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Obama did not go after the recession more forcefully because he and his advisers didn't understand it and didn't fully comprehend what is happening in America. While a certain disgraced politician in recent years spoke of "two Americas", we are, in fact, many Americas, but the divisions of the recession can be broken into three classes of citizens.
At the top are the very wealthy. The recession meant little to this group and, in some ways, is actually helpful to their goals. Next, comes the comfortably employed, those who make over a hundred thousand a year (or two hundred+ in a city such as New York), those who have college degrees or some highly in-demand, specialized training who cannot easily be replaced in their jobs. Obama and his staff come from this, the second group. The rest of America (discounting the poor, who have very little political influence) consists of people "on the bubble" for whom the recession is a nightmare and a threat to everything they own and hold dear: their job, their house, their stability and their family life.
For the last 30 or so years, income for most in this last group has either barely kept up with inflation or fallen significantly behind. This is a disaster for the nation and leads to massive discontent among a class of people who otherwise appear to be comfortable. The comfort of middle class living has been taken away by stagnant incomes.
This group is pressured on all sides. Local governments employ speed cameras to extract more revenue (21 million dollars last year where I live in Montgomery County, Md.). Banks put fees on top of fees so that about 17% of the bank customers wind up paying, collectively, billions of dollars a year to banks, Bank of America (oh dreaded is thy name) having based its entire "business model" on taking, taking, taking from its nominal customers.
Everything costs more, from college to gasoline to insurance and there is no end to it. The public University of Maryland now charges in-state students tuition comparable to private schools. Employers put the squeeze on employees by making them pay more for health insurance. Layoffs are constant. Wages are not keeping up with minimal inflation, husbands and wives work with no raises in sight.
Suddenly, boom, here comes the great recession of 2008 and beyond. While all of this is happening, the top 1% rake in, and command by whatever means available, almost 30% of the annual income of America. . Billions are paid out in bonuses that were extracted from the middle class in the form of fees, interest rates and price hikes. Hey, let's celebrate.
Had we not had growing INCOME INEQUALITY piling up for decades before the recession, the impact would have been less. Then, of course, we had that little misunderstanding between the banks and the mortgage holders and, while there is blame on both sides, the lenders were supposed to have rules, guidelines at least, that would prevent such disasters. Oh, well, that didn't work out. Who is left holding the short end?
You can't understand the recession unless you live some part of it. The recession is not an academic exercise. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how many degrees you have from elite schools, you've got to be underneath the disaster looking up to truly appreciate the view. On top of all of that, comes health care, a legislative, partisan can of freaky worms to make a the bottom of a garbage bin look attractive.
Obama and his people treated the disaster from the head down, when the actual problems are from the heart downward to the feet. While this is understandable, it left the rest of America feeling left out and dumped on. You need the worm's eye view to understand how the worms are living.
Having said all of this, there is a bit of history that should be considered. As Wendell Potter sagely points out in his belatedly timely book, DEADLY SPIN, the massive change in Congressional balance has happened EVERY TIME the Democrats have pushed national health care. It happened in 1938 to Franklin Roosevelt after getting Social Security through, but backing off on health care. It happened to Harry Truman in 1948 when he proposed a national plan. It happened, again, to Bill Clinton when Hillary Clinton lurched forward with a plan and the Republicans re-took Congress in the next election. Obama got hit again, same deal.
The medical establishment, joined by insurance companies and businesses of many types, have fought health care tooth and nail for more than seven decades. And, they've been highly successful by putting on scares on the public, calling plans socialist (and worse) and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight back to maintain profits. There is good reason the Republicans are now talking repeal: their alliance with the health establishment has been more productive for them than labor unions have been for the Democrats. The insurance industry has a multimillion dollar spigot for Republicans, just open it at any time and money flows out, free and easy.
As for the specific issue of focus, it is very important to remember that there is actual focus versus what the public perceives. To my view, the Obama group has not presented a clear, strong view of a president who, day and night, is working to bring the economy back. They were focused on what they could get through Congress, trying to do an imitation of historic presidents like Roosevelt and Johnson.
Of course, no president, except perhaps in time of a major war, can afford to be entirely monomaniacal, but the public, it seems clearly now, got the impression that he had other priorities while they were suffering. Against the massive spending and rabid opposition of the medical establishment, what could have been done to push back against the election onslaught?
I venture to say that they believed they had pretty well done the job with the stimulus, the car bailouts and Bush's bailout of Wall Street. Still, there was that large segment of America, not doing that well to start with, left standing at the gate. The Obama team, in essence, took care of the big money problems, applied some band aids to the mortgage mess and moved on, lickety split.
As mentioned previously on The TerryReport, Obama had, and probably still has, a great opportunity to engage with the public to solve problems in other ways than passing legislation. The extra-governmental aspects of his job, not available to ordinary members of Congress, would allow him to address the issue in different ways. To do so, he and his staff need to be willing to test whether he still has the mojo, the magic, to engage the pubic and get things done.
Doug Terry 11.5.10
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