Well, I’m currently out of work. Rent is due today.

But what if I refuse to pay the rent UNLESS my landlord agrees to change the lease, lower the rent, give me my security deposit back, allow for pets and let me borrow his car once a week to pick up groceries? Better yet, no rent will be forthcoming unless he immediately cancels the lease, sets it on fire and allows me to decide how much rent I feel like paying each month. No? I simply won’t take no for an answer, even if it means I’ll be evicted next month.

I’m really tired of being thrown under the bus by these backward-thinking extortionists in the House of Representatives. Today America is really, literally broken. Still, I hope that congressional leaders and the president do not appease the hostage takers. That would be a very bad precedent to set for future congresses and presidents. Paying the ransom would only encourage the hostage takers to exact more demands the next time rent is due, no matter how unrealistic or unrelated the demands may be. The DC gridlock would continue indefinitely. It’s BAD FAITH to include the same poisonous pills in what should be routine legislation to keep the government running and pay the bills that are already racked up.

Who cares about election results? Who cares what the Supreme Court says? If you don’t agree to X, Y and Z, we will blow up the government and force the first default in American history! What kind of governing is that? Is that a democratic way to resolve disagreements?

House Speaker John Boehner refused to let the House vote to temporarily keep the government open at the current sequester levels, with no other strings attached, just to buy time to negotiate an actual budget. But because this approach would not destroy Obamacare, the Tea Party has instructed Boehner to block it. Why won’t Boehner allow the democratic process to play out in a full House vote, like the Senate did? Because the simple stop-gap bill would pass with BI-PARTISAN support, throwing the Tea Party destructionists into a tizzy. His job as Speaker would be in jeopardy.

Playing into the House’s new approach to negotiating a budget and paying the bills would reward and promote a new and destructive form of governing–one that is completely undemocratic. Democracy CANNOT work this way. It’s closer to how terrorists do business. The full faith and credit of the United States just doesn’t seem to matter to them. It’s only a bargaining chip to be used to force their narrow vision on the rest of the country, without going through the electoral and legislative processes that are established by our Constitution. So much for the rule of law! The US and global economies be damned.

Public servants work hard to help their families, neighbors and perfect strangers live better lives. That’s the point of choosing a career in public service. To give something back to the community. To empower your fellow citizens to make things better. To ensure that laws are enforced–laws that Congress passed to make sure buildings and bridges don’t collapse, to make sure your food won’t make you sick or kill you, to keep the air and water safe, the list goes on and on. Because of their work we are undoubtedly safer, healthier, smarter, faster, more productive. Public servants, like most contemporary Americans, believe their government should be there to help people and communities and businesses work together in mutually beneficial ways. Public service should be an honor, a privilege, something worthy of respect.

But then these friends and neighbors, who work for you, start hearing from some in Congress that they are out-of-control, greedy, lazy, job-killing leeches who do nothing more than push worthless papers around all day in pursuit of destroying liberty and freedom, providing no real service or value to anyone except themselves. They wonder how they could have become the enemy. They wonder why they are being blamed for things that are not their fault. They wonder why their paychecks are being cut while the true culprits of fiscal insanity walk away and get fatter. They wonder: “Why do I care anymore?”

So, with that, I’m heading into my office to close down. I’ll change my voicemail and email messages, get all of my stuff from the fridge and lock my door. Clean air will have to wait for another day. This is EXACTLY what many House Republicans have been dreaming about since 2010. And it’s all on the record, well-documented history in the making. The battle for the soul of America rages on. It’s time to confront the hostage-takers and to show them there will be NO RANSOM in exchange for simply doing their jobs, performing their most basic constitutional duties.

Maybe I’ll be back to work tomorrow, or the next day, or. . . . But in a sense the damage is already done. A small minority found a way to throw the whole country over the edge, and they didn’t flinch when executing their plan. A group of legislators clearly demonstrated that they do not care about democracy or value the rule of law. Well, I still do care. And I’ll wait here until I’m authorized to participate in my democracy and uphold the rule of law again.

To the House GOP: Negotiating in bad faith is NOT negotiating at all. Stop holding the country hostage. Do your basic job and keep the government running, pay the bills. Then sit down and figure out how to resolve your differences in an intelligent, professional and CONSTRUCTIVE manner. This means having to compromise, and not bringing the rest of the country down with you when you fail to get 100% of what you want.

In Reinventing Political Culture, I argue that there are four components to Barack Obama’s project in reinventing American political culture: (1) the politics of small things, using new media to capture the power of interpersonal political engagement and persuasion, (2) the revival of classical eloquence, (3) the redefinition of American identity and (4) the pursuit of good governance, rejecting across the board condemnations of big government, understanding the importance of the democratic state. I think that there is significant evidence for advances on all four fronts. The most difficult in the context of the Great Recession was the struggle for good governance, but now the full Obama Transformation, responding the Reagan Revolution, is gaining broad public acceptance.

The election was won using precise mobilization techniques. Key fully developed speeches by the President and his supporters, most significantly Bill Clinton, defined the accomplishments of the past for years and the promise of the next four. Obama’s elevation of the Great Seal motto E pluribus unum (in diversity union), defining the special social character and political strength of America, has won the day. And now, the era of blind antipathy to government is over.

The pendulum has finally swung back. The long conservative ascendancy has ended. A new commonsense has emerged. Obama’s reinvention of American political culture is rapidly advancing. The full effects of the 2012 elections are coming into view. The promise of 2008 is being realized. The counterattack of 2010 has been repelled. The evidence is everywhere to be seen, right in front of our eyes, and we should take note that it is adding up. Here is some evidence taken from reading the news of the past couple of days.

It is becoming clear that Obama’s tough stance in the fiscal cliff negotiations is yielding results.  The Republicans now are accepting tax increases. Signs are good that this includes tax rates. A headline in the Times Friday afternoon: “Boehner Doesn’t Rule Out Raising Tax Rates.” A striking shift in economic policy is apparent: tax the rich before benefit cuts for the poor, government support for economic growth. The Republicans are giving ground. The grand bargain to avoid the fiscal cliff will represent a major change in policy, with broad public support.

Boehner is talking tough but is gathering support of his party to enable a deal on President Obama’s terms, the Times reports in another story. The Republicans will support now what Boehner negotiates.

Even Rand Paul is supporting Harry Reid’s proposal in the Senate to increase taxes on the rich, albeit with a professed assurance that this will hurt the economy and in the long run hurt Democrats. Rand’s ideological conviction enables him to politically act. He pretends to know that taxing the rich will ruin the economy and be good in the end for libertarian Republicans such as himself. But note: he is accommodating to the new commonsense as he expresses a conviction that in the long run it will end.

Shockingly, following the same pattern, Ann Coulter, the extreme right wing Fox commentator, scandalized her host Sean Hannity by maintaining that Republicans support Obama’s tax proposals. Rightists are recognizing that the winds are pushing left.

And the far right is moving to the margins. Witness Boehner’s demotion of four Tea Party Republicans from choice committee assignments in the House of Representatives , and Jim DeMint, the Tea Party Senator, choosing exile at the Heritage Foundation, as its president, over completing his term in office, a luxurious exile worth one million dollars a year.

There are also more creative Republican responses. Rising stars in the Republican Party, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, gave speeches to a Jack Kemp tribute dinner, which emphasized the need to address the concerns and needs of the less advantage. I think that David Brooks reading of the significance of this is on the mark. There is a new “Republican Glasnost,” an openness to ideas, beyond trickle-down, ideas that could positively affect the life chances of the vast majority of the American citizenry, ideas that recognize positive government roles, that address the concerns of the less privileged.

The age of the attacks on big government is over. The times are truly changing. The New York Times today, under the headline “Obama Trusted on Economy,” reports on a Heartland Monitor Poll, finding broad support for Obama’s economic policies, with little support for  the Reaganesque Republican approach. The age of debate about good government has begun in an America that is becoming more comfortable with and confident of its pluralist identity, with more citizen involvement, and in which eloquence and intelligence matters. The election mattered.

On a more sober note: I don’t think that all is well in the Republic, that we are entering a new era of good feelings, that the President has the answer to all challenging problems. On many issues, the environment, national security, privacy and citizen rights, education and poverty, I think his policies and programs are wanting. I agree with the many leftist criticisms of Obama found on the left. But I think now is the time to push for corrections, with a chance to achieve them. As Obama himself said once, he has to be pushed to do the right thing.

I also think that the ideological polarization of the American public and its leadership is still a very serious problem. I wish the Tea Party were a thing of the past, but I fear it isn’t, and I hope the Occupy Movement will more practically engage in our pressing social problems, but I worry that it may not. It needs to work on speaking American, as Tom Hayden once put it in the 60s, stop dreaming about utopian visions, anarchism and the like, that make no sense to the broad American public, and address the incompleteness of the Obama transformation in ways that the public can understand and support. The emerging commonsense makes this possible. Obama has moved the center left, which has long been his project. The task for leftists is to move it further, engaging their fellow citizens.

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I am thinking about the Obama Presidency. I reject the simpleminded criticisms of Obama in the name of King, such as those presented by Cornell West. I think we have to look closely at the political challenges the President has faced. In an earlier post, I assessed Obama’s political performance on the political economy working with a Democratic Congress. Today I consider his work with Republicans. I think it is noteworthy that he kept focus on long-term goals, even as he experienced ups and downs in the day-to-day partisan struggles. I believe he kept his “eyes on the prize.” Although King’s project is incomplete, Obama is, albeit imperfectly, working to keep hope alive. This is more apparent as Obama is now working against the Republicans, pushed by the winds of Occupy Wall Street, the topic for another day. It is noteworthy, though, that it was even the case during the less than inspiring events of the past year.

Responding to the Republican victories in the 2010 elections, the President had to face a fundamental fact: elections do indeed have consequences. While his election provided the necessary mandate for his economic policies and for healthcare reform, the Republican subsequent gains in the House and Senate, leading to a smaller majority for the Democrats in the Senate and the loss of the House, empowered the Republican calls for change in policies. And, even though divided government became a reality and gridlock was the basic condition, action was imperative. The sluggish economy, long-term budget deficits and the debt ceiling defined the agenda after the bi-election. The approaches of the Republicans and the Democrats could not have been more different.

Obama had a choice, to fight the Republicans head on, or to try to accommodate the new political situation and seek compromise. He chose compromise. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it particularly successful as a political tactic.

The Republicans made clear that their first priority was to turn Obama into a one-term president, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously put it. With this opposition, Obama faced a dilemma between the demands of an ethics of responsibility and the demands of the ethics of ultimate ends, as Max Weber would have put it. Trying to be responsible, led to mixed results. The Bush tax cuts were extended, as were unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut. And while there was no government default, as Tea Party Republicans seemed to seek, as they held the government hostage to an increase in the debt ceiling, they did successfully veto a grand compromise on the deficit that Speaker Boehner and Obama negotiated.

The President appeared ineffective and weak. He seemed to negotiate poorly, giving more to his opposition than they gave to him. He seemed to lack core principles: accepting Republican and Tea Party deficit and debt priorities. The substance and theatrics of his performance disappointed his supporters, left and center, confirmed the convictions of his opponents on the right.

Most of my academic friends, and, I imagine, most of the readers of Deliberately Considered, have been disappointed, convinced that on one issue after another Obama followed rather than led. The Republicans pushed him around. As he pursued, in the eyes of many on the left, Bush-lite policies in foreign affairs in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, and on human rights and national security (I promise more on that in a future post), he seemed to be at best a moderate Republican on the political economy.

Centrists also saw a problem. For them, form was more important than content.  He seemed weak, as he was trying to move to the center and appeal to moderates. I remember a brief conversation I had with a neighbor. He proudly explained to me that he was a person who voted for the man, not the Party. He had voted for Obama in 2008, for Kerry in 2004, Bush in 2000, and now he was against Obama. Obama is ineffective, doesn’t lead, and doesn’t deserve another term, in my neighbor’s opinion. We need someone who gets things done during these hard times, a leader, not an amateur who is in over his head.

My neighbor knew where I stood. We were chatting across from my car, which already had a re-election sticker on it. He, on that summer day, didn’t know who he was for, but knew who he was against. This meeting was before the primary season. I assume that my neighbor is now a less than enthusiastic supporter of Governor Romney, hoping that the Governor doesn’t mean some of the things that he is now saying, mirroring die-hard conservative distrust of the Massachusetts moderate.

As I have already indicated here, I think my friends on the left don’t understand the nature of Obama’s political stance, a principled centrist trying to move the center left, in terms of today’s holiday, mainstreaming King’s dream of social justice. I also think that they, along with centrist skeptics, don’t appreciate the President’s continued commitment to civility in public life.

There is an unrecognized tactical dilemma. The moderates want him to reach out to left, right and center and address pressing problems, but when he does, they think he is weak, following, not leading. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

Although this was, to a large extent, a no win situation, presenting impossible tactical difficulties, I do recognize that Obama didn’t handle the situation very well. As a supporter, I often want him to be more cunning in his negotiations with the Republicans. I feel that he should be tougher in negotiations, clearer in expressing his core convictions. Nonetheless, I think it is also important to understand what the long-term challenges were and recognize how tactical performance ultimately was less important than the pursuit of long-term strategy and goals. It is notable that Obama’s commitment to his ultimate ends, King’s dream of justice, in the political economy has been quite steady. And as far as tactics, I am not sure that a tougher stance toward the Republicans would have a achieved better results, though I know it would have felt better for many, including me.

The President’s long-term view and commitments were on clear view, appropriately in his last State of the Union Address, as I pointed out at the time.

The President offered a balanced approach. He recognized that Republican concerns about deficits were serious and accepted the proposition that cutting spending had to be a part of the long-term goal of reducing deficits, but he underscored that in doing so “…let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.”

He engaged a political debate with Republicans on their terms, accepting the problem of the deficit as a priority, but he emphasized the continued need for public investments in education, alternative energy sources and public infrastructure, in transportation and communications. He supported tax reform, including the lowering of corporate taxes, and he spoke about free trade, but he emphasized what he asserted were the accomplishments of his first two years in office, specifically health care reform. He proposed cutting dramatically discretionary spending, but he also called for the end of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The speech included calls for investment and reduced deficits, intelligently focused, clear moves to recognize the interests of his opposition, but without giving up on his fundamental commitments.

I think it is striking how last year’s State of the Union address summarizes the course Obama has followed through the year. This includes both the attempt to find common ground with Republicans, which led to great tension and minimal accomplishment, avoiding the worse, but not much more, and also his move to a more confrontational approach, specifically as it has to do with jobs and caring for the least fortunate. He has held a steady position, and now has the initiative – I think importantly with the help of Occupy Wall Street.

The economy improved a bit this year, but many still suffer. Obama presented a balanced approach, strikingly different from what the Republicans offer and he has been able to pursue this approach despite sustained opposition empowered by a major social movement, The Tea Party. But as that movement seems to be weakening and with the presence of another social movement, OWS, pushing the issues of social justice and inequality onto the public agenda, Obama is moving forward.

When I look at his tactical moves, in the day to day attempt to govern with the Republicans, I worry, sharing concern with his critics on the left that he has not been the real deal and his moderate critics that he has not been an effective leader, but over all in the long run, it seems to me that people have rushed to their negative judgments. Obama achieved a great deal in his first two years and has managed to minimize the damage of the last year, and is now poised to move forward. More on that in my next post.

Last month, I speculated that the supercommittee had the potential to help drag our legislature into a more authentic form of bipartisanship, a bipartisanship based on principled mutual compromise in the tradition of Henry Clay. I expressed my belief that the makeup of the committee would determine its ability to affect change. In that respect, the prospect of the committee changing the status quo now seems bleak. There is great opportunity but the membership of the committee suggested that the opportunity will be missed.

The Committee on Deficit Reduction is nominally a “joint select committee.” Emphasis should be given to the “joint” nature. Select committees generally suggest, but don’t legislate.  In the present supercommittee, I see the spirit of the conference committees that resolve contentions between Senate and House bills. “Going to conference” offers possibilities of compromise that would not have previously existed for the conferees in their respective chambers or standing committees. Conference rules state that “the conferees are given free reign to resolve their differences without formal instructions from their bodies.” Senate scholar Walter Oleszek quoted an anonymous Senate leader opining, “Conferences are marvelous. They’re mystical. They’re alchemy. It’s absolutely dazzling what you can do.”

In the Obama budget talks, posturing was encouraged by heightened visibility. Separate branches of government competed for authority. With the supercommittee, we move to what Erving Goffman called the “backstage.” The individual actors have more agency to shape the outcome than the participants of last year’s deal. That is why I believe an overview of the members involved will not only be informative, but help us understand the debate’s nature. I have my partisan interests. Nonetheless, while I think the Democrats have some problems, I think the real problem lies with the Republicans.

The Democrats: The House delegation is perhaps too easy to dismiss as Pelosi loyalists – Van Hollen and Clyburn have been her top lieutenants. On the Senate side, Patty Murray is a progressive who could create real dialogue. However, my intuition tells me she is acting primarily as a representative of party leadership. There is nothing wrong with this (and I afford Senator Kyl the same leniency) but I am concerned it may constrain her in a way that, say, Senator Leahy would not have been. Senator Baucus suffers from allegations by Alan Simpson that he was all but absent in the Simpson-Bowles commission work. John Kerry, in contrast, was praised for his commitment to that report, and the “Senate Man” image that hurt his presidential bid may help him maneuver the wheeling-and-dealing of a private conference.

The Republicans: The choice of their delegates reflects a complete disinterest in any compromise. The committee is stacked with the “true believers” Jeffrey Goldfarb describes as a threat to the delicate relationship between truth and politics. Equally disturbing is how the choices seem to reflect ignorance of Americans’ struggles. “Out of touch” is a campaign cliché, but POLITICO’s David Rogers provided an interesting piece of journalism highlighting that the committee Republicans are all white men with “considerable wealth.” McConnell and Boehner are savvy politicians — they know that their selections convey a message beyond the fitness of the members to solve the problems in front of the committee. I’m incredulous that a single, competent woman or minority was not available to serve (Olympia Snowe? Susan Collins? Marco Rubio, even?).

So who are the GOP’s voices at the table?

Senator John Kyl of Arizona. Mr. Kyl was part of the Biden working group, but I would caution seeing this as a sign of bipartisan commitment. Mr. Kyl has followed up last fall’s inflexible opposition to the START treaty (despite full-throated support from the national security community and respected Republican experts including Dick Lugar)with the statement “I’m off the committee,” if defense cuts are considered. This after only one meeting.

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania is the only member on the committee who voted against the debt ceiling compromise, and I suspect that is the primary reason he was selected. Someone like Jim DeMint has more experience and more cache with the Tea Party.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio was elected in the Tea Party tidal-wave, but he is a pragmatic, career politician at heart. He served as budget director for George W. Bush. Portman describes himself as a “hawk on tax reform.” I believe that this is the proper lens through which to view Boehner’s unusual choice of appointing two Michigan representatives: Reps. Camp and Upton. Upton chairs the powerful Committee on Ways and Means through which any tax legislation would pass. Camp chairs the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which, by virtue of its broad jurisdiction, would be affected by practically any tax code changes.

Tax reform is popular with both parties. If the supercommittee were to hone in on  tax code reform, it may appear that acrimony could be avoided while addressing the deficit. I am not convinced Boehner’s motives are so pure. Boehner’s view of tax reform is essentialy of the revenue-neutral school of thought. A focus on revenue-neutral reform would allow a “front stage” appearance of mutual concession, while the “back stage” would hardly be worthy of the name in Goffman’s sense, opening the door to of a series of Democratic concessions to further tax cuts. From a practical standpoint it would also help the committee to avoid making the hard decisions it was convened to make.

Co-chair Jeb Hensarling is the House’s most fervent crusader against spending, and further complicates the tax reform issue. He could be a powerful advocate to push the tax reform angle. It was Hensarling who rallied his caucus to vote down the September 2008 financial bill, an action that sent the market into such a panic that the Bush bailout was passed on the second go with the Senate at the wheel. But Hensarling could also put the brakes on tax reform. Deficit hawks are not monolithic in their support of revenue-neutral reform and if Hensarling senses corporate taxes could be increased as a result, any movement on that issue would likely be stalled.

Considering the restrictions of the Democratic conferees and the aversion to concession of the Republican conferees, it seems to me that  any deal will necessarily have Senators Kerry and Portman as the designated deal-brokers. Their experience and relative pragmatism, respectively, will allow the committee to come to an agreement. But I fear it will be a modest agreement – a deal, not a compromise .

A great opportunity likely will be lost. Congress was given an opportunity to work outside of the normal constraints of legislation. There was a possibility for “alchemy.” Instead, I fear, there will be a deal almost indistinguishable from those the Senate has historically passed with regularity. We may save ourselves from an immediate crisis, but at the cost of continuing on our current path of disruptive partisanship avoiding the serious problems we face.

But summer ‘11 is different. Unlike most Julys, this is not the Silly Season. The fresh crop of Republicans has that most dire of all political virtues: sincerity. It is not that these freshmen are insane or are terrorists, as flame-throwers on the poetic left suggest. Rather they share a perspective on government that, even if it is not always explicitly or candidly presented, is certainly a legitimate view of how a quasi-libertarian state should be organized. As boisterous tea party rebels, they are children of Ron Paul and, with less intellectual gravitas, of Milton Friedman. It is the task of Speaker John Boehner to hide their deep desires – currently unlikely to be enacted – from the public. These politicians wish broad principled cuts. Call them “radical” if you reject them, but, after all, this rhetoric mirrors the self-enhancing distinction: I am firm, but she is stubborn. As the Speaker’s plans evolve, it is increasingly unclear when and where these billions of cuts will derive. One can’t but imagine that this is a shell game with the American public as the marks. Boehner is the adult in the room, but like so many parents, he tries to misdirect his offspring’s attention hoping against hope that the promises will be forgotten.

Still, there is no doubt that whoever wins this financial drama (and it may prove to be a lose/lose opportunity, benefiting only gold bugs), the libertarian right has won the rhetorical debate. The President and Harry Reid are playing on the Tea Party turf, even if they are attempting to con without being caught. There are a lot of things that might describe the whole debate, and mendacity is surely high among them. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ploy to count planned defense reductions as new cuts was too clever by half, unpersuasive to all and revealing just how much he scorns the Tea Party rubes.

But ultimately it all comes down to the President. Despite his intelligence, Obama has revealed himself to be, unlike Carter or Clinton, a man who prefers to out-source economic policy to those with partisan interests. This was the tragedy of the Stimulus Package (Porkulus, as christened on talk radio). Rather than use the stimulus for a grand civic purpose, such as rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, the money was sprinkled about, landing on the desks of tenured faculty to support their research assistants, as well as for other cheery, but not quite essential, purposes. Perhaps it prevented a Depression, but in contrast to FDR’s alphabet agencies, the country looks no different now that the money is spent.

And this brings us to our grave week. It is fair to speak of balance, but what does this mean? We have a clearer sense of how Obama would increase revenues, raising tax rates on those millionaires and billionaires earning over $200,000. “Today this planless plan seems burdened as public policy by its absence of detail.” But we know less where and when, specifically, he would cut. Might 2017 be a good place to start? Is this more smoke and mirrors, more peas and shells. For this reason Congressional Republicans argue, sensibly from where they sit, that the cuts must occur now, there must be spending caps in place, and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget be sent to the states. Once burned, twice shy. Ten times burned, we don’t shy from financial calamity.

Today the adults in the room are all wearing capes, waving wands, and pulling rabbits from hats. But the kids have seen it all before. What they hope for, but are unlikely to receive, is reality television. The Tea Party movement was sparked by Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC, and perhaps it will be on that same financial channel where we will all end. Promises are no longer enough for those who have been plied with – and played as – suckers. Now is the time for the adults to tell what will be cut and how will we verify. Today it is the adults who are playing games.

I’m puzzled. For as long as I can recall I have been assured that the Grand Old Party will do just about anything to advantage their wealthy friends and benefactors. Of course, no party desires no taxes – not even Republicans — and none – not even Democrats – want full confiscation. So the issue always comes down to the question of how one will square the circle. Should the top marginal rate be 35% or 40%? Aside from the flat tax advocates and a few outré progressives, few are now arguing for 25% or 50%.

Statecraft inevitably involves a distribution of responsibilities and benefits. And, as I have noted, it is traditionally the case that Democrats ask for more sacrifice from the wealthy and Republicans advocate for fewer benefits for the needy.

This being part of our political logic, how then do we explain a central feature of the Republican plans for Medicare and for Social Security, and how do we explain the hesitancy of most elected Democrats to embrace this plan?

One area in which there appears to be some measure of agreement between President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner is that means testing Medicare and perhaps even Social Security should be “on the table” – a Thanksgiving turkey, as it were. The argument is that the wealthy might receive fewer benefits or should have to ante up more in the way of co-payments. What’s up with that? In important ways, one should appreciate why Democrats would like that idea and why the Republicans should resist, but things have not quite transpired in that logical way.

Despite the element of soaking (or at least dampening) the rich, some Democrats have pushed back on the idea of means testing Social Security and Medicare. One could readily make the argument that it is unjust or undesirable for the federal government to send out checks to those same rich folks on whom Democrats wish to raise the marginal tax rates. Couldn’t receiving fewer benefits be a form of shared sacrifice so integral to Democratic talking points?

Historically there have been reasons why means testing some social benefits have been problematic (although not for others, such as food stamps). Social Security, and to some degree Medicare, has long been defined as an insurance program and not a welfare program, even though they were designed to help seniors who needed a safety net after retirement. Still, the rationale for their passage was that everyone would partake; the benefits applied to everyone and the program was politically palatable. The assumption – an assumption that in 2011 is somewhat implausible – is that if these insurance plans become welfare programs that are means tested, they will be more vulnerable to sharp cuts for the most needy, even leading to calls for dismantling that safety net entirely. That everyone receives these social benefits means that everyone is invested in their success. In a somewhat similar way, although with a different perspective, we find Republicans worried that we are nearly at the point at which half of all Americans do not pay income tax. In such a circumstance, what incentive is there for those who do not pay to keep rates low? (The answer seems to be wealthy interest groups that both parties rely upon.) By opposing means testing, Democrats are pandering to the very same upper middle class to which they accuse Republicans of pandering. Pandering is politically addictive.

When one thinks about it, the desire of Republicans to means test these programs flies in the face of our convenient and easy beliefs, and it is a breath of fresh air. Means testing would in effect mean that the well-to-do will be paying more for their retirement and their health care. Perhaps this is a reason that President Obama, although not many of his supporters, such as the AARP, is willing to consider this particular option. For those who wish to redistribute government support towards the bottom and for those who wish to redistribute sacrifice towards the top, means testing makes sense.

It is not the case that all of the Republican plans for Medicare and Social Security will necessarily have this (salutary) effect. Privatization benefits some wealthy people at the expense of those less able to find suitable coverage, and the changes in determining inflation-based growth rates have problems of their own.

Still, at this parlous time in which we must consider how to have the most fortunate among us pay a larger share of the cost of necessary programs, a reasonable means-tested Medicare and Social Security can help close the budget gap. So let us all hail the Republicans as they propose means testing. On this, they are the party of class warfare, as they might say if they considered the matter carefully. Let us be thankful that they haven’t. And let Democrats take this option to reach across the aisle to achieve the very ends for which the party has been calling. Let us agree by all means.

In my state, New York, thanks to the Tea Party favorite, Carl Paladino, Andrew Cuomo’s election as Governor was never in doubt.   In Delaware, thanks to Christine O’Donnell, Chris Coons easily became Senator, when it seemed that he was likely to lose against a mainstream Republican.  In Nevada, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who started and finished with low approval ratings, managed to be reelected, thanks to the Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle.  On the other hand, Marco Rubio in Florida, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Rand Paul in Kentucky each impressively were elected to the Senate, assuring that there will be a discernable taste of tea in that great deliberative body.

As Paul put it,

“They say that the U.S. Senate is the world’s most deliberative body. Well, I’m going to ask them, respectfully, to deliberate upon this. Eleven percent of the people approve of what’s going on in Congress. But tonight there is a Tea Party tidal wave and we’re sending a message to ’em.

It’s a message that I will carry with them on Day One. It’s a message of fiscal sanity It’s a message of limited, limited constitutional government and balanced budgets.” (link)

The language is ugly, but clear.  The political discourse of the Senate is about to be challenged, and this is the body where the Republicans are in the minority.  It will be even louder and clearer in the House, which I admit I find pretty depressing, both from the political and the aesthetic point of view.  It’s going to be harder to actually deal with our pressing problems, and it’s not going to be pretty.

Indeed, it is in spheres of aesthetics and discourse that the Tea Party has been most successful.  It’s not a matter actually of how many races Tea Party politicians won or lost.  They won some and lost some, but from the beginning the Tea Party’s great success has been how it changed the public discussion about the pressing issues of the day.  In my next post, I will discuss this more fully, comparing the Tea Party with the Solidarity Movement in Poland, on the one hand, and the anti-war movement, the Dean campaign and the Obama campaign, on the other.

Response to replies

But before I close today, I’ll add a few words on the responses to my posts on the elections.  To date, most of the people sending in replies appear to share sympathy for the Democrats and a critical attitude towards the Republicans, with one exception.  I welcome differences of opinion and thank all the repliers for their contribution to deliberate considerations.  I am not surprised by the general commitments of the people replying.  I actually think it is important to breakout of partisan ghettos, but know that they exist.  I need to take seriously someone who does breakout, so first a respectful, and I hope not overly defensive, response to Billy.

He criticized me for the title, “The Results Were Expected.”  I agree it wasn’t the best choice. I was writing very quickly on the night of the elections and the next morning, and also involved with my teaching.  The line was actually my first sentence and I didn’t have time to formulate a fresh title, so I just moved it up.  Billy construed the passive voice as an attempt on my part to deflect the responsibility of any one party for the results, in a sense discounting the voting on Election Day for having any meaning that needed to be confronted.  Somehow the word liar came into his formulation, but I didn’t understand that.  But he did pose a serious question: “Does that mean that there was no point in voting?”  Perhaps if he read only the title his would be a significant criticism, but given what I wrote in the post and in the one preceding and following it, clearly it is not what I mean, even if the title was unfortunate.

On great and small politics, Billy wonders why I think that the Republican Party’s small as opposed to great ends are in tension, and he seems to accuse me of crass partisanship in this regard.  But my point is simple, and not just about tax cuts.  In principle, the Tea Party, and its faction of the Republican Party, are for small government, going as far as to suggest that the Constitution does not permit health care reform.  But the Constitutional argument of limited government against health care should also be applied, in principle, to Social Security, Medicare, and, slightly off point, to the provisions controlling private business discrimination against African Americans in the civil rights legislation.  With such a commitment to private freedom, we could indeed responsibly have the sorts of tax cuts the Tea Party imagines, and there would be no tension between Republican Party politics, great and small.  But clearly this will not happen.  Short of doing such things, all the Republican talk about seriously balancing the budget is empty.  And Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln and I all agree with Billy that people have a right to what they have earned, but that commitment doesn’t mean that we also don’t have a responsibility to contribute to the public well being, including the public’s health.

I agree with Scott: the idea that the wealthy are the only ones who contribute to the public good and economic growth is about as convincing as Marx’s  “labor theory of value.”  It is an ideological declaration, nothing more.  I am still looking for a responsible conservative, though.

As far as Boehner’s tears, mentioned by Eric, Alex and Iris, I don’t know what to make of them, particularly as a person who has delivered newspapers, swept sidewalks, waited on tables, cleaned public toilets and worked as a stock boy to pay for my studies.  I see that work as a simple fact of life, not something to get all sentimental about.  And on Iris’s point about independents, I too find them a puzzle, probably because I think a lot about general principles and not about small politics, more about that later.  As Michael Correy writes, the issue of how small and great politics are matched is a serious challenge and should have appeal beyond the partisan to the independent, involving very serious thought and practical action.  I am a Democrat and a strong supporter of Obama because I think he and the leadership of his party are the ones who are trying to do this.

I particularly appreciated Silke Steinhilber in her response to Congressman Boehner silly remarks about the health care law. Not only because I agree with her, but also because she draws the analogy to the German situation in a telling fashion.  We live in the world where mindless fiscal hawks have run wild.  They are not only taking public goods away from us and our children, but what they are doing makes no economic sense.  We have to control deficits in the long run, but public spending is a way of getting out of recessions.  And crucially such spending also contributes to private good, as Ms. Steinhilber and her daughter understand at their playground.

The Republicans were combative:

Senator Mitch McConnell:

We’ll work with the administration when they agree with the people and confront them when they don’t. Choosing — I think what our friends on the other side learned is that choosing the president over your constituents is not a good strategy.
There are two opportunities for that change to occur. Our friends on the other side can change now and work with us to address the issues that are important to the American people, that we all understood. Or further change, obviously, can happen in 2012.

Governor Haley Barbour:

On behalf of the Republican governors, while governor’s races may be thought of as being separate or very different from what’s going on in Washington, in this case, even in governor’s races, this election was a referendum on Obama’s policies. And the policies of the Obama administration, the Pelosi-Reid Congress were repudiated by the voters.

Representative John Boehner:

Listen, I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country.
That means that we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with commonsense reforms that’ll bring down the cost of health insurance.

The President was conciliatory:

Over the last two years, we’ve made progress.  But, clearly, too many Americans haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told us that yesterday. And as President, I take responsibility for that.
What yesterday also told us is that no one party will be able to dictate where we go from here, that we must find common ground in order to set — in order to make progress on some uncommonly difficult challenges.  And I told John Boehner and Mitch McConnell last night I am very eager to sit down with members of both parties and figure out how we can move forward together.
I’m not suggesting this will be easy.  I won’t pretend that we will be able to bridge every difference or solve every disagreement.  There’s a reason we have two parties in this country, and both Democrats and Republicans have certain beliefs and certain principles that each feels cannot be compromised.  But what I think the American people are expecting, and what we owe them, is to focus on those issues that affect their jobs, their security, and their future:  reducing our deficit, promoting a clean energy economy, making sure that our children are the best educated in the world, making sure that we’re making the investments in technology that will allow us to keep our competitive edge in the global economy.

These statements summarize the new political terrain, and they reveal very significant problems.  The Republicans speak as if the American people have one clear and unanimous voice that just says “yes” to them and” no” to the Democrats. They believe that they can govern in the name of the people, even though this election clearly indicates that the citizenry is not unanimous in its support of all their policy positions.  The overall vote went 52% to 45% for Republicans, mirroring the results of the last election, which went by the same numbers in the opposite direction. Exit polling indicates the public is evenly split between those who think the top priority is increased stimulus spending for the creation of new jobs and those who think the top priority should be reducing the deficit.

But the Republicans are demanding a populist enactment, the sort of position that the Founders tried to avoid by making the House more responsive, the Senate more deliberative, and separating power between the executive and the legislative branches of government.

The Republicans did win in this election cycle, while they lost in the last, and we have a representative structure that reflects this.  It seems to me that this means that the President’s position of bipartisanship, contrary to his critics on the left and the right, actually is the wise democratically mandated response to the voice of the people.  What the mandate for bipartisanship might and should yield is another question, which we should discuss in the near future.

As we go to the polls today, there is the likely outcome, a significant Republican victory, and there is the possibility of the surprise finish, more muted Republican gains.  Times are tough, and people are thus looking for changes in their political representation, but despite this, indeed, because of it, to the end, Obama fought against the apparently inevitable.  In the climax of his fight, he explained his position:

“Around the country I’ve been trying to describe it this way.  Imagine the American economy as a car.   And the Republicans were at the wheel and they drove it into a ditch.  And it’s a steep ditch, it’s a deep ditch.  And somehow they walked away.

But we had to go down there.  So me and all the Democrats, we put on our boots and we repelled down into the ditch.  (Laughter.)  And it was muddy down there and hot.  We’re sweating, pushing on the car.  Feet are slipping.  Bugs are swarming.

We look up and the Republicans are up there, and we call them down, but they say, no, we’re not going to help.  They’re just sipping on a Slurpee — (laughter) — fanning themselves.  They’re saying, you’re not pushing hard enough, you’re not pushing the right way.  But they won’t come down to help.  In fact, they’re kind of kicking dirt down into us, down into the ditch.  (Laughter.)

But that’s okay.  We know what our job is, and we kept on pushing, we kept on pushing, we kept on pushing until finally we’ve got that car on level ground.  (Applause.)  Finally we got the car back on the road. (Applause.)  Finally we got that car pointing in the right direction.  (Applause.)

And suddenly we have this tap on our shoulder, and we look back and who is it?

AUDIENCE:  Republicans.

THE PRESIDENT:  It’s the Republicans.  And they’re saying, excuse me, we’d like the keys back.

AUDIENCE:  No! (link)

D.C. reader, Eric Friedman, reported in a reply to my last post that his son heard these words on the Midway at the University of Chicago and found them to be particularly compelling.  We will see today how much of an impact they have had.