The Battle of the Pauls

by publius

Contra Krugman, Professor Paul Light in the Post urges Obama to think small:

Obama would be wise to recognize these limits on his first-year agenda. Instead of throwing a super-size agenda at Congress, he should start with a few tightly focused progressive initiatives that will whet the political appetite for more. His best opportunity for a grand agenda may not be 2009 but 2013.

I actually disagree with the entire column, but particularly this part. In the immortal words of Billy Corgan, "can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long." The truth is we have no idea what will happen over the next four years. Obama may screw up; events may conspire against him. Who knows.

Today, though, the stars have aligned. The combination of political capital, 57+ Senators (and hopefully more), united government, and a financial crisis creates a rare historical opportunity for Obama to pass some truly big legislation. Obama would be foolish to think small under these circumstances.

That's why I'm going with the other Paul:

In short, Mr. Obama’s chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are sufficiently bold. Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity.

Yep.

Comments

[Tony P.]

Wasn't it Senator Obama who spoke, early on, of "the fierce urgency of now"?

"Now" is here, and it's a bitch. President Obama will listen to the One True Paul, not least because he won't have much choice.

--TP

[bad Jim]

Much has been made of the difficulties Carter & Clinton had with Congress, but Obama isn't a Southern governer who ran against Congress; Reid and Pelosi are part of his team this time around. Everybody's on the same side for a change.

[Hartmut]

Damn the torpidness! Full speed ahead!

[Caravelle]

Hell, Obama might not even survive his first term. Waiting is folly.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Absolutely. The dustbin of history is littered with the ashes of Presidents who waited until the political climate improved. Besides, after running as a "change" politician, the last thing Obama can afford to do is look like "more of the same." He doesn't have to be a radical, but he has to offer some genuinely bold initiatives.

That was a pretty inane WaPo column. The idea that because Reagan or W did not make as many "big" programs as LBJ, they had less effect on the economy, or made less of a splash in history, is pretty strange. It's not about how many billions you spend per bill, it's about your whole domestic program. Reagan and W (unlike Clinton) had a strong theme running through their domestic programs. It expressed itself not only in big-ticket spending bills, but in tax cuts, executive orders, and subtler terrorism of administrative agencies. I didn't like it, but it was big enough for most purposes.

The only distinctly "caretaker" Presidency in my lifetime was Clinton's. He was always fighting a rearguard action to preserve just a bit more of the New Deal for just a big longer. Not very inspiring, and didn't leave much of a legacy. Not an example to follow.

[liberal japonicus]

The only distinctly "caretaker" Presidency in my lifetime was Clinton's. He was always fighting a rearguard action to preserve just a bit more of the New Deal for just a big longer.

That's as good a description of 'triangulation' that I've ever heard.

[JayDenver]

Audaces fortuna juvat -- Fortune favors the bold.

"Lincoln is a strong man, but his strength is of a peculiar kind; it is not aggressive so much as passive, and among passive things, it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable. It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously, inflexibly bound to carry its great end; and probably by no other kind of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely thus far during the tossings and tempests which beset her way. - Harriet Beecher Stowe

[bobbyp]

Yes. Lame duck presidents have historically led the way in submitting audacious programs.

[KCinDC]

Fortunately I see that Paul Light is the guy I heard on NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning. I was afraid for a minute that there was more than one person out there pushing the idea that Obama should wait until 2013 to get things done.

[Stephen C. Rose]

Both Light and Krugman have points that are not necessarily inconsistent. Barack could achieve some big moves and at the same time find himself hamstrung by a sort of governance entropy. What may be hopeful is that much of the change Barack has proposed receals a familiarity with the thicket and a willingness to tinker big time to improve things.

I quoted the Light piece today to substantiate another point that I feel is not really registering in the progressive blogosphere -- that the election was as much an abdication of Republican voters who had no use for McCain as a Democratic surge.

[Eric Martin]

I'm with Paul K.

[d'd'd'dave]

//Obama may screw up//

Indeed.

[d'd'd'dave]

What will Paul Krugman's stimulus cost me?

130 million taxpayers. Top 5% is 6.5 million. $600 billion divided 6.5 million = $92,307. Damn. I'm not sure where I'll get that?

What will the automaker bailout cost me? $50 billion, using the same math, becomes $7,692 out of my pocket.

[bobbyp]

not quite sure what you're getting at there d'd'd', but the wealthiest 1% could pay the $600 billion by searching under the couch cusions.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

point that I feel is not really registering in the progressive blogosphere -- that the election was as much an abdication of Republican voters who had no use for McCain as a Democratic surge.

Do you have statistics for that? Clearly Republican disgust was a factor. But to call it an equal factor sounds hard to reconcile with the fact that the popular vote margin was only about 6% despite a 100-year voter-turnout storm, which necessarily means there were almost as many voters in absolute numbers for the Republican side of the ballot as usual. I.e., total vote went up around 4% from 2004 (which was already up by around that much from 2000), Republican vote as a proportion of total vote went down about 3%, so Republican voter absolute numbers actually went up, and even the percentage of registered Republicans voting didn't go down by much.

I did a quick google, and as best I can tell from this article, Republicans voting decreased by only about 1.3%, while Democrats increased by about 3%. It's hard to be sure, because Gans and/or his interviewer fail to clearly distinguish between votes for Bush and votes by registered Republicans, or between the increase in rates of registered voters who turn out and the increase in votes per capita of people eligible to register (that last figure, IMHO, would have been the important one). Other articles quoting Gans have the same confusion, which makes me doubt his ability or integrity. Still, looks like the Republican/anti-liberal half of the country was quite energized, surprisingly energized. Just not AS energized as the Democratic half or AS disgusted as the non-party-registered middle.

The popular vote spread actually seems to match pretty well the increase in Democratic registration and rate of registered Democrats voting -- neither of which seem likely to be due to Republican disgust. Disgusted Republicans may stay home, they may even push the "O" button, but (scare stories about the Pennsylvania primary aside) they are unlikely to re-register as Democrats. Unless you can show a 2%+ net gain in Republican->Democrat registration switches after McCain won the primary season, the best you can say is that the Republican base was not fired up enough to increase registration and turnout relative to 2004 by quite as much as the Democratic base. IOW, Obama won by growing the base, just as he planned.

Obviously, a surge in voter turnout and a slight increase in registration do not translate to long-term gains, and if Obama isn't lucky & smart, he will lose a lot of House seats in the next midterms, and struggle for re-election in 2012. But what else is new?

[Eric Martin]

Damn. I'm not sure where I'll get that?

From the same fountain that pays for the Iraq war and Bush's multi-Trillion dollar tax breaks that primarily accrue to the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.

See, easy!

[hilzoy]

I think comparing Obama to Clinton is nuts. Obama has several advantages that Clinton did not have, namely:

(1) Back in 1992, the Democrats, esp. in the Senate, did not seem to realize that they could ever lose power, and had not really figured out that they were not in opposition to the President any more. They therefore felt that they could try to take him down a peg. Not this time.

(2) Clinton came in surrounded by a lot of people from Arkansas, who did not seem to understand how to deal with Congress, etc. Not this time. (See Emanuel, Rahm, and Daschle, Tom, staff of.)

(3) Clinton spent most of his time fighting wingnuts. They were in the ascendant then, despite their idiotic theories about Vince Foster, etc. I think a lot of people have lost patience with them this time, and they will get much, much less traction.

[Meditative_Zebra]

In the immortal words of Billy Corgan, "can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long."

Dude, you’re butchering the Smashing Pumpkins! The line is, “can’t live for tomorrow, tomorrow’s much too long.” Unless there's some live version where he changes the lyrics or something.

Besides, if you were going to quote Billy Corgan’s lyrics to describe how Barack Obama should approach his administration then Tonight, Tonight is a much better choice. It nicely fits the aspirational tone that Obama is so good at.

From Tonight, Tonight :
Believe, believe in me, believe/ that life can change, that you're not stuck in vain...believe, believe/ In the resolute urgency of now...The impossible is possible tonight/ Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight

Hell, that's almost dead on for Obama's quote about "the fierce urgency of now." (Which is an MLK quote, I believe.)

At any rate, I suddenly feel inspired to go listen to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

[publius]

zebra zebra zebra -- the line changes in the second stanza. very disappointing.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Krugman lays out a case for a $600 billion stimulus package.

It has a little back-of-the envelope flavor, but is well worth reading.

Dave,

I sympathize with your concern about the cost, but ask yourself how much an unnecessarily prolonged recession will cost. What's the average net worth of the top 10% of taxpayers? According to this (PDF - see table on p. 8) the median net worth of the top 10% of households in income is $924K. The average is $2.5 million. They don't give figures for the top 5%.

It's not going to take a huge improvement in business conditions to get your $92K back.

[Meditative_Zebra]

Well I'll be damned. It does change in the second verse. I blame it all on Corgan's indistinct nasally falsetto. (Though it's nowhere near as bad as, say, Kurt Cobain's singing in Smells Like Teen Spirit.)

[d'd'd'dave]

Mr. Yemtov

//It's not going to take a huge improvement in business conditions to get your $92K back.//

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Hilzoy, geez, "nuts"? I didn't say Clinton could have done a lot better under the circs. Alls I said was, we don't want to imitate Clinton.

BTW, I agree with your list of the problems Bill Clinton faced, and I sure hope you're right that the Democratic Congressional leadership has learned a sharp lesson, and that Obama is better prepared to navigate Washington than Clinton's team was. You left out the media's sudden leap into the 24-7 echo chamber, which Obama unlike Clinton had time to get used to.

But you're letting Bill off a little lightly. Sure, the Dems were fighting him (thanks EVER so for your firm grasp of priorities, Senator Nunn), but he wasted that first two years when he had a majority, and it's been downhill ever since. Right from the start, he would propose an initiative, and backpedal. I -- and his opponents -- very quickly realized that he was not going to stick up for anything or anybody. He played defense even when he was ahead, no wonder he ended up impeached on nonsense charges after he lost Congress.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

dddave, how you gonna invest that money, the banks all closed up? Who you gonna sell to, when ain't nobody else got spendin' money?

b'sides, you're already that far in "debt," and I bet you never noticed!

[Bernard Yomtov]

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Unfortunately the population of hand-held birds seems to be shrinking, so we need to go after some of those in the bush and hope for the best.

[Doran Williams]

KCinDC has a point, which I think of as: A "super size agenda" is not the same as a "bold agenda." President Obama can be bold without over-reaching by trying to accomplish too many things too early on. President GWB, may I remind everyone, upon his re-election, took the super size approach, bragging about all his political capital which he would spend. He screwed up. President Obama may be that dumb and incompetent, but I doubt it.

President Obama's bold agenda will probably be along the line of economic stimulus. Or it may be something else. But I'll bet that whatever it is, it will be something that in fact can be accomplished. And that accomplishment will be the toe-hold he needs to go on the other things. Maybe before 2012, maybe after.

[moe99]

Heh, heh. I went to Macalester College with Paul Light, who had the nickname, "Paul the Lightbearer" with us school newspaper editors who published his weekly column, because he was so damn earnest and so clueless at the same time.