I believe Obama’s one-hour nationally-televised prime-time press conference tonight did a lot to make it more likely that the Democrats’ $800-billion-plus stimulus plan will pass quickly. (If you want to watch Obama’s impressive performance, you can scroll to the bottom of this blog.)
Obama’s got great style, but what really made his remarks so effective was the substance. Obama made several important points that speak forcefully to the out-of-control debate and hype that has been eroding public support and Congressional support for the bill:
1. He communicated clearly about what this bill is intended to accomplish, and why:
It is absolutely true that we can’t depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs. And breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that’s moving through Congress is designed to do.
In other words, this bill isn’t solely focused on creating permanent private-sector jobs — only the private sector can do that (althought the government can help). The point of this bill is to “break the vicious cycle” of job losses leading to reduced consumer spending leading to job losses, and so on. That’s why Obama wants to create so many jobs that may be temporary — to temporarily break this cycle and “jolt” the economy back to life. It’s true that many of the jobs created in the legislation won’t last more than a year or two or three — but by then, the cycle will have ended and the private sector will begin expanding, rather than contracting, and new, more long-terms jobs will once again be available.
2. Obama defended many of the various components of the bill, and he defended them in a variety of ways, thereby inspiring confidence that this bill is well thought-out. For example, he defended the projects that will create jobs directly, but he also defended the portions of the bill that extend benefits to the poor, the middle class, and the unemployed.
When passed, this plan will ensure that Americans who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own can receive greater unemployment benefits and continue their health care coverage. We will also provide a $2,500 tax credit to folks who are struggling to pay the cost of their college tuition, and $1,000 worth of badly needed tax relief to working and middle-class families. These steps will put more money in the pockets of those Americans who are most likely to spend it, and that will help break the cycle and get our economy moving.
Obama spoke directly to the critics who say “health care benefits may be worthwhile, but do they belong in a recovery bill?” Yes, the do — because providing assistance to these people will keep demand up and help break the cycle.
3. When it came to the issue of “bipartisanship,” Obama was respectful toward Republicans who sincerely disagree with him — and drew a distinction between sincere philosophical disagreements and over-the-top partisan rhetoric. This tone of reasonableness and civility is a powerful force in terms of inspiring the public to follow his lead. He also made it clear that sometimes the philosophical divide is so wide that compromise is impossible, even when both sides are sincere and negotiate in good faith. This helps explain why the party line vote we’re likely to see on this bill isn’t a failure of bipartisanship.
As I said, the one concern I’ve got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what’s been said in Congress is that there seems to be a set of folks who — I don’t doubt their sincerity — who just believe that we should do nothing. Now, if that’s their opening position or their closing position in negotiations, then we’re probably not going to make much progress, because I don’t think that’s economically sound and I don’t think what — that’s what the American people expect, is for us to stand by and do nothing.
There are others who recognize that we’ve got to do a significant recovery package but they’re concerned about the mix of what’s in there. And if they’re sincere about it, then I’m happy to have conversations about this tax cut versus that — that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project.
But what I — what I’ve been concerned about is some of the language that’s been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth. First of all, when I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, then, you know, I just want them to not engage in some revisionist history. I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now.
Number two is that, although there are some programs in there that I think are good policy, some of them aren’t job creators. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say that those programs should be out of this particular recovery package, and we can deal with them later.
But when they start characterizing this as pork without acknowledging that there are no earmarks in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.
4. Obama exposed some of the most absurd arguments Republicans have made in opposition to the bill:
This is another concern that I’ve had in some of the arguments that I’m hearing. When people suggest that what a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient — why would that be a waste of money? We’re creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans’ homes, as was called for in the package. So that right there creates economic stimulus, and we are saving taxpayers, when it comes to federal buildings, potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we’re reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn’t we want to make that kind of investment?
Now, maybe philosophically you just don’t think that the federal government should be involved in energy policy. I happen to disagree with that. I think that’s the reason why we find ourselves importing more foreign oil right now than we did back in the early ’70s, when OPEC first formed. And we can have a respectful debate about whether or not we should be involved in energy policymaking, but don’t suggest that somehow that’s wasteful spending. That’s exactly what this country needs.
The same applies when it comes to information technologies and health care. We know that health care is crippling businesses and making us less competitive, as well as breaking the banks of families all across America. And part of the reason is we’ve got the most inefficient health care system imaginable. We’re still using paper. We’re — we’re still filing things in triplicate. Nurses can’t read the prescriptions that doctors — that doctors have written out. Why wouldn’t we want to put that on an — put that on an electronic medical record that will reduce error rates, reduce our long-term cost of health care, and create jobs right now?
Education, yet another example. The suggestion is, why should the federal government be involved in school construction? Well, I visited a school down in South Carolina that was built in the 1850s. Kids are still learning in that school — as best they can. When the — when the railroad — when the — it’s right next to a railroad, and when the train runs by the whole building shakes and the teacher has to stop teaching for a while. The — the auditorium is completely broken down and they can’t use it. So why wouldn’t we want to build state-of-the-art schools with science labs that are teaching our kids the skills they need for the 21st century, that will enhance our economy and, by the way, right now will create jobs?
Obama made the connection between creating jobs now — to break the downward spiral of job losses and falling demand — and investing in our economic future. Understanding the difference between these two goals is key to understanding how the bill works, and Obama did that well.
5. Obama was clear about how we can hold him accountable, how we can judge if the stimulus bill is working:
I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs. That’s bottom line number one, because if people are working, then they’ve got enough confidence to make purchases, to make investments. Businesses start seeing that consumers are out there with a little more confidence. And they start making investments, which means they start hiring workers.
So step number one, job creation.
Step number two, are we seeing the credit markets operate effectively? You know, I can’t tell you how many businesses that I talk to that are successful businesses but just can’t get credit. Part of the problem in Elkhart that I heard about today was the fact that this is the RV capital of America. You’ve got a bunch of RV companies that have customers who want to purchase RVs, but even though their credit is good, they can’t get the loan.
Now, the businesses also can’t get loans to make payments to their suppliers. But when they have consumers, consumers can’t get the loans that they need. So normalizing the credit markets is, I think, step number two.
Step number three is going to be housing. Have we stabilized the housing market? Now, you know, the federal government doesn’t have complete control over that. But if our plan is effective, working with the Federal Reserve Bank, working with the FDIC, I think what we can do is stem the rate of foreclosure and we can start stabilizing housing values over time.
And the most — the biggest measure of success is whether we stop contracting and shedding jobs, and we start growing again. Now, you know, I don’t have a crystal ball, and as I said, this is an unprecedented crisis. But my hope is that after a difficult year — and this year is going to be a difficult year — that businesses start investing again, they start making decisions that, you know, in fact, there’s money to be made out there; customers — or consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe, and they start making purchases again. And if we get things right then, starting next year, we can start seeing some significant improvement.
Clarity and accountability are what Obama had to convey in this press conference, and I thought he did a really great job.
If you respect Politico as I do — and if you respect Politico’s “The Arena” as I do (the Arena is sort of a bulletin board where various commentators over their perspectives on various issues), then I’m sure you’ll respect the following post by Jeff Emanuel, who wrote this about Obama’s performance:
Was he effective? It’s difficult to emphasize the word “no” emphatically enough. What we saw tonight in President Obama was a man who, flailing about for words and faiing to form cohesive sentences and responses, turned in a stumbling, meandering performance worthy of the most extreme caricature of George W. Bush.
It’s no secret that I am no fan of President Obama; however, this press conference was incredibly painful to watch all the same. Behind the podium tonight, Mr. Obama displayed an apparent inability to issue even the slightest semblance of an answer to the questions asked by the reporters on hand, despite meandering responses often in excess of ten minutes per query (he couldn’t even give a straight answer to the yes-or-no question about whether he would allow media outlets to resume their perverted publishing of flag-draped coffin photographs).
What he did not display was anything remotely resembling a strong argument for the trillion-dollar “stimulus” package (Health care is failing because doctors have poor handwriting? Schools build in the antebellum South are still being used, but teaching has to be “stopped for a while” when trains go by? The list goes on, and it doesn’t get any better).
Contra his reputation as a smooth speaker and Reaganesque “Great Communicator,” the President Obama we saw tonight looked out of place, unprepared, and unable to coherently respond to any questions the White House press corps put to him, whether it be on the “stimulus” or on foreign policy (Iran, Afghanistan), a topic on which Mr. Obama appeared even more hopelessly lost than the rest.
Flailing about for words? Unprepared? Hopelessly Lost? Worthy of the most extreme charicature of George W. Bush? Incredibly painful to watch? Thank God that Politico put me in touch with these brilliant insights.
You can be the judge: