Noughties' Truth

There is a GOP debate tonight, at 9PM ET on ABC. I hope that the candidates will be asked about their views on the payroll-tax cut extension debate raging in Congress.

Whether the Republican controlled house will even pass their own version of a bill to extend the tax cut in as of yet unclear, especially after this CBO score. As I wrote about a few days ago, this is one issue both parties should agree on; and the GOP knows it must pass some version of the bill through the house, at least to avoid giving Obama too good of an issue heading into the election year.

It will be interesting to see how Newt Gingrich, the master-debater, does when the attention is focused primarily on him. Ezra Klein is convinced he will not win the nomination, and gives 21 reasons why.  I am not so convinced he won’t be nominated, but before he wins he will have to answer to every issue Ezra mentions. The surge in Gingrich’s poll numbers cannot be ignored, but neither could Herman Cain’s. He really is hated by most of the leading online conservative voices I read, but apparently Rush Limbaugh (and maybe Bill O’Reilly?) may end up supporting him.

Can he escape his old tendency for grandiosity? Just yesterday, in an exclusive interview with the Jewish Channel, he called the Palestinians an “invented” people. He has called for a “mirror-system” in space to light our highways, and once scribbled a note dubbing himself “Advocate of civilization, defender of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, arouser of those who form civilization, organizer of the pro-civilization activists, and leader ‘possibly’ of the civilizing forces.” I suspect he will be be defensive and tempted to impress; as a result, he will attempt to show off his noggin tonight, probably much to the detriment of his long-term prospects of winning the nomination.

But, this is a debate worth watching anyway. Can Gingrich win the debate? Yes. Can he win the nomination? Eh.

As Ezra Klein wrote, it may be that “the more interesting question is whether he could damage Romney badly enough that the GOP needs to find a new candidate to serve as their nominee.” Is the Obama team hoping for that? The conventional wisdom says yes, but I am not so convinced that they aren’t very comfortable with the idea of running against the face of the 1%.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Steve Benen thinks, this time, “this wasn’t just another speech.”

Greg Sargent thinks the speech “is best seen as a bid to establish a moral and philosophical framework within which literally all of the political and policy battles of the next year will unfold, including the biggest one of all: The presidential campaign itself.”

David Harsanyi at reason.com paints the speech in a different color in his piece, “Obama Promises to Save the Middle-Class By Enslaving It.”

And Mitt Romney had this to say (what!?):

[Obama] seeks to replace our merit-based society with an entitlement society. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people to enjoy truly disproportionate rewards are the people who do the redistributing — the government.

Entitlement societies are praised in academic circles, far removed from the reality of a competitive world. Opportunity is replaced by the certainty that everyone in an entitlement society will enjoy nearly the same rewards. But there is another certainty: they will be poor.

In an entitlement society, the invigorating pursuit of happiness is replaced by the deadening reality that there is no prospect of a better tomorrow.

Between Romney and reason.com, the conservative and libertarian responses to Obama’s speech are clear; and if yesterday’s speech foreshadowed Obama’s “framework” for the next year, we now know for sure how his opponents will play inside it.

Here is what I think: If my government’s decision to care for the sick, educate the young, aid the poorest among us, and invest in the present and future status of our country as a world leader amounts to slavery, sign me up to be enslaved.

Read the rest of this entry →

President Obama spoke today in Osawatamie, Kansas, a place where Teddy Roosevelt spoke in 1910. The Kansas historical society helps us remember the speech:

This speech, later called the “New Nationalism Address,” evoked a wide variety of responses. It was labeled “Communistic,” “Socialistic,” and “Anarchistic” in various quarters; while others hailed it “the greatest oration ever given on American soil.”

Obama, clearly channeling TR, delivered a monumental speech today that foreshadowed the general tone and major themes of his coming campaign for reelection.

He spoke of post-war America, a place with the strongest middle-class in the world, where the best businesses in the world made and sold the best products in the world. This was an economy that had conquered the challenges presented by The Industrial Revolution.

He then spoke of the structural changes our economy has experienced since, focusing on rising inequality and the shift to an economy dominated by speculation and bubbles that has accelerated since 1980. He spoke of another technological revolution that has made it possible for businesses to do more with less labor, and to shift production and management overseas where workers come cheaper. He spoke of the rising inequality that resulted from these changes, and explained that most Americans have seen prices increasing and paychecks not. He mentioned that a while children born in property in post-war America had a better than 50% chance at making it to the middle-class, a child born in poverty is now predicted to have a 33% chance at making it to the middle-class. “That’s inexcusable. It’s wrong. It flies in the face of everything that we stand for.”

He reminded us that these changes present major challenges to our economy and to our people. He said that the level of inequality now present in America “distorts our democracy.” And then he got to the question–where do we go from here.

His answer is one that I am glad to have heard from our President. He spoke of two races: one is a “race to the bottom” where the winner will be the nation that allows for the cheapest labor; the other is a “race to the top” where the winner will be the nation with the most skilled and educated workers who generate the greatest innovation and make the best products. Of the first, he said “that is a race we can’t win, and we should’t want to.” Of the second race, he said that the things we have always done best–like innovation–are what make us suited to win the race to the top, a race we can win and would want to win.

He said ”we need to meet the moment, up our game, and realize we can only do that together.” To do this, he argued, we must make education a national mission, and make a world-class commitment to science and engineering. He mentioned that if we find a way to an economy not based on financial speculation and bubbles, our best and brightest won’t always gravitate to Wall Street. Instead, we can be making and selling things “stamped with the three proud words ‘Made in America.’”

He then quoted TR, “On the whole, in the long run, we can only go up or down together,” and ended by saying “And I believe America is on the way up.”

I believe that with our Presidents new commitment to these old American principles, we can finally hope so.