Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed giving President Obama the responsibility for addressing the federal budget deficit. If I were a conservative Republican banker, I would be very happy to entrust President Obama with that responsibility.
As Jonathan Zasloff, a contributor to the Reality-Based Community web log, commented:
Just a year before a general election, the country’s unemployment rate is over 9 percent and its effective unemployment rate might be twice that. Obama’s solution to the searing crisis of the middle class apparently is to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, in exchange for tax increases that will occur anyway. Oh yes, and $2 trillion of other unspecified cuts, which always figure to work beautifully during a recession. … What is there in any of this that a progressive could possibly object to?
President Obama has managed to make McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor look like fools, by conceding the substance of what they demand. His characteristic political tactic—giving his opponents enough rope to hang themselves—has worked well for him once again. At the same time he has abandoned historic Democratic principles and constituencies. What price victory?
Zasloff sees two ways to interpret President Obama’s actions.
1. Obama is a Democrat, and he is a political moron.
2. Obama is a Republican, and he is a political genius.
Tags: Congress, Debt ceiling, Federal budget, Medicare, President Obama
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