Obama: don’t start using the “l” word

The first reaction of nice children when they hear there is no Santa Claus is to insist, “That’s not true.” When cornered, the more high-spirited may call you a “liar.” It’s just what they do. Mitt Romney didn’t give the Democrats the election as a Christmas present in last week’s debate. High-spirited Democrats and Jon Stewart now insist that Barack Obama could save the election and, also, finally sound like a real American if he ran around calling Mitt Romney a liar too. Don’t bite, Barack Obama, and don’t send Joe Biden out to do it for you.

Even calling politicians liars is unrewarding.

In this election, the mainstream media contracted out that work to independent business units called “fact-checkers.” They spend almost all their time sitting on the fence. Hopefully, they’ll find alternative, less unpleasant work after November 6.

The problem is that leveling the “l” word against a fellow American is rarely easy or safe. (Few vice-presidential candidates, for instance, take an hour off their best time in a running sport dominated by stopwatches.)

Unless we’ve already entered that state of partisan grace that allows us to believe unimaginably bad things about the other side, when we’re told someone is a liar, we’re forced to think, to demonstrate to yourself that we’re fair and not just politicians too.  

Consequently, being asked to recognize Mitt Romney as a liar is much harder than asking us to put ourselves in Obama’s shoes and vote early. It’s like asking a good employee to go back to the office and work on an August weekend.

Sorting out what is imagined and what is true in budget plans and in the death science of economics is asking the impossible, especially in the passionate final days of a bitter election.

Obama’s problem in the first debate wasn’t that he didn’t use the “l” word, but that he didn’t defend himself effectively and have fun with Romney’s weaknesses as the political leader of today’s Republican government-in-waiting.

Romney is, of course, a mischievous data man. Indeed, he’s made a quarter of a $billion, in part, by attractively organizing slide decks of factlets and zingers.

Last night on CNN, for instance, he could market the idea that his tax plan could create exactly 7 million new jobs, while at the same time, he could slam the very word "stimulus" and refuse to reveal one number from the tax plan he’d bring to the table as president in the next big negotiation on Washington’s finances.

Nevertheless, Obama should stick to the politics of who Romney actually is and represents.

Obama’s campaign has rather well followed the music of an old generality authored, I recall, by Norman Mailer in the late 60s: Democrats believe they are of the people. Republicans believe they are for the people.

It must be a source of great comfort for Mitt Romney to believe, as he breathlessly insists, that his heart is in the right place. Let’s even imagine he’d be the best-intentioned politician in Washington. That said, when Mitt Romney rephrases his gaffs about those who accept help from government and brainstorms with Paul Ryan about the Heritage Foundation’s latest ideas about stiffening the backs of the elderly and the poor, remember: he and his friends will be speaking vicariously.

Mitt Romney’s 400 ‘conservative’ economists

Even though Mitt Romney calls himself a "data" man, he wants to put Churchill’s bust back in the Oval Office. It makes perfect sense.

Churchill was a "word" man, and words aren’t as valued as numbers amongst American conservatives these days. But, above all, Churchill was courageous, and courage is the sine qua non of modern Republican politicians. They see it as their duty to expose the sly timidity of that snob in the White House and defend America against a whole world of enemies.

Out of power, this is a hard to calling to convey. They can’t bomb Iran or order the Seals to kill. They can’t over-reach their non-existent legislative powers.

As a presidential candidate, however, Romney can appear nervy. He can lace his speeches and policies with bold and belligerent words. He can be alarmed about where the world is heading and hint at courageous responses—and pick a running mate who has talked like that since he was a boy.

Romney has done all those things and, so, has earned the endorsement of 400 conservative economists. They say he’s “returning” America to its tradition of economic freedom.

They weren’t identified formally as Republicans. However, their statement of support is mighty light on Romney’s economics and very optimistic about his courage. Any real "data" men on the list must have had their hands held when they signed it.

For instance, this is how they describe Romney’s biggest promise:

“Governor Romney would reduce marginal tax rates on business and wage incomes and broaden the tax base to increase investment, jobs, and living standards.”

Romney’s campaign promise and Paul Ryan’s four-year-old fiscal plan dramatically cut marginal tax rates. They are as vivid as they are enticing: a high-end personal tax rate of only 25% in Ryan’s plan and a 20% tax cut for everyone in Romney’s plan. They say they’ll make their gigantic tax cuts “revenue neutral” by closing loopholes.

In other words, another $trillion dollars of tax cuts will be financed, in large part, by eliminating hundreds of $billions of dollars of popular tax loopholes—something 400 economists polled randomly would admire.

Both sides of this pro-growth, tax-reform equation involve big numbers beloved by "data" men. However, on the difficult side—the loopholes side—Romney is all words. 

On hundreds of occasions, both Romney and Ryan have referred to “special interest loopholes” and the desirability of “simplifying” the tax code—without ever being specific. (Andrew Sullivan's blog points out how many significant tax loopholes there are to be excited and specific about.)

Romney has the courage to be specific about what he could do to Iran, but can’t whisper one menacing word about the tax deductions American families get for their home mortgage payments and family health insurance premiums.

Whether smart politics or not, it’s lopsided economics. Romney’s 400 economists have, in effect—if not in the words they’ve used—lent their credibility to yet another campaign of massive tax cuts, even as the country’s structural deficit deteriorates.

Every president works like a devil to keep his promises. On the specific ones, presidents have a popular mandate to wield against naysayers. On the vague ones, they can fail with grace.

Romney, with an assist from his "conservative" economists, is setting himself up to enact another reckless tax cut and just pick at the margins of serious tax reform.

Making a dangerous US election: One crazy side is enough

The foulest complaint of the week is: What a boring election; nobody is saying anything interesting. Sullen columns by David Brooks and condescending editorials in The Economist tell Americans they aren’t being offered a significant choice. This is dangerous and untrue.

Telling voters that it’s a dull election is as good as telling them not to bother to vote. And not voting in this election would be an outrage.

At the heart of the election’s image problem is the media’s distorted shorthand: both sides exaggerate, answer to millions, represent elites, and carry ideological baggage; so, covering the election is mostly about conflicting sound bites and the competence of two professional campaign teams—just two gray calculators, so relax.

In fact, Obama is graying and possibly is the most calculating president since Lincoln. A conservative, if you will. Romney, however, is not.

The Economist understates their differences by putting both equally off center:

“But the Republicans’ main problem is taxes. Successful deficit-reduction plans require at least some of the gap—perhaps around a quarter—to be closed by new revenue. If the Republicans got rid of loopholes, they could cut all the main tax rates and still raise more money.

“The Democrats’ challenge is more on the spending side. Productivity has been flat in the public sector at a time when it has doubled in the private sector. Mr Obama needs to decide whether he is on the side of taxpayers or public-sector workers (who, if they work for the federal government, earn more than their private-sector equivalents do in wages and benefits). He needs to get serious about cutting back regulation, rather than increasing it; and he needs to spend more time listening to successful business leaders rather than telling them all is fine.”

Click on: http://www.economist.com/node/21559630

Obama’s spending challenge is America’s challenge—it’s embedded in the country—and is acknowledged by the president and most of his party. Indeed, his spending performance during his first three years is actually better than that of his Republican predecessor.

Click on: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/big-government-obama.html

Romney’s tax problem is entirely self-inflicted and threatens America’s financial and social order. It is the child of a novice fanaticism; it excuses paranoia; it has made compromise impossible; and it tells Americans to give up on their own creation—government for the people.

Government isn’t your servant, stern young Republicans insist. If you want one of those, ask your daddy for one of his.

Obama offers more incremental management, a slow, united recovery. Whether sincere or utterly without conviction, Romney would lead a radical, coordinated Republican effort to transform Washington along the lines of a sugary illusion about daddy’s 1950’s America.

The Economist well represents the assumption that Romney is simply an expedient liar. That in office, he and Republican intellectuals would bend to the data that they’ve ignored for years and find a way to do “something sensible” on taxes, loopholes, and spending that would allow the budget to balance later in the decade—and all this while providing for a strong defense and presenting levels of support to an aging society.

Rational conservative voices like The Economist and David Brooks seem to believe that while Romney’s Republican platform is incredible, it’s reasonable to trust that he has a sensible plan of his own.

The idea that Romney has a hidden agenda to be a moderate president deserves no more respect than the fear that Obama, locked away in his hope chest, has a blueprint to turn America into a European socialist state.