of this agenda is enacted in Obama’s first term, it will be the most liberal presidency since LBJ
Most of the items on your “agenda” are so vague and dubious, it’s hard to know what they’re supposed to mean in terms of concrete policy. Many of them are policies or proposals that either Bush or McCain or both support to various degrees, or to which Obama has offered only partial or qualified support. Take “Withdraw of military from Iraq.” What does this mean, exactly? Obama has proposed withdrawing most combat troops, but not all troops. He wants to leave some U.S. forces behind to fight terrorists, for security purposes, and possibly for humanitarian purposes also. He hasn’t given any hard numbers regarding this “residual force,” but apparently it may involve tens of thousands of troops. And even for the troops he does plan to pull out, he’s been evasive and noncommittal regarding his “timetable.” He says its contingent on conditions in Iraq and “consultations” with military commanders. No one really knows what it means yet.
November 25th, 2008 at 2:13 am
“My name is pseudonymous in nc and I live in a permanent state of uncontrollable rage.”
November 25th, 2008 at 4:12 am
“I don’t understand all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Obama not being progressive enough. He’s clearly more progressive than any president in my lifetime (admittedly I’m young).”
The problem is that the neoliberal or neoconservative consensus that has existed since the 1970s has really gotten separated from the facts on the ground. We used to admire investment bankers as of a year ago.
Obama would have been great if he had been elected in 1988 or even 1992. What we are getting seems to be an adminstration with the same personnel as the Clinton administration, but with a “cleaner” guy at the top with more progressive instincts. Sort of like a Clinton administration without the Southern bourbon baggage, and much better prepared to operate int he first one hundred days, though I think Gore was better as VP than Biden. If this is what we had gotten in 1993, alot of problems could have been avoided.
The problem is the problems were not avoided, its not 1993, and something more radical is needed.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Does anyone really believe that a President who has never attended public schools and whose children will never attend public schools has any ideas or any motiviation to fix public schools. Fixing pubic schools means taking on core Democratic gorups such as public sector employees and teachers colleges. President-Elect Obama has shown zero indication that he is up for that fights.
Also, I doubt if all of the 47 million without health insurance are “Americans.” It is kind of hard to claim you care about the poor while supporting a policy of open borders and unlimited immigration.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Larry Summers should be toxic. He, Rubin, Greenspan, and Levitt pushed Congress to strip Brooksley Born (then-chair of the CFTC) of the power to regulate derivatives such as swaps. Now, this $60+ trillion dollar unregulated market (exact size is unknown — because it’s not regulated!) is bringing down the financial industry. According to Bloomberg, the US government has now pledged $7.76 trillion to save Wall Street. Thanks Larry!
Yet Summers gets an influential job as director of the National Economic Council. If we lived in a meritocracy, you’d see Brooksley Born as one of Obama’s top advisors, not the guy who aided and abetted the financial system’s collapse.
This isn’t about Obama being liberal, conservative, progressive, or centrist. This is about Obama’s judgment. McCain was ridiculed for having Phil Gramm as his chief economic adviser — and Gramm was criticized for pushing the same deregulatory policies that Summers supported. Obama’s decision to rely on Larry Summers as his top economic adviser doesn’t escape criticism just because he has a “D” behind his name.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Does anyone really believe that a President who has never attended public schools and whose children will never attend public schools has any ideas or any motiviation to fix public schools.
Does anyone believe that pooperdestroyer would have used that line had McCain been elected? Didn’t think so.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am
pseudonymous in nc,
I made several posts about how the idiot daughter of McCain demonstrated his lack of concern about education. McCain attended private schools and his children attended private schools. Of course, McCain would not care about public schools. However, McCain probably would not appoint private school alums who believe that the public schools can make up for bad parenting and bad social situations.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Actually, I did try hard. I got out my microscope and everything. And if you think Obama’s pre-primary legislative record contains anything as “significant” as (a) gutting the Fourth Amendment and destroying the rule of law with FISA [cough] reform and (b) handing $700 billion to Hank Paulson’s golfing buddies without even hearings or effective oversight, I’d like to think what you do consider “significant.” Clue Stick: The Transparency in Government Act doesn’t cut it.
Tell me, Lambert, do you think expanding the Nunn-Lugar protocols to cover anti-aircraft weaponry, land mindes, and chem-bio weapons, as the Obama-Lugar bill did, is a necessarly expansion of nonproliferation, anti-terror efforts given the likelihood of the risks we face, or imprudent mission creep for a program that should be focused on nukes?
Or, Option 3, do you have no idea what I’m talking about, because you’ve made no effort whatsoever to learn anything about Obama’s legislative record beyond how it is characterized by his political opponents?
November 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
What do you think about videotaping the interrogations of homicide suspects, Lambert?
Why do I ask? Oh, nevermind.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:14 am
But superdestroyer, the really important question is, exactly how bad is it that America is now a one-party state?
November 25th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Wow. Some of these “Progressives” sound as dogmatic and ideological as the “Conservatives” on other blogs. Thats OK. Wingnuts exist on both sides of the divide, but their numbers are too small to get anyone elected except in small Congressional districts. With that said, I am very satisfied with the choices made so far for this new administration. You can’t please everyone and Barack doesn’t have to. Fixing this economic crisis and successfully pushing through his agenda will settle matters in his favor.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Wingnuts exist on both sides of the divide, but their numbers are too small to get anyone elected except in small Congressional districts.
The upshot of this, it’s worth noting, is that probably about half of the Republican caucus, including the whole leadership, consists of insane right-wing lunatics. On the left side of the aisle, on the other hand, we have Lambert Strether posting on comment sections. As annoying as Strether and the like are, this will only be even arguably equivalent once Strether, Stoller, Sirota, and so forth are elected to congress.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Mixner says:
My list of policies was merely intended of a reminder of the extremely detailed, comprehensive, and publicly available policy proposals published by Obama. If you don’t know the concrete policy to which they refer, its a sign of your ignorance rather than Obama’s vagueness.
Is your claim that Obama’s policies are too vague to evaluate based on reading his proposals or just reading other blog comments?
November 25th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
In retrospect, I think my defense of Obama as a progressive was overly strident. I’ve clearly been drinking the Obama Kool-Aid. Thinking more clearly now, I can see that a truely progressive agenda will require totally different personnel than Obama has chosen.
So now that we all agree that his appointments are complete garbage, we need to constructively propose some true liberals(tm) who would usher in the progressive presidency we all crave.
Rahm is clearly going to fail to round up congressional votes for progressive legislation. Even though he works directly for the president, he will undermine his policies every step of the way. A real liberal — Kucinich — would be much more effective at getting legislation passed.
Chomsky should have been selected as secretary of state. He is known (in some circles, somewhere) as such an effective manager, a team player, a careful speaker, and a shrewd negotiator. If he is not available, perhaps Cynthia McKinney is an alternative who would insure a liberal foreign policy agenda and bring the required gravitas to the position.
Nader is completely untainted by the financial mismanagement of the last 30 years, so he would make a good treasury secretary. He has spoken out repeatedly against the decisions of all of the financial institutions that now require bail outs (as well as all of the institutions that do not require bail outs), so he would be most effective in implementing the president’s policies in this domain.
Help me out here, guys. Who else should be in the administration? We are looking for people with (a) unwavering liberal bona fides, (b) no history of involvement in the bush, clinton, bush, or reagan administrations, (c) no lobbying experience, and (d) a deep understanding of how these cabinet agencies work. If Carter could find these type of people to run the government in the 70’s, I am sure Obama could do the same.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
TerryS,
My list of policies was merely intended of a reminder of the extremely detailed, comprehensive, and publicly available policy proposals published by Obama.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Do please show me Obama’s “extremely detailed, comprehensive, and publicly available policy proposal” on “Withdraw of military from Iraq.” Or “Tying free trade agreements to labor and environmental standards.” Or “Regulating/taxing carbon emissions/fuels.”
You claim these “extremely detailed, comprehensive” proposals exist. Show them to us.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Re jmo @ #3:
I don’t know what nurses and plumbers you’re talking about, but they sure ain’t typical ones.
Average incomes (via Payscale.com)
Nurse with 20+ years experience – $62,200
Firefighter with 20+ years experience – $64,851
Plumber with 10-19 years experience – $75,969
Middle School Special Needs Teacher – $43,863
In each case, the pay listed was the highest among the breakdowns of experience or specialty on Payscale. And the highest possible combined total is $140,820, about 12% below your “easy” figure.
Put another way, your suggested households are very unlikely to make anything near $160,000 a year.
However, and as a final point, it ultimately doesn’t matter: If a household of a plumber and a teacher is making $160,000 a year, it is still in the top 20% of income. It is still making more than at least 80% of the households in the US.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Perhaps we have different expectations for what would be included in detailed policy proposals, but Obama has more position papers that include more detail than any presidential candidate in US history.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ includes hundreds of pages of html, pdf, and video/transcripts of policy statements. If you are unable to turn up information about his Iraq plans (including specific dates, changes in mission scope, the shape and nature of any residual forces, and the outlines of his proposed status of forces agreement) then you are not trying. What additional detail would you realistically be looking for? How much more detail could he usefully give until he is empowered to to negotiate with the Iraqi government and review all classified intel?
You want to know about the cap-and-trade proposal? Did you try http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf ? It gives emissions targets, dates, and the amount of auction proceeds to be invested in Green R & D.
A few seconds on the internets will also turn up debate transcripts from 25+ debates in which his position on these issues is elaborated and contrasted with others, as well as discussions and interviews with official campaign surrogates who answered more detailed questions about these policies.
Of course there is also the 50+ page party platform (w/30+ page appendix) that was dictated by Obama policy advisors and contains many more policy initiatives.
I’ve heard this “obama is vague” meme from conservatives, but I just don’t buy it. IMO, he is already too specific because almost all of these proposals require congressional approval. The president is simply not in a position to determine if the tax credit for a hybrid car will be $5000 or $7000, since that is determined by a legislative process rather than executive order… however his policy papers do include specific values.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and
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