The first intermittent blog post is on the new (?) American Dream . . .

My morning's reading about President Obama's deficit speech included a column in the Washington Post by frequent NPR guest pundit, E. J. Dionne. Mr. Dionne, who's what I call a thinking liberal (as opposed to a reactionary liberal) obviously liked what our president had to say, for he called his column "Obama’s deficit speech: Worthy of a president."


In it, Mr. Dionne writes that there were at least four things to like about the president's speech. The second, third, and fourth of these were:

• "he was willing to talk plainly about raising taxes."
• "he was right to focus on the need to cut security spending."
• "he was eloquent in defending Medicare and Medicaid, and he proposed saving money by building on last year’s health-reform law."

It was E.J. Dione's first likable point about President Obama's speech that set me to thinking about the American Dream this morning. Mr.Dionne writes: 

. . .First, without mentioning Rep. Paul Ryan by name, he called out Ryan’s truly reactionary budget proposal for what it is: an effort to slash government programs, in large part to preserve and expand tax cuts for the wealthy. “That’s not right,” he said, “and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m president.”

 

Oh, those Bush era tax cuts. I, for one, will be quick to admit that I'm not enough of an economist to talk learnedly about how extending them will help an economy that's been fairly shaky a good part of the time they've been in effect.

What has left me long baffled, however, is listening to people who are not in the least rich defend them. Does this, I wonder, imply some fundamental shift in the good old American Dream? Which I'd always construed as a dream that if one works hard, tries one's best and looks out for others, one will be rewarded with the opportunity for a decent, fulfilling life.

Has that dream become too modest for us non-rich Americans who support continuing tax cuts for the wealthy? Are we, in our heart of hearts, dreaming that someday we, too, will be rich enough to benefit from those tax cuts? Is having enough no longer enough? Furthermore, do we dream that once we get more than enough, we certainly don't want to have to use any of it to fund Medicaid?

To put it simply, has being an American come to mean we're entitled to as much as we can get our hands on without being bothered by pesky taxes?

To me, a country is morally defined by its societal dreams. Has accruing surplus personal wealth really become the great American Dream?

I've got the question. You got an answer?

What's it all about, American people?

President Obama announcing tax-cut deal

Does the Man look tired, or what, in this picture released last night by the White House?

Yes, President Obama and Congressional Republicans reached tentative agreement last night that, among a few other less important items, extends all tax cuts, extends unemployment benefits, and slightly boosts tax cuts for workers. It also renews (and at a lower rate) that bête noire of the Bush II era, the estate tax. So the rich will get richer, the unemployed will keep getting benefits, and the rest of us will get a slightly bigger paycheck courtesy of the Federal government.

"I am not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington," our President said last night. "The American people didn't send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories."

Or did they? That's my real question.

It's 8 o'clock in the morning, and already there are 863 comments made about the Washington Post front-page article reporting the tentative compromise between the White House and Republicans.

Among them this one from someone who tags himself StevenK3:

I voted for Mr. Obama

I respect and admire his intelligence and his compassion for others.

But he has brought a pop-gun to a knife fight one too many times now.

Too many times now he has cost this country dearly because he is a lousy negotiator.

And last night he gets up and has the nerve to say, well, I had to compromise, because the other guys wouldn't.

The New York Times begins its editorial disapproving of the compromise by saying,

President Obama’s deal with the Republicans to extend all the Bush-era income tax cuts is a win for the Republicans and their strategy of obstructionism and a disappointing retreat by the White House.

The Wall Street Journal reports, "U.S. stock futures rose sharply on a deal to temporarily extend tax cuts to all Americans. But the deal sent Treasury prices lower, pushing the benchmark 10-year yield back above 3%. Gold prices hovered around record levels, and oil prices tested 26-month highs." So investors (who are largely construed to vote Republican?) are evidently pretty happy.

As is conservative LA Times blogger/columnist Andrew Malcolm who writes today that, "Cave-in or compromise, Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans could win him much, cost him little."

Okay, gang, let's cut to the chase . . .

It's no secret that Republicans took control of the House by claiming to hate the growing deficit while, at the same moment, clamoring for the Bush II tax cuts to continue for everyone. And that, my friend, whether you like it or not, is the fiscal mindset that will control the House for the next two years. Enough of us voted our confidence in it to make that control happen.

Now think back for a moment, please, to 2008. We knew President Obama was a pragmatist when we elected him, didn't we? And pragmatists do believe in compromise, don't they?

Again, Mr. Obama said of last night's tentative compromise, "The American people didn't send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories."

So, my question for you is, has Mr. Obama got that right or not? It does sometimes seem to me that we rail against the Federal government for failing to negotiate compromises...until they do.

In your opinion, was our President right to negotiate this particular compromise? Is it principle or policy that guides your opinion?

George Clooney and the Bush tax cuts. . .

Last week, a package arrived from Picador publishing bringing me a book with George Clooney on the cover.  

The American is a reissue of Martin Booth's strange little moralistic thriller previously published as A Very Private Gentleman. George Clooney is on the book's cover because he made the book into a movie that is due for release on September 1.

Any thriller good enough for George Clooney to film (Charlie and I had just watched him in the truly impressive Up in the Air), is good enough for me to read. So I dove into The American and shortly (page 32) came upon this little gem:  

It is better to change the manner in which a man perceives the world than it is to change the world he perceives. Think upon this.

I did think upon it, which got me thinking about how this country's elected officials recently landed us in two seemingly un-winnable wars, as well as a deep economic recession. And yet now we appear to be somehow considering revising our opinion of these past policies into something we should consider giving another run around the track. Martin Booth's little gem of a two-sentence paragraph got me to wondering if we are revising our opinions of the policies themselves, or just having our perceptions revised by political speak.

Take the Bush Tax Cuts (or BTCs as I plan on referring to them from now on).

To extend or not extend, that is the question. The BTCs expire December 31st, which means Congress has a mere 5 months to decide -- not a lot of time in the slow-grinding wheels of American government.

President Bush signs his $1.35 trillion tax cut on June 7, 2001, at the White House.   SOURCE: AP/Ron Edwards

Every Sunday, for fun, The Washington Post offers us a different "Five Myths: A challenge to everything you think you know." Last Sunday,we got  Five Myths about the Bush Tax Cuts by economist William Gale, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Dr. Gale offers what seems to be a pretty balanced take on what the BTCs have done, and might do for the economy, if they are extended, by arguing that the following five assertions about them are bogus.  1) Extending the tax cuts would be a good way to stimulate the economy; 2) Allowing the high-income tax cuts to expire would hurt small businesses; 3) Making the tax cuts permanent will lead to long-term growth; 4) The Bush tax cuts are the main cause of the budget deficit; and 5) Continuing the tax cuts won't doom the long-term fiscal picture; entitlements are the real problem.  

Dr. Gale, of course, has no horse in the midterm election race. He has everything to gain by educating us about good economic policy (he is an economic scholar, after all) and nothing to gain (our votes, for example) by simply changing our perception of bad economic policy. And it does seem that when it comes to extending or not extending the BTCs, one has to be better for the economy than the other.

But our politicians inhabit a parallel universe where what is alleged to be true appears to depend upon what  they think their supporters want to hear. The Democrats pretty much (though not exclusively) want a big part of the BTC's axed (the part they term "tax cuts for the rich") in order to help shrink the deficit; while Republicans pretty much want the BTCs left intact (it's the economy, stupid); saying that we can afford these tax cuts, even though we can't afford to extend unemployment benefits. Why is this? According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, "There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue."

Oh dear. Where's the beef? i.e.the truth?

Back to the movies. . . In Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) famously whispers to whomever Kevin Kostner plays: "If you build it, they will come."  Might our politicians be hearing a similar voice whispering, if you say it, it is true?

It is better to change the manner in which a man perceives the world than it is to change the world he perceives. Think upon this.

So, you got any thoughts?