By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 14th, 2012 
Governor Romney’s selection of Congressman Ryan as his running mate assured the re-election of President Obama. Will Milberg already explained this from the point of view of the politics of economics a year and a half ago, while I first suggested my reasons in my review of Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address and Ryan’s official Republican response.
Romney has now firmly identified himself with a true-believing ideologist. The Ryan – Romney budget proposals, empowered by Ryan’s ideology, will hurt the guy who wanted Obama to keep his dirty, government hands off his Medicare, and many more people who depend on social programs in their daily lives. Thus, Milberg was quite sure when the Ryan plan was announced that the Republicans were finished.
And even though the nation is very divided, ideological extremism, even when it is in the name of the core American value of liberty, turns people, left, right and center, off, as the Republican nominee for president, Barry Goldwater learned in 1964.
Ryan’s ideology is not completely coherent. It has three sources: libertarian thought, a fundamentalist approach to the constitution, and a narrow understanding of natural law theory and the theological foundations of modern democracy. He recognizes tensions between these positions, but it doesn’t seem to bother him or slow him down. He still moves from theoretical certainty to practical policy as a true believer, and he does it with a happy and appealing smile on his face, which would be quite familiar to Milan Kundera, as he depicted such smiles in his novels A Book on Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The Congressman’s libertarianism comes via Ayn Rand, revealed in a speech he gave to the organization dedicated to keeping her flame, the Atlas Society. He explained:
I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about . . .
Read more: Paul Ryan: Ideologist-in-Chief (Obama Wins!)
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 16th, 2011 
Thursday, I considered President Obama’s speech, informed by William Milberg’s analysis of Senator Ryan’s budget proposal. My conclusion: the terms of the political debate for the 2012 elections are being set to the President’s strong advantage. I am pleased, but even more pleased because two serious opposing views of America and its public good will be debated. A rational discussion about this seems likely. There will be smoke and mirrors to be sure, but this is a time for grand politics in the sense of Alexis de Tocqueville and a grand political contest we will get.
This is especially important given the present state of affairs in the United States and abroad. But Presidential leadership will not solve all problems. Indeed, much of the politically significant action occurs off the central political stage, in what I refer to as “the politics of small things.” This dimension of politics has been on our minds this week in the form of three very different cases: the Tea Party in the United States, and The Freedom Theatre and the International Solidarity Committee in occupied Palestine.
The Tea Party is a looming presence in American politics. But it is in a sense “no thing”, as Gary Alan Fine puts it. It is a social movement that emerged in response to major changes associated with the election and early administration of Barack Obama, and a response to the global economic crisis. Fine and I disagree in our judgment of the “Tea Party patriots.” Indeed, I, along with Iris, am not sure how rational they are, but that is actually a political matter. As an objective observer of the human comedy, i.e. as a sociologist, I am particularly intrigued by the no thing qualities of the Tea Party which Fine considers.
A media performance occurs. An agitated announcer denounces policies said to be supporting losers, calling for a new tea party demonstration. People, who can’t take it anymore, come together in small groups all around the country, using . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Ryan’s Budget, the President’s Speech and the Tea Party between Two Assassinations
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 14th, 2011 
Barack Obama is a centrist, trying to move the center left, defending it against the right. Health care reform has been his great legislative “left moving” achievement. Though far from perfect, he established the principle of universal coverage.
In the past months, he has been primarily on defense, fighting back against the Republican attack on government. Obama is not a left-winger, to the dismay of many on the blogosphere. He is now defending a new center, which he helped establish, against right-wing attack.
The opening shot of the attack was the Tea Party protest against the bank bailout, the stimulus package, and “Obamacare.” In the recent elections, Obama and the Democrats suffered a defeat, a “shellacking” as he put it. But now as we are approaching the main event, the Republican attack has taken the form of Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.
William Milberg asserted here that with this proposal the President is just about assured re-election. I have talked to a number of friends and colleagues about this. Their response, put bluntly: “from his mouth, to God’s ears.” But just perhaps, God won’t have anything to do with it. Perhaps, it will be a matter of leadership and political direction, along with the political economic fundamentals Milberg highlighted. The quality of the leadership was revealed in Obama’s speech on the deficit yesterday.
In his speech, the President was forthright in his rhetoric and policy recommendations. He addressed the problems of the deficit, emphasizing that deficit reduction will require taxing as well as cuts in spending. He drew a sharp distinction between his and the Republican plans. The contrast was stark. The political thrust of the speech was clear.
Obama and the Democrats promise to defend Medicare and Medicaid, while the Republicans will dismantle them. The Ryan budget provides many tax advantages for the rich, while what they present means that “50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit.”
As the President declared:
“And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though . . .
Read more: President Obama on Taxing and Spending, and the American Center
By William Milberg, April 12th, 2011 
The headlines this week were devoted to the high-stakes drama in D.C. that led to (literally) an 11th hour deal to avert a federal government shutdown and an $38 billion spending cut for 2011-2012. But the real news was that the 2012 Presidential election was effectively thrown to the Democratic incumbent (who also announced the launch of his campaign this week) when the leading fiscal policy visionary on the Republican side issued his long-term plan for the role of government over the next ten years. Congressman Ryan’s plan is so extreme in its proposed cutbacks on health insurance coverage and so regressive in its proposed reform of income and corporate taxes that it leaves most of the American political spectrum open to President Obama for the taking. He will no doubt begin the journey to this vast expanse of political turf with his speech on Wednesday.
Ryan’s plan has been much discussed in the press. It calls for a privatization of Medicare, with drastic reductions in funding. The key will be in how this funding reduction is distributed, and there is no indication that it would be done in a progressive way. This the major fault line of the plan, that it would put an even greater burden on the poor and middle class in accessing health care than is the case today. The plan calls for reducing the income tax on the richest individuals and corporations to the extremely low level of 25%. Finally, the projected effect of the plan on budget deficits hinges on wildly unrealistic assumptions that have already been questioned by the Congressional Budget Office.
We are in such a moment of political frenzy over the fiscal deficits that we often forget two basic economic fundamentals about deficits. The first is that deficits are not a function simply of spending levels but mainly of economic growth rates, since it is these that largely determine revenues. The second is that shrinking deficits generally reduce the economic growth rate and slow the creation of jobs.
. . .
Read more: Obama Wins!!
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 26th, 2011 
Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama revealed his fundamental approach to governing: centrist in orientation, pragmatic in his approach to the relationship between capitalism and the state, mindful of the long term need to address the problem of spending deficits, yet, still committed to social justice – “But let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.” (link) As I have put it before, a centrist committed to transforming the center.
The speech was finely written and delivered, tactically and strategically formed to appear post partisan, while putting his Republican opposition on the defensive. As I understand his project, it was a continuation of the course he set during his campaign and has been following during his Presidency, despite the fact that many observers claim that he is now shifting to the center (if they like what has happened recently) or to the right (those on the left who see betrayal).
The contrast with the Republican response, delivered by Paul Ryan, could not have been greater. He spoke in an empty House Budget Committee meeting room bereft of notables and dignitaries, without ceremony. But he forcefully argued for significant budget cuts and warned of an impending crisis, being pretty effective under difficult conditions.
“We are at a moment, where if government’s growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America’s best century will be considered our past century. This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency… Speaking candidly, as one citizen to another: We still have time… but not much time.”
His central principled position which he developed extensively:
“We believe, as our founders did, that the pursuit of happiness depends on individual liberty, and individual liberty requires limited government.” (link)
The virtue of limited government and a balanced budget through cuts in government programs was his major theme.
. . .
Read more: Obama vs. Ryan vs. Bachmann
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