Obama needs to counter GOP issues immediately

My column in the Sky Hi News today; also linked by the Wall Street Journal in onespot.wsj.com/taxes

The 2012 Presidential campaign is in full throttle with the GOP trying to sell us their pitch that small government, low taxes will cure the Great Recession and any other problem that even indirectly relates to it.

President Obama, on the other hand, has hit the road in defense of his jobs plan, revving up friendly crowds in pep rally style. That approach is not enough if he wants to become more credible to the less friendlies who still have an open mind. He needs to do a better job of countering the GOP's substantive arguments as they arise and not wait for a year.

In the past three years, the GOP has repeated untruths until the untruths have been accepted as fact, even after such assertions got shot down by impressive numbers of independent experts. Instead of calling the GOP out immediately, the administration has often remained silent, allowing the Republicans to turn fiction into common wisdom and making it harder for Obama to persuade voters later.

Now we hear that the president is waiting until the GOP settles on a candidate to paint a contrast between himself and the other guy. Why wait? There are platforms held in common by all of the GOP presidential hopefuls and the president can begin at least countering those now and save other attacks specific to the GOP nominee for later.

To a person, the GOP candidates are firing salvos against health care reform and the president's jobs act. They are a Greek chorus of “kill them both.” The president has not returned substantive fire other than lobbing back fairness issues. This may rally an already sympathetic base, but he needs more substance to woo the skeptical middle. It is not enough to have a day or two of rebuttals by experts on talk media, either. The president himself needs to draw more on credible evidence and logic than he has been doing. His challenge is indeed couching complex argumentation in effective sound bites.

The GOP attack line has been “kill the jobs plan; it won't work. We need long term solutions instead.” That last phrase is the GOP's Achilles heel because the voters need help today, not years from now. Credit Obama for repeating ad nauseam, “pass this bill NOW.” He has not countered the “won't work” argument, though. The rating agency Moody's and the poll by Bloomberg News of leading economists conclude that Obama's job plan will save us from a double dip recession, improve the GDP growth, and increase employment somewhat. Obama should shout out these evaluations and accuse the GOP of hurting job creation and risking a double dip recession by holding short term measures hostage to the long term. Both are needed and complement each other.

Obama's failure to make a case for health care reform has allowed “Obamacare” to enter our vernacular as a dirty word. Both the Simpson/ Bowles report and the Congressional Budget Office say it will save the deficit billions. The president is making a mistake if he is waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in the spring on the laws' constitutionality to begin his counter-attack, because no matter what the Court's ruling, there will still be finger-pointing and threats of new legislation throughout the 2012 campaign.

Polls show that two provisions already in effect in advance of the 2014  full health law implementation are popular: allowing young adults to stay on their parents' insurance and requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions. Is that what the GOP wants to kill? The GOP has never had a plan to provide affordable coverage for the 30 million uninsured other than to let them continue to burden the inadequate ERs, rely on hospital charity that passes their cost on to the paying public, or palm the solutions onto the states who cannot even pay their teachers and firefighters. Obama should call them on it sooner than later.

The party of "no"; it' deja vu all over again

Republicans are once again the party of “no.” John Boehner dissed all but a few elements of the short-term job  proposal made by President Obama, calling the package an election year gimmick.

At the GOP debate in Orlando, Fla., last week, Obama's job creation plan for shovel ready projects was compared to dog poop. The president's proposal for long term deficit reduction, a problem most Americans place way down on their list of worries, got ignored or damned because it contained some revenue enhancements. Credit Republicans for being consistent if not constructive.

Polls show Obama is beginning to be blamed by more people for the state of the economy. While most still believe that Bush dealt Obama a bad hand, Obama needs to do more than draw his own line in the sand and raise fairness issues.

So far he has done a poor job of reminding voters what he has done to keep the economic situation from getting worse. He has not countered the GOP claim that he made the economic crash worse and he has failed to make the case the GOP approach will bring more pain to the middle class. It is not that he lacks ammunition.

• Indeed, it could have been worse. We have forgotten Obama kept us from a Great Depression, a feat of historic importance . His early 2009 stimulus created close to the 3 million jobs it was planned to generate yet GOP candidates are still telling the fib that it was “zero.” The bailout of the auto industry is a success story, and the auto and Bush bank bailouts have mostly been paid back to the U.S. treasury.

• The GOP's dog won't hunt. Their reliance solely on tax and budget cuts will not work to reduce the deficit enough. No one from the Simpson Bowles report to any mainstream economist says that is realistic. Both more revenue and cuts are needed, which Obama is proposing.

• The GOP plans inflict needless pain. The GOP-dominated House voted to reduce the deficit in ways that would cost future seniors a bundle to maintain Medicare benefits, and GOP candidates would remove government guarantees of Social Security funds. They are ignoring less painful methods.

• Half measures get half results. Passing part of the Obama short term jobs plan will get only partial results. The GOP's stance that “less is best” is a formula for less job creation. It is a matter of degree.

• GOP strategy makes the patient sicker. Their modus in Congress has been to hold hostage reasonable, popular and necessary legislation as a method to leverage getting their way. Opposing raising the debt limit or not approving FEMA funding is a callous disregard of the collateral damage to job creation, business and Americans trying to recover from natural disasters.

• No country should be left behind to be sicker and dumber in this competitive world. The GOP's plans to short both environmental protection and education will leave us in the dust of our competition, from China to India and many others.

• Obama has compromised some while the GOP has obstructed all. Obama has already agreed to reform the tax structure. His “Obamacare” and the education reforms announced last week give states more latitude to opt out from parts of some federal government requirements, so they have more flexibility to formulate their own methods to meet standards.

• Obama, unlike Republicans, is not backing down on standards necessary to protect consumers from medical insurance company bad practices and to provide affordable access to health and education. The GOP has proposed no practical way to replace Obamacare.

• GOP candidates' solution to shrinking big government and dodging control from Washington is to palm off entitlements and health care onto states, which are already financially strapped. That is like shifting these programs from one pocket to another pocket shot full of holes.

Obama gets stung, charges

This is an unedited version of my Column; the edited version appeared in the  Sky Hi News Sept 14, 2011

One of my favorite childhood stories was Ferdinand the Bull.  Ferdinand had been bred for the fighting ring, and he grew into a magnificent beast. However, he preferred to be peaceful, smelling the flowers in his pasture. One day, a bee stung him where it hurt, and he  snorted and raged.  The ring impresario signed him up.  While the1930’s  story  contained a  pacifist message,  the lesson that I took away  from it was that sometimes it takes a trauma for someone to change otherwise innate  behavior. 

Pres. Obama has smelled the flowers for the past several years.  He waited patiently for Congress to act on his agenda, spoke the jargon of compromise even though one half of the participants stonewalled him,  proposed concepts of legislation without specifics, allowing Congress to shape the outcome, and he generally acted like the flower smelling peacemaker in the ring, ready to step in with solutions. 

This summer a swarm of bees stung him where it hurt.    Polls on his job performance  plummeted and  “any others but him” was winning. While the stimulus of 2009 kept us out of a depression,  the recovery was so fragile,  it was vulnerable to even the slightest head wind.   A war in Libya rang up oil prices ; a European economy sank; Japan’s natural tragedies reduced parts supplies.  The US Congress demonstrated  a  near lack of will  to raise the debt limit, creating a world wide loss of confidence in the US’ ability to act rationally. The fanatical tea party had managed to place fear of long term deficits and their anti tax agenda  ahead of any other consideration . They irresponsibly crafted a  strategy to risk destroying  the American economy  during the deficit reduction flap in order to remake government  into  their ideologically based ideal . Fear of a double dip recession and a prediction that unemployment would stay the same through the 2012 election were the final stings.

Rubbing salt in the wound,  recently Republicans had decided to make talking points  of the dismal employment figures a big deal

Last Thursday, Obama  lowered his horns and charged into Congress . His message was no bull feathers, either. His demeanor changed .In his address to Congress, he literally stared into the eyes of the Republican section of the hall. The furrows between his unblinking eyes deepened.  He did not present a general concept  as he once did. Instead, Monday  he delivered the bill to Congress  containing  exactly the details of his program to increase jobs, turning  the Republican’s newly found concern about jobs back on to them.  He pinned the Republicans against the wall.  His proposed legislation was based on measures supported by Republicans pre Tea  party and Democrats, too,  so that  If the GOP embraced his proposals, Obama could claim victory. If they stonewalled him, he could pin the blame for continued joblessness or a double dip recession on the GOP and expose their obstructionism. If they went half way, he could still blame  anemic job figures on the GOP .

 A near hush has descended on the GOP crowd.  Perhaps the Republicans were distracted by Gov. Perry’s attack on that Ponzi scheme Medicare.  Perhaps the whole nation was fixed on remembering 9/11. Perhaps the Republican party leaders were afraid of being branded obstructionist since their poll numbers had tanked, too, but they were  unsure how many Republicans would join in compromising. .   Some Machiavellian GOP members  were reported by Politico to ask,” why compromise now; they had Obama just where they wanted him”.

 Waiting until next week  is Obama’s charge to the super committee for long term deficit reduction.  Will the GOP opt to hold  short term measures  hostage to the long term and drag their feet to  make sure nothing significant happens to improve the unemployment figure before November 2012?  If those  strategies succeed, the losers will not only be the Democrats; it will be the  suffering  middle class.