I anticipated the State of the Union Address, more or less, correctly, though I underestimated Obama’s forthrightness. He entered softly, calling for bi-partisanship, but he followed up with a pretty big stick, strongly arguing for his agenda, including, most spectacularly, the matter of class and class conflict, daring the Republicans to dissent, ending the speech on a high emotional note on gun violence and the need to have a vote on legislation addressing the problem. Before the speech, I wondered how President Obama would balance assertion of his program with reaching out to Republicans. This was an assertive speech.

The script was elegantly crafted, as usual, and beautifully performed, as well. He embodied his authority, with focused political purpose aimed at the middle class. This got me thinking. As a sociologist, I find public middle class talk confusing, though over the years I have worked to understand the politics. I think last night it became clear, both the politics and the sociology.

Obama is seeking to sustain his new governing coalition, with the Democratic majority in the Senate, and the bi-partisan coalition in the House, although he is working to form the coalition more aggressively than I had expected. He is addressing the House through “the people,” with their middle class identities, aspirations and fears.

In my last post, I observed and then suggested:

“Obama’s recent legislative victories included Republican votes on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. I believe he will talk about the economy in such a way that he strengthens his capacity to draw upon this new governing coalition. He will do it in the name of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. This is the formulation of Obama for ordinary folk, the popular classes, the great bulk of the demos, the people. In this speech and in others, they are the subjects of change, echoing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: government of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, by the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, for the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class.”

Americans in large numbers think of themselves as being middle class, though this is hardly an identity that distinguishes much. The middle class, in the American imagination, ranges from people who barely sustain themselves to people who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, own multiple homes and all the latest consumer trophies. The imagined middle class includes all the workers who earn a living wage in a factory, and the owners of the factory, and the managers and clerks in between. If Marx were alive, he would roll over in his grave. This American sociological imagination seems to be an illusion, a case of false consciousness if there ever was one. The puzzle: “What is the matter with Kansas?

Yet, I think it was quite clear last night that the way the middle class is imagined opens American politics. Both Obama and Marco Rubio (in his Republican response) delivered their messages in the name of the middle class. While Rubio used it to denounce Obama, big government, taxing of the wealthy and spending for the needy, Obama invoked the great middle class to defend and propose programs that clearly serve “the middle class” directly, especially Social Security and Medicare, but also aid to education, infrastructure investments and the development of jobs. The undeserving poor loomed behind Rubio’s middle class, (and made explicit in Rand Paul’s Tea Party response), while those who need some breaks and supports were the base of Obama’s middle class. Thus, the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, as I anticipated, was Obama’s touchstone.

I, along with many progressive friends, have been impatient with all the talk about the middle class over the years. I wondered: where are the poor and the oppressed? In this State of the Union, the President made clear that they are central to his concern: an endangered middle class, both those who have been down so long that they haven’t been able to look up, and those who through recent experience know that they and their children are descending. Obama spoke to both groups, the frightened middle class, working people who have experienced rapid downward mobility, and those who have long been excluded from work that pays sufficiently to live decently.

Obama, using straightforward prose, addressed the members of Congress through this middle class. He advocated for “manufacturing innovation institutes,” for universal high quality pre-schools, strengthening the link between high school education and advanced technical training, addressing the costs and benefits of higher education, and raising the minimum wage. In other words, along with his discussion of Medicare, Social Security and Obamacare, he raised the immediate economic concerns of a broad swath of the American public. Noteworthy is that the concerns of the “aspiring middle class” (i.e. poor folk) were central in his presentation.

And then there was the passion focused on immigration, voting rights and gun violence. The closing crescendo, with Obama calling for a vote from Congress on gun violence, dramatically referred back to Obama’s opening, calling for concerted bi-partisan action on the crises of our time. As I heard it, this was about gun violence and its victims, but also the victims of Congressional inaction on jobs and the economy, on the sequester, on the need to invest in our future, i.e. on pressing issues concerning the middle class and those who aspire to be in the middle class. The closing was powerfully delivered, as the response to the delivery was even more powerful. As Obama takes his message to the country in the coming days, and as Democrats and Republicans start negotiations about the budget, I think that there is a real possibility that the coalition that formed in negotiating the resolution to the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling conflicts may very well lead to necessary action, at least to some degree, and they will be debating about the right things, at last.

There will be more prose, less poetry, though President Obama will certainly highlight the themes of his Inaugural Address and his earlier poetic speeches. He will be specific about policy: on immigration, gun violence, climate change, military expenditures and reforms, and the need for a balanced approach to immediate and long-term economic challenges. He will hang tough on the sequestration, calling the Republicans’ bluff, and he will warn of the dangers the U.S. faces abroad, while he defends his foreign policy, including his major accomplishment of ending two disastrous wars (though he won’t call them that). The speech is going to be about jobs and the middle class. This is all expected by the chattering class, and I think Obama will meet expectations. But I also think that there will be more interesting things going on. The President will move forcefully ahead on his major project, moving the center left on issues foreign and domestic. And there are significant signs he is succeeding, see this report from a deep red state.

Look for an opening to Republican moderates. I suspect Obama will not only stake out his positions, but also point to the way that those holding other positions may work with him on contentious issues. This will be most apparent in immigration reform. He will also likely address Republicans concerns about long-term cuts in government spending.

He will highlight the need for a leaner, but as mean, military budget, as he denounces the dangers of the thoughtless cuts in military spending via the sequester. Real cuts in military spending will please his base, including me, but also some more libertarian Republicans, Rand Paul, though not John McCain.

Less pleasing for progressives would be what Obama very well may say about so-called “entitlements.” I am not sure he will do this now, but if not now, when?

He could make clear his priority – control medical and Medicare expenses, reminding us that this is a task of Obamacare, but he also may make gestures suggesting more Republican friendly solutions concerning intelligent cutting of expenditures: on indexing and eligibility issues for Medicare and perhaps also Social Security. He is unlikely to be specific. He will emphasize that these programs are essential. Yet, he could strategically reveal an openness to Republican ideas, as he emphasizes the need for bi-partisan support of infrastructure, education, research and development, meeting the economic and environmental challenges of the day. This would be an invitation to moderate Republicans to break away from the “party of no.”

Obama’s recent legislative victories included Republican votes on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. I believe he will talk about the economy in such a way that he strengthens his capacity to draw upon this new governing coalition. He will do it in the name of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. This is the formulation of Obama for ordinary folk, the popular classes, the great bulk of the demos, the people. In this speech and in others, they are the subjects of change, echoing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: government of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, by the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, for the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. (More on this on another day.)

Obama will declare the state of the Union as fundamentally sound and improving. He will underscore the contingencies of the improvement. He will speak to the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, but also to the members of Congress.  Speaking to the Congress, he will draw upon the themes of his re-election campaign and his recent speeches on gun violence and immigration. With public support, he will call on Congress to act, and he will suggest the path. He will speak in the name of those who voted for him, but will reach out to the representatives of those who didn’t to find common cause on key crucial issues. He will voice his fundamental commitments and suggest compromise. It will be interesting to see how he will balance these.

I think Obama’s constancy is the most remarkable aspect of his presidency. Tactics have changed, as he has worked with a Democratic majority in Congress, with a Republican dominated Congress, and against a Republican dominated Congress. But his goals have not changed, most clearly summarized, in my judgment, in two key speeches. The one that made him a national figure: his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004 (and the many speeches that followed repeated its inclusive themes) and his recent Inaugural Address, which most clearly and compactly articulates his progressive aspirations. He is a centrist who wants to include into public debate the experiences and aspirations of the American people in its diversity, including the diversity of opinion: progressive, conservative and moderate. But he has his specific commitments, and he wants those commitments, most sharply revealed in the Inaugural Address, to be at the center of the debate. Expect a State of the Union that links these two speeches, pointing to specific actions, and, therefore, pushing forward the Obama transformation.

By electing its first African American, bi-racial president, America redefined itself. Barack Obama’s singular achievement has been, and will be for the ages, his election, and his confirming re-election. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It colors all aspects of Obama’s presidency, as it tends to be publicly ignored. Today, at Obama’s second inauguration, he will highlight his and our achievement, as he will take his oath of office on the bibles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

Of course, Obama is not just a pretty dark face. He has a moderate left of center political program. He is a principled centrist. He is trying to transform the American center, moving it to the left, informing commonsense, changing the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, re-inventing American political culture. This will clearly be on view in today’s speech.

Obama has changed how America is viewed in the larger world, as he has slowly but surely shifted American foreign policy, ending two wars, developing a more multilateral approach, reforming the American military in a way that is more directed to the challenges of the 21^st century. I should add: I am disappointed with some of this, particularly concerning drone warfare (more on this in a later piece). The President has finally established the principle of universal healthcare as a matter of American law, putting an end to a very unfortunate example of American exceptionalism. Another dark side of American life, the centrality of guns and gun violence in our daily lives, is now being forthrightly addressed by the President. His second term promises to address climate change in a way that has been foreclosed by the Republican opposition to this point. And he will almost certainly lead the country in a more tolerant and progressive approach to immigration and citizenship for undocumented Americans.

He has accomplished a big fuckin’ deal, as Vice President Biden declared in an unguarded moment following the passage of Obamacare (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and today has been underscored by one of Obama’s primary critics from the left, Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist and New York Times columnist.

But in my judgment it all exists in the context of the redefinition of what it means to be an American. He now represents the typical American. His is the face of America and many of those who felt excluded, and not only African Americans, now feel that they are full citizens.  Take a look at this open public letter from a gay family attending the ceremonies today.

Lincoln turned the “Declaration of Independence” into a sacred text, when he redefined it in the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  He elevated the ideal of equality, reinterpreting the significance of the “Declaration,” turning equality into a central political value. In the same way, Obama has redefined the significance of the motto on the American seal E pluribus unum, “out of many one,” into a central commitment to the diversity of national origins, religious, commitments, racial and ethnic identities and sexual orientations, elevating diversity, a central empirical fact of American society, into a central normative commitment, to be celebrated and cultivated. I anticipate that the theme of equality and diversity will animate his speech.

Now I listen to the speech and respond:

Extraordinary. More than I could have hoped, though I expected a lot. Comprehensive, principled, visionary, clearly setting out a (left of center) path for the country, embedded within a history, distant and recently passed. There was a noteworthy opening, centered on equality and diversity in American history. He engaged the politics of the day – climate change (with striking prominence), Social Security and Medicare, immigration, and women and gay rights -along the way, but it was the central vision that I found most powerful.

The audience was large and enthusiastic, fervently waving the American flag, red, white and blue, with resulting purple waves of enthusiasm. And Obama worked with this, presenting his vision that would unite, the liberal blue and the conservative red, moving the country in a progressive and more inclusive direction. Obama’s words soared.

He concluded with a series of paragraphs repeating the phrase “we the people.”

“We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity…

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity…

“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war…

“We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law…

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Obama addressed many policy issues, surprising instant pundits. But what was most noteworthy to me is that he did it by building upon and returning to his greatest accomplishment. It was a speech built upon the power of American diversity and outlined how this diversity will be used to address the pressing problems of the day, and as this happens, the United States stands as a city on a hill for others to observe and learn from. At least, this is the very ambitious promise of Obama’s second term.

As a strong supporter of Barack Obama, I found the debate last night painful. Romney performed well. Obama didn’t.

I take solace in a dial group session by a respected  Geoff Garin, which found that sixty percent of the study group of undecided voters and weakly committed Democrats viewed Obama favorably for his performance, and that eighty percent of this crucial group after the debate saw the President as more likable and down to earth. And on key issues, Obama decisively prevailed on improving the economy and on Medicare, though the group did marginally shift to Romney on taxes. A small study suggested that a key target audience of the debate didn’t go along with the talking heads.

I also am somewhat relieved by Nate Silver, the statistics guru now publishing at The New York Times, who first made his name in sports, then in politics. He judged, using a football analogy, that Romney in his strong debate scored a field goal not a touchdown or the two touchdowns that Silver earlier declared Romney would have to score to win in November. He gained only a slight advantage.

Yet, as I watched the debate and then listened and read a great deal of commentary, not sleeping through most of the night, I worried that an Obama defeat seemed again to be a possibility, if not a probability. Just about all the commentators and instant polls judged that Romney won the debate, though the meaning of the victory was contested: from nothing has changed, to a reset, to the beginning of the end for Obama.

I want to believe, as also has been discussed, that the debate presents an opportunity for Obama (with the support of his powerful campaign staff), known for his impeccable timing and strategic prowess, to counterpunch in ads and speeches and in the coming debates. I certainly would like to believe that Barack Obama, as Muhammad Ali would put it, was playing “rope – a – dope,” and still “floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.”

But beyond the winning and losing, and the sports analogies, I think that the debate itself was a success and a failure to the degree to which it actually provided an opportunity for the public to consider the pressing issues of the day and the alternative approaches Romney and Obama are proposing.

They mostly debated the question of the role of government in supporting economic growth and the creation of jobs, along with taxes and Medicare and Obamacare, but they didn’t debate many other key domestic issues: race, immigration, abortion, the courts, LGBT rights, the power of corporations and as I suspected yesterday, the profound problem of poverty in the United States, in a society that has been defined by not only freedom but also equality, as Tocqueville explored, but has become ever more and profoundly in-egalitarian. The moderator, Jim Lehrer, ignored all this and more. This is deeply troubling.

Nonetheless, the competing political philosophies of the two candidates and the two parties were in clear view, as a solid piece in this morning’s New York Times reports. In this regard, despite Romney’s much better performance, I am not sure that he was convincing. Indeed, the study of independents’ response suggests that he may not have been.

Romney and Obama both underscored last night, as they have been highlighting throughout the campaign, that this election posed a clear choice. Yet, note that Romney tried to fudge this when it came to his hyper–individualist, pro-corporate approach on Obamacare and Medicare, on tax justice and the means of promoting job growth, and on regulations. The fudging was a key to the success of his performance, but I am not at all sure that it was convincing.

While he made it clear that he opposed Obamacare for pragmatic and principled reasons, he pretended that he supported all that is good with Obamacare, without explaining how this would be possible. He promised he would lower tax rates, avoid any tax increases and cut deficits (also increase the military budget as Obama highlighted) simultaneously by closing unspecified loopholes and limiting unnamed tax deductions of the rich, but not the middle class. This fantasy which defies both common sense and expert opinion, he claimed, will unlock the power of the market and the job creators (aka the rich) to do their work to produce jobs (not just to enrich themselves). And most remarkably, he suggested that he would control the abuses of Wall Street, without supporting the major legislation that moves to do this, Dodd-Frank. Eliminating unnecessary, job destroying regulations is central to his economic plan, but last night he amazingly presented himself as a rational regulator. And he would do all this and be bi-partisan too.

Although he was slick in his presentation, I doubt that this was convincing to a public that has grown to be skeptical about his constancy and uncertain about who Romney really is, what he believes and what he will do. For Republican moderates, such as David Brooks and Mike Murphy, a former Republican campaign operative, , the polished technocrat on the stage last night was the real Romney. They were ecstatic on the Charlie Rose Show on PBS (support of which Romney promised to cut out, despite his professed love for Big Bird). Yet, given the performances Romney has been giving for the last two years, Romney, the severe conservative, I am not at all sure that the public will understand. No wonder un-decideds and weakly committed Democrats were apparently not as convinced as the initial commentaries were. And the instant polls were about who won, not who was convinced. A real argument did happen, but the judgment of the public is very much still out.

Maybe the night didn’t go as badly as I had first thought.

I am having second thoughts about my last post in which I assert that the nomination of Paul Ryan, because he is a right-wing ideologist, assures the re-election of Barack Obama. I don’t wish to revise my observations or judgment, but think I need to explain a bit more. I realize that I should be clearer about what I mean by ideology and why I think, and hope, that it spells defeat for the Republicans. My thoughts in two parts: today, I will clarify what I mean by ideology and my general political prediction; in my next post, I will consider further implications of ideological developments in American politics, addressing some doubts and criticism raised by Deliberately Considered readers.

I also want to point out that my thoughts on Ryan and ideology are related to my search for conservative intellectuals worthy of respect. In that what I have to say is motivated bya conservative suspicion of the role of a certain kind of idea and reason in politics, I wonder what Paul Gottfried and Alvino-Mario Fantini (two conservative intellectuals who have contributed to Deliberately Considered) would think. As I understand it, my last post was a conservative critique of right-wing ideology, pointing to its progressive consequences. As a centrist who wants to move the center left, I am hopeful about this, but I imagine committed conservatives would be deeply concerned. I am still having trouble finding a deliberate dialogue with them.

A brief twenty-five year old encounter comes to mind as I think about ideology and its political toxicity, trying to explain my Ryan judgment.

We were in a taxi in Prague in 1987, Jonathan Fanton, the President of the New School for Social Research, Ira Katznelson, the Dean of The New School’s Graduate Faculty, Jan Urban, a leading dissident intellectual-journalist activist, and I: the preliminary meeting between The New School and the small but very vibrant, creative and ultimately successful Czechoslovak democratic opposition. In the end, we did some good in that part of the world, starting with a donation of a computer that enabled Urban and his colleagues to more easily publish their underground newspaper, Lidove Noviny. As we were exchanging pleasantries in the taxi, I became serious and asserted that I am against all “isms”: communism, socialism, fascism, but also liberalism and conservatism. Urban turned to me and happily declared that we were comrades in thoughts. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, based on our deep concern about the ideological politics of the sort that is now to be found in the Tea Party on the American radical right, and also played a unfortunate role in the politics of post–Communist Czech Republic under the stewardship of Vaclav Klaus.

Urban and I agreed that true-believing politics was extremely dangerous, whether or not the beliefs were attractive. We were suspicious of systematic overall positions. We understood together that the too intimate connection between ideas and assertions of power was extremely dangerous. Ideas then blind. The difference between fact and fiction become difficult to discern. Newspeak prevails.

There was, of course, exaggeration in our agreement, the danger of ideology is not neatly summarized by suffix “ism,” but we shared a common sense, the same sense that informs my judgment of Ryan and the likely Republican fate. Ideology for Urban and for me is a term that is best understood not as the confluence of interest and political ideas, enabling political action (ideology in the sense of Mannheim and Geertz, beautifully interpreted by Ricoeur). Rather, implicit in my exchange with Urban is an understanding of ideology that draws on the position of Hannah Arendt (and more conservative thinkers such as Eric Voegelin), as she and we try to make sense of a particularly pernicious form of political ideas.

Thus in the present situation, following the ideology of the free market true-belief, constitutional fundamentalism and a theological reading of the American tradition, rich people become “job creators” by definition. A moderate Democrat becomes a “dangerous socialist” who doesn’t understand what America is. Changing the fundamental principles of Medicare and Social Security becomes “saving” them, while controlling the cost escalation of Medicare means destroying it. We also have the “failed stimulus package,” the “racist” Attorney General Eric Holder, not to mention the Muslim president born in Kenya. All of this passes for the conservatism of Tea Party Republicans, and Ryan is said to be its great intellectual leader. This is ideological politics pure and simple.

I disagree with the substance of Romney – Ryan’s positions on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, something that Michael Corey identified and criticized in his response to my post. He believes that the Republican and the Democratic plans for “entitlements” should be dispassionately evaluated and seems to be disappointed that I didn’t do this in my post. But this wasn’t my point. There are indeed different ways to address the problems of medical care of the old and the younger that have their strengths and weaknesses. A debate about such things is a normal part of politics. What concerns me is the Manichean way this debate is presented and understood by the new right-wing ideologues, as a grand battle between good and evil, with the very future of America in the balance. Ryan reduces all political conflict in this way, as he put it in 2005: “the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.“

I think that this is the sort of thing that a great majority of Americans reject. There may have been a drift to the right in recent years. Belief in the possibility that government can address social problems may be down, but the certainty of free market true-believers makes little sense to people as they try to get by in tough times. It’s a matter of form, not substance, and again to paraphrase Barry Goldwater in order to criticize his position: extremism in defense of freedom doesn’t win elections in America, not for Goldwater in the early sixties and not for Romney – Ryan now.

As a consequence, the Republican ticket will prevaricate. They will back down. This has defined Romney’s career, and Ryan himself, to get re-elected, has also compromised his stated principles to deliver the “collectivist” government goods to his constituents. Yet, in the glare of the national campaign this sort of thing is less likely to work. Romney – Ryan will reveal to the electorate the worst of both worlds, the repellent dogmatism of true-belief, combined with the apparent cynicism of hack politicians who will say anything to be elected.

Thus, I think that Obama will be re-elected. I also have a hunch. This may allow Obama to be Obama. Perhaps just as the decisive defeat of Goldwater established the political opportunity for the reforms of “The Great Society,” the Romney – Ryan defeat may open up the opportunity for “change we can believe in.”

From the fracas in Washington, it would be impossible to know that Americans still live in the world’s richest country. In 2010, the U.S. GDP was about two-and-a-half times that of its nearest competitor, China—you know, the country that’s building new cities everywhere and a bullet train system to ferry citizens among them. But to listen to the political discourse that currently dominates the airwaves, the U.S. is facing financial collapse, if not now then in another decade, and it cannot afford another dollar for many collective goods, whether an improved mass transportation system or health care for senior citizens.

As a number of commentators have observed, the political crisis over the debt ceiling is a distraction from graver and more urgent problems: especially the stagnation of the economy, which is not generating enough jobs to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate or to give young workers solid footing for the beginning of their career climbs. The Great Recession, supposedly over, is threatening to turn into a Japanese-style stagnation that could endure for a decade or more.

The state of the U.S. economy is bound up with the plight of the American middle class, as Robert Reich has acutely observed. That plight has been developing for decades, a lot longer than the debt problem, which dates back just a decade, to George W. Bush’s entry into the White House. The economic gains since the 1970s have been concentrated at the top of the income distribution, in the top few percent, and little has trickled down into the middle class. One widely cited statistic has it that the top 1 percent now take home about a quarter of the national income, up from just 9 percent in 1976;  the distribution of wealth is even more unequal. (By the standard statistical measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, the U.S. is now considerably more unequal than any other economically developed country and more resembles a developing nation like Nicaragua.)

The lack of economic gain by the middle class has fed directly into economic stagnation. In order to keep up their standard of consumption, many families have been going deeper and deeper into debt, encouraged in the last decade by the inflation of the values of their homes. The aggregate level of household debt in relation to GDP is higher than it has been since the Depression of the 1930s and is responsible for the weak demand that is keeping the U.S. from enjoying a robust economic recovery. Robert Reich’s basic message seems fundamental:  America has prospered when its middle class has done so; but their economic situation today is parlous.

The great damage of the current conflict over the debt ceiling is that it takes place, as Gary Fine rightly points out, on the terrain of conservatives. The Tea Partiers’ strategy of intransigence has worked. Accordingly, the discussion of remedies has been narrowed to the spending side: where are the cuts going to come from? Yet it isn’t that the federal government spends so much money, anyway. In 2010, the total level of spending of all levels of government in the U.S. amounted to 40% of GDP. That tied us with Canada but placed us well behind the levels of spending in Germany (44% of GDP), the United Kingdom (47%), and France (53%), all countries less wealthy (in terms of GDP per capita) than the U.S. As I noted in an earlier post, the increases in spending at the federal level under Obama so far are in line with those under Bush, with the exception of fiscal year 2009, a year of extraordinary economic turmoil that is divided between the two Presidents.

Not fully recognized is that a fall-off in government revenue plays an outsized role in the budget deficit. In nominal dollars, federal revenues today are about where they were in 2000, which means that in real dollar terms they are down by 16 percent. As a fraction of GDP, they have dipped to a level, less than 15%, that hasn’t been seen in six decades. The Bush tax cuts are an important part of the story, and most analyses point to them as the largest single factor behind the deficit. The recession and the halting recovery have also lowered federal revenues. Obama and the Democrats are right to insist that revenue increases must be a part of any solution, but in terms of the legislation under consideration to raise the debt ceiling this time around, they have lost the argument.

(And don’t listen to the right-wing whine that the affluent already pay more than their fair share in taxes. Conveniently for their argument, conservatives mention only federal income taxes, which amount to about 40 percent of federal revenue.  Almost as much is collected through payroll taxes, which, thanks to the cap on the income subject to Social-Security taxes, are mostly paid by ordinary workers.)

The resolution of the current tempest will last only for a while, six months if the Republicans are successful, eighteen if the Democrats are. The duel will be resumed, but we now see with clarity what the positions of the two sides will be. On the right, the prime target will be the entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, along with Medicaid, since the retirement of the baby boom over the next quarter century will ensure that the expenditures on these programs as they are currently configured will rise massively. On the center-left, the argument will be for more balance by raising revenues, but there has already been a concession that entitlement programs need to be cut back.

Any reduction in entitlement programs is equivalent to an additional tax on the middle class and the less affluent. For instance, Social Security is fully funded through 2037 because, since the Reagan administration, workers have paid extra amounts into the trust fund to build it up for the day when the baby boomers begin to retire. (The extra payroll taxes were recycled into the federal budgets of the time and spent.) To make the payments required in coming years, Social Security will need to go beyond incoming payroll taxes and tap into these savings, which effectively means that the money comes from elsewhere. Slowing down the rate of increase in Social Security payments to retirees, a proposal part of the Obama-Boehner negotiation, will slow down this transfer process and the need for more federal revenue. It will also give the retirees measurably less money over their lifetimes.

The debt ceiling crisis has pulled apart the curtains on a Washington political class that is at an impasse, unable to strike a “grand bargain” that would take the issue off the table. A “solution” therefore awaits the 2012 election, which may prove as momentous for the nation’s course as were the elections of 1980 and 2000. The Democrats under Obama’s leadership have given up considerable ground to the Republicans. But if the Grand Old Party takes the Presidency or the Senate while retaining the House, watch out!

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.

Last week’s posts all address the difficult issue of the relationship between public appearance and private beliefs and actions.

Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, Gays and Lesbians are unlikely to become President, Michael Corey reports. Large percentages of Americans would be unlikely to vote for these minorities for the highest office in the land according to a recent Gallop poll. This contrasts with other groups that have historically been objects of intolerance. Only small percentages of the population reveal an unwillingness to vote for a Hispanic, Jew, Baptist, Catholics, woman or African American. Given the definitive role that racism has played in American history, it is striking that of these historically excluded groups, the least amount of prejudice is directed toward African Americans. This represents significant progress. That Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, gays and lesbians don’t fare so well shows that progress is a slow and uneven process. To be sure, even in the case of African Americans and women, the taboo against the expression of prejudice may depress the numbers, as Felipe and Andrew maintained in their replies. There is private prejudice, public denial.

Corey proposes two special reasons for the persistence of prejudice against Mormons, true belief, i.e. ideological certainty, and “know-nothingism,” i.e.  intentional ignorance. Michael Weinman explores how these are produced and reproduced in Israel, not only as a matter of official public policy, but more significantly in the naming of a picture book character, Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. The project of official policy to Hebraize the names in East Jerusalem is transparent. Every day practices and expectations about in group and out group relations are more fundamental than the official project of exclusion, resulting in more durable effects. The public project to disappear Arab Jerusalem is strongly supported by the intimate working of primary socialization, turning a difficult political conflict into an impossible one.

The passage of the marriage equality law in New York is a milestone. Changes in everyday practices preceded the event. With gays and lesbians in their diversity more visible, their exclusion from marriage (and the military) became harder to sustain. The way we lived suggested one legal framework. The way we live mandated another. The official public is catching up with private everyday practices.

And as the legal framework changes, so do everyday practice: thus, Americans have become accustomed to have access to public support of medical care in their old age. Even conservative Republicans, who initially denounced Medicare as the beginning of the end of freedom in America, now must maintain their support, as they are proposing fundamental changes to the program, which Democrats see as a dismantling. With this in mind, Gary Alan Fine expects such Republican support of Obamacare, in the long run.

President Obama is a reluctant supporter of gay marriage. While he applauded the passing of the New York law last week, he carefully didn’t openly endorse change in Federal policy. Republicans say they support Medicare, while they propose policies that may dismantle it. Even the casual observer can read between the lines. Obama’s opposition to gay marriage is insincere, as is Republican support of Medicare. Americans, further, may indeed be more prejudiced against blacks, less prejudiced against Mormons than the Gallop poll indicates. Personal conviction may contrast with public appearance and expression.

But note how important appearance and expression are. If a person is afraid to utter openly racist conviction, it is less likely that the person will be willing to engage in overt racist action. The hypocrisy constitutes a social control. When Obama publicly supports gay marriage, it will be a big deal (my guess before the next elections). It will help extend the normality of equality for those with various sexual orientations. While Republican direct attack on Medicare is unlikely (no matter how they feel about it), when they stop attacking Obama’s healthcare reform and start suggesting ways to improve it (perhaps still wanting to undermine Obamacare) it will also be a big deal. How one is hypocritical matters.

But please only two cheers. Sometimes hypocrisy deserves its bad reputation, as in the Strauss-Kahn affair. Charged with rape in New York, DSK is likely to get off here. He appears to be innocent, though he may not be, but in such a case appearance is enough. As we discussed in the replies to my report on Daniel Dayan’s reaction to the affair, Strauss-Kahn may even have a significant political life in France. Yet,  a can of worms was opened, and despite some valiant attempts to get those damn worms back in by the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy, there are still important questions that arise from the case concerning the relationship between public appearance and private belief and actions. Lévy pretends that the private actions of Strauss-Kahn are not at issue and that the biggest scandal has been his  public humiliation. Yet, it is clear to me that the private life of public men sometimes should be examined. DSK stands accused of rape in another case, in France this time, not by a lowly chambermaid, but by a member of the French cultural-political elite. An official public appearance of innocence may or may not be supported by private witness. This is and should be a public issue. The public prerogatives of power should be subjected to critical examination. I hope they are not hidden by a resurgence of anti-Americanism in France, as has been reported by The New York Times. No cheers for xenophobia and chauvinism. Only two for hypocrisy. Because sometimes, it should be revealed, with consequences.

Like many, I have been moved by the touching concern of Republican leaders for preserving Medicare. They fret that unless we do something, Medicare will vanish, and when that happens, it will be a very, very bad day. Such heart-felt sentiment always brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s maxim, “Trust but verify.”

Medicare was signed into law on July 30, 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson at a ceremony in Independence, Missouri. He was in the Show-Me State to give President Harry Truman the first Medicare card.

How had we gotten to that point? Howard Dean was incorrect when he suggested that Medicare was passed without the help of Republicans. In fact, of the 32 Republicans in the Senate 13 voted “aye” and 17 “nay.” While Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen did not vote, he went on record in saying that he would have voted in favor. In the House, the Republicans were almost precisely split. Medicare demonstrated the division in the party prior to the Southern realignment. (In the Congress Democrats were more united, but seven Senators and 48 Representatives voted no).

But what was striking was the fact that the arguments against the creation of Medicare by its opponents were similar to those aimed at what some have termed “Obamacare” (I know it has a less snippy label – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – but recognize its maker). I acknowledge Ira Rosofsky’s 2009 essay, “Medicare is Socialism” on his blog “Adventures in Old Age,” for capturing some pithy examples, which I have supplemented.

The leading opponent of Medicare as it passed was the American Medical Association, a professional association that, generally speaking, supports our recently enacted health care law. Had they been opposed, the outcome might have been very different. (Whether they were bought off or whether the economic and organizational structure of medicine has changed, I leave for others. I whisper both). In June 1965, the AMA fired their cannons, describing Medicare as “the beginning of socialized medicine.” They urged their members to boycott Medicare. Others worried that Medicare, a government insurance plan, would drive private plans out of business. Lyndon Johnson was linked to Norman Thomas, the standard bearer of the Socialist Party. Others spoke of the enforcement of “coercive collectivism” and the creation of “serf doctors.” One can almost hear distant tweets from Wasilla.

Ronald Reagan released a phonograph record in opposition to “socialized medicine.” He trusted that if the law were to be passed, “one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it was like in America when men were free.” With our extended life expectancy, in part a result of Medicare, we can now tell our children’s children’s children. Barry Goldwater remarked, “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke.” Well, forget the cigarettes; times change.

And perhaps the critics were not so fuzzy-headed. Medicare is a form of government-supported medicine, an imperfect, incomplete single-payer system. Our aging population is, in part, a success of the very program that the success is threatening. Medicare has significant challenges both on cost and revenue sides.

But what is striking is that Republicans speak in unison that they do not wish to eliminate federal subsidies for health care for the elderly. There is a wide consensus that government support for health care for senior citizens is right and proper. It may well be that if Paul Ryan’s plan to replace direct payments to physicians with subsidies for insurance will fundamentally change the face of Medicare, but even Republicans are not proposing repeal of this form of income redistribution. Even – gosh and golly – Ron Paul expresses his support for this non-libertarian approach to state-sponsored financial transfer. I might be wrong – and perhaps insufficiently skeptical – but I believe that they are sincere. Republicans have accepted Medicare, just as they have embraced Social Security. Yes, there are fundamental and crucial distinctions in how liberals and conservatives would transfer wealth, but there is no call for every geezer for herself.

If my estimation is correct, this is how it should be. Conservatives – at least of the Burkean stripe – will come to terms with ideas that prove their mettle, even if changes are enacted over their opposition. This is not hypocrisy, but the wisdom of time. The wide approval of Social Security among Republicans is a case in point. It was the inability of President Bush to gain significant Republican support that sunk his (modest) plan to privatize a portion of Social Security. The Ryan proposal is running into headwinds as well, protected because it will not be enacted. Liberals tend to believe in the eternal validity of ideas, while conservatives are reluctant pragmatists after the fact. And this is why a political system that permits an oscillation of liberal hegemony, creating new programs, and conservative dominance, cementing and winnowing those ideas, is valuable.

If Medicare was socialism yesterday, it is Americanism today. Will we say the same about Obamacare in 2055?