Reporting on the proposal from debt commission chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, a New York Times article (11/11/10) by Jackie Calmes framed the discussion this way:
Mr. Obama created the commission last February in the hope it would provide political cover for bold action against deficits in 2011. His stance now, in the wake of his party’s drubbing, will go a long way toward telling whether he tacks to the political center–by embracing such proposals–or shifts to the left and leaves them on a shelf.
The duo’s proposal is a remarkably regressive plan to cut Social Security benefits and tax rates for the wealthy, while shifting a greater tax burden onto middle-class Americans. (Paul Krugman writes an excellent column in today’s Times explaining all of this.) But by the political calculations of the Times‘ national desk, embracing these proposals is centrism.
Today (11/12/10), Calmes writes of Obama adviser David Axlerod’s suggestion that the administration might extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthy:
While David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior strategist, subsequently denied that the White House position had shifted, the immediate suspicion among liberals that the administration was abandoning them reflected broader insecurity among the president’s allies on the left that he would move to center for the rest of his term.
This would imply that giving tax cuts to the wealthy is also part of a move towards the center.
I think most people who follow politics pretty closely have a decent sense of what “liberal” and “conservative” mean, broadly speaking. The media preference is for politics that hew to the “center.” But it’s very difficult to know what that means; examples like this would suggest that the “center” is located somewhere well to the right.
“This would imply that giving tax cuts to the wealthy is also part of a move towards the center.”
The assumption underlying it is that Obama has governed as some well-off-center liberal. That does, indeed, place “the center” on not just the right, but the extreme right (because that’s the only place from which he could be seen to be that well-off-center liberal). In the real world, any Obama “move to the center” would involve him becoming much more liberal, not less.
Does anyone doubt that if there was a poll on the question of the debt commission that explained its recommendations to respondents, support for it probably wouldn’t rise above single digits? Going by that measure, “the center” is doing just what Calmes said would put Obama on “the left”–leaving its recommendations on a shelf.
Huge, hegemonic swathes of the corporate press worship at the altar of “the center” and “moderation” and “bipartisanship.” But “the center” is always defined as something well to the right of the public, whereas the mass of polling data with which we are forever bombarded demonstrates that the actual “center” is usually quite “liberal.”
Let’s keep it simple. The government is in debt. End Bush’s tax giveaway now. If individual citizens are all taxed at the same rate, where is the meaning of “conservative”, “liberal”, “center”, “left” or “right”? Tax corporate persons at the same rate. No tax loop-holes; no tax breaks. When everyone pays the same rate into social security (their fair share), it will be adequately funded. After getting rid of the loop-holes, the special tax breaks, and tax give-aways, taxes wouldn’t over-burden the mythical middle-class. In other words, the other 98% wouldn’t be over-burdened by an across-the-board income tax rate. Given the same rate, those that make the most would pay the most tax, and those that made the least would pay the least tax.
Definitions of left, right, progressive, liberal, conservative, center, etc. are long overdue to be re-defined.
These terms get thrown around with abandon as if their meaning was set in stone.
This article’s discussion of center, center-right proves the point. There is no specificity to these terms and any serious discussion should recognize this.
It would be best to omit these terms from analysis all together and stick to talking about fair tax rates for the super rich, our history of progressive tax rates and those kind of topics. Just leave out the attempt to politically characterize positions of the President or others. But progressive tax rates have a deep tradition in our country. There is good reason behind progressive rates. Don’t try to change that, or you are doing something radical and unfair.
A centrist would of been John McCain(I still cant tell what he is).And He was blown out by a hard core leftist.Ok that didnt work.Lets give America a diametrically different choice.Ah thats better.The pendulum swings back.Left right left right left right.Most presidents start at one point and move center .Obama will not- and can not.He will now move hard left.And the correction will ensue.It is almost like a ship righting itself.We are tip heavy, soon to be stern loaded. Eventually the cargo shifting center for balance.
“A centrist would of been John McCain”
Maybe “would HAVE been John McCain”?
Positioning McCain as a “centrist” is, of course, ludicrous. During the 2008 campaign, a great deal of effort was expended by the nut right, particularly on talk radio, to turn McCain into a moderate, then trash him for it. In the real world, McCain is a lifelong, hardcore conservative. As Congressional Quarterly pointed out at the time, McCain had voted for Bush’s position 90% of the time during Bush’s first 7 1/2 years in office. In the year leading into the election, he was with Bush 95% of the time, making him Bush’s top ally in the congress–in the first half of 2008, he had voted with Bush 100% of the time. His lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union was 82.3%. That may not be enough for those who demand 100%, but for any reasonable person, it’s good enough to mark him as well to the right of “center.”
“And He was blown out by a hard core leftist.”
Obama was a liberal Senator–nothing “hard core” about him, though–and, as President, he has governed as a conservative Republican, well to the right of the general public on pretty much every major issue. He’s given no indication he’s going to do anything in response to this month’s election except move even further in that direction.
“Most presidents start at one point and move center .Obama will not- and can not.He will now move hard left.”
Do you ever put your shoes on the wrong feet, michael e? The way you mistake Obama as being on the left would seem to imply it.
Austin…The game as it is played now is to say that obama is not left at all -do to his folding to a certain pragmatism of his office.Not buying it.He was ,is, and always has been- hard left.To believe that his failings are due to his not being left enough… is wishful thinking on your part. Suffice it to say(and this is my guess)he is not left enough for you.
Go easy on Mikey, Austin. You apparently don’t know he’s handicapped. Yea, in a Limbaugh induced stupor he cut off everything on his left side out of spite. He only has rite feet and hands now. Right leg and right arm. Problem is, he cut out his left brain, not knowing it controls the right side of his body. Now he has only a right wing and right leg knee jerk reaction to everything, and is totally heartless to boot. He hears, sees and smells everything filtered through his right right side but can’t connect it to his brain so he just spits it back the way he sees it without processing a thing. So be kind, you’re dealing with half-a-man with half-a-brain. We love him though, Don’t we?
Time to Escalate the coming Cataclysmic Cat-FOODFIGHT into An OBAMAGILLA!
Nellevad I worked for Nader and Clinton.I was a Dem before you were probably thought of.I know your crap inside out, and backwards.Used to be a job,and i was damn good at it.Please don’t act like you understand this bunch in a way I do not.I left because I was on the inside and sickened by it.The republicans have a hell of a lot of problems themselves.Both are getting a wake up call.My reactions come from a balanced view.I have been on both sides of the fence.At this time in history one is right and on is wrong.Obama is double timing it to the” wrong”.Sorry if you are entrenched on your side of the fence.
Just how far does a rightwinger have to shove his right wing head up his right wing ass to think a centerist like President Obama is “hard-left?”
Nellevad, great post about Michael e., I must say that you are definitely showing yourself to be an astute observer of “Mikey”and his wayward condition. I absolutely could not have said it any better if my life depended on it. Thank you. Based on so much of what little Mike has to say, he says so much anyway, and if saying that is pushing hard to make sense then I have entered Mikey territory. Hearing nothing makes a lot more sense than reading any posts Mike makes. I read what he says and I’m left with, is that it? Just a lot of rhetoric, but no substance. Most of what he says cannot be verified, or is pure speculation and not separate from anything that spews from Hannity, Rush, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, you know the noise makers elite. And with an unending display of Obama bad, FOX good, Bush good, Democrats bad. And then he reveals what he thinks clinches his credibility, that is, revelations or notions of being on the other side, only to discover it is more of the same crap, no proof just talk.