Is That A Speech In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Trying To Impress Me?

While trying - in my apparently failing, apologist way - to suggest that the upcoming "it's so darn big" budget debate is, being oversold, I apparently invigorated a discussion about middles, extremes, and the dangers of having a strongly held point of view.

It's odd - to me, anyway - because I don't have an especially pronounced point of view on a lot of this; I appreciate how upset many people on the left are (while continuing to feel, strongly, that there's a lot of building anger with not many places to go), and I agree things are bad and a lot of the ideas being tossed around are terrible... but something in me always comes back to "a lot of these terrible ideas aren't going anywhere, and things could be a whole lot worse."

Sure, I admit to a reluctance in favoring extremes; and if you're looking for that, really, I'm not your guy. I think the problems we face, while entrenched and painful, are not impossible, though along with that I think there's a question of what one intends to accept: we won't eliminate poverty. There will likely be an enormous gap between rich and poor. Some people will get undeserved benefits. If these - and other, similarly unpalatable - ideas distress you, by all means, have at them... just not with me. There are some realities in life I think one will simply have to endure.

(And by the way... these last few paragraphs are not really something I'm bringing up to debate at length in the comments section... I've grown weary of drilling down to the bone of things that are more about my nature than my politics. Geez, maybe that Melissa McEwan is onto something, after all...)

So... just to get back to the subject at hand (which would be a government in enormous debt and facing difficult budget discussions), I was trying, the other day, to say that I think this much ballyhooed "Huge and Enormous" budget debate is already off to a fine start of being neither. It's not to say that the budget debate is small - though I think too many people have turned a rather modest discussion of numbers into a Test of What America Really Stands For - but rather than big, I think this budget debate has the potential to be... interesting. Maybe even... curious.

I don't know if anyone knows quite what to do with interesting. And I'm pretty sure our media won't be doing us any favors trying to approach this issue in a smart, thoughtful way.

All of that preface is to say that, on one hand, I think the President's speech was both a smart move and one of his better efforts (I'm sure my "yes, we can" pin is already in the mail as I type) - more conversational, more real world, less intent on lofty buildup. On the other, I think that he brought up some interesting ideas and challenging notions in a fairly odd way: a speech in the middle of the day, on a weekday, is not one aimed at the American masses. Which makes me wonder who this exercise was for, exactly.

In terms of those interesting budget ideas, there were things I'd clearly favor - if he's serious about his approach to Medicare, there's certainly reason to be hopeful about making some real headway on reducing healthcare costs, especially on the most vital services. I was less thrilled with his recasting of Medicaid as primarily a vehicle for long term eldercare, insurance for poor children, and people with disabilities. I suspect many may not realize how enormous of a step away from his own healthcare plans that assessment will turn out to be (and confirms my own sense that the real common ground the two parties may find is in gutting much of the Medicaid expansion in the ACA).

I think the President also drew the kind of distinction between his - and by extension the Democratic Party Establishment's - views of a successful budget, versus the cramped, disastrous approach of Paul Ryan and the GOP that will prove both meaningful and successful. Opposing the Medicare vouchers was an easy call. Less easy, and even kind of brave, was that Obama made a more full throated call for tax increases (under a guise of "fairness")  and didn't put out a lot of proposals for Social Security that many expected.

Mostly, I think he laid the foundation for a debate that Republicans won't like - making clear that much of the Ryan budget is a nonstarter, and not for negotiation, and setting from terms for further debate. That's what many liberals said they wanted, though I think the net reaction will be "already starts from a position of weakness, and gives into too many right wing ideas." As I said yesterday, if lefties plan to turn annoyance with Obama into an actual strategy to get change within th Democratic Party... by all means, go ahead. Until then, I think Obama's probably got the upper hand on deciding where the initial lines get drawn. I may not like them either... but there we are. And there we are likely to stay.

It seems obvious to me that many lefties will, with great tenacity, fight the most painful reality, one that I've come to believe just can't be denied: we are in a moment where government spending is about making do, doing the best we can, with less. There will be cuts. They will be painful. Bad things may well result. Nearly every aspect of the financial crisis we're in - the enormity of the deficits, the size of the national debt, the unsustainability of the spending practices in major programs, are ideas resisted on the left. That's one approach to opposing the President and his proposals... but I think, ultimately, it's a dead end. The debt is real, the deficits are a big problem, and the spending problems have to be addressed. Left and liberal commentators who deny some or all of these realities will seem out of touch and out of step. And they won't improve the case for trying, as best we can, to make sure there is a safety net - not a great one, but something.

The part where this gets interesting - to me, anyway - is whether progress can be made between now and September on a negotiated budget framework that can pass both houses and get the President's approval. That would mean, as far I can see, Republicans having to give up some substantive goals, particularly in deeply slashing government social programs, and some kind of surrender on tax policy. I think the former is something they'll have to do anyway... but the latter - the tax policy debate - is an article of faith. Anything that looks like raising taxes, especially on high earners, strikes me as likely to derail an agreement.

But without an agreement... what then? It may be too soon to ask what the President sees as an alternative endgame if no agreement can be reached, but in this polarized, poisonous atmosphere, it hardly seems off the edge to ask. If we reach October with no agreement on spending, does that mean more rounds of Continuing Resolution hell? Do Republicans make a deal that rsks the wrath of Tea Partiers? Or do Democrats cave in some form or fashion to Republican threats of Fiscal Armageddon?

I don't know how this plays out... and for the moment, that makes the next few weeks and months, to me anyway, seem sort of interesting. Seeing where this goes, how the public reacts, how much bombast is thrown around, is true political theater. And like most theater, it may be more show than substance. For now, I'm less interested in picking apart every jot and nuance in either proposal, left or right; neither one, as presented over the past month, is likely to survive intact. For now, I think our end result is closer to the President's, but mostly, I suspect that what changes we will get are likely to be more modest, more incremental, and less bombastic than the hype that's preceding this debate.  It was just a speech, after all, not some giant tool.

Comments

[jinb]

I think the problems we face, while entrenched and painful, are not impossible, though along with that I think there's a question of what one intends to accept: we won't eliminate poverty.

So, poverty is not a problem...got it.

[scott]

The debt and the deficits are problems that we created in the last 10 years through preferences for uncontrolled militray spending and massive tax cuts, along with a massive bubble pop caused by unregulated financial speculation. Accepting the framing that a problem caused by these 3 factors must be solved by addressing something else is either lazy or disingenuous.

[jinb]

indeed, scott