Obama’s Policies Likely to Fail

CNN Poll: Plurality say Obama’s policies will likely fail

Sixty-one percent of people questioned in the poll say they hope the president’s policies will succeed.

“That’s a fairly robust number but it’s down 10 points since last December,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Twelve months ago a majority of the public said that they thought Obama’s policies would succeed; now that number has dropped to 44 percent, with a plurality predicting that his policies will likely fail.”

Obama to blink first on Social Security

By ROBERT KUTTNER, Politico

12/16/10 9:24 AM EST

(N)ow being teed up by the White House and key Senate Democrats, is a scheme for the president to embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan – including cuts in Social Security. This is to be unveiled, according to well-placed sources, in the president’s State of the Union address.

The idea is to pre-empt an even more draconian set of budget cuts likely to be proposed by the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as a condition of extending the debt ceiling. This is expected to hit in April.



How to put this politely? For a Democratic president, this approach is bad economics and worse politics.

For starters, cutting Social Security as part of a deficit reduction deal is needless – since Social Security is in surplus for the next 27 years. The move also gives away the single most potent distinction between Democrats and Republicans – Democrats defend your Social Security, and Republicans keep trying to undermine it.

If you think the Democratic base feels betrayed by Obama’s tax-cut deal, just imagine the mayhem when Obama proposes to cut the Democrats’ signature program.



Beltway Washington – the editorial writers, columnists, centrist policy organizations, Blue Dogs and, of course, the Obama administration and its Wall Street advisers – has become an echo chamber of bad advice.

As paradox at The Left Coaster puts it-

It has been stated here before, and is equally true today, that should any cut of any Social Security element proposed by the Democratic Obama Administration the United States is unequivocally, screamingly in the utter throes of a shock doctrine evolution. Social Security is abundantly, vastly in surplus by generations of over-taxation, there’s a $120 billion annual war on with incredible tax cuts just passed, it is beyond lunacy for Social Security to be cut, it’s outright theft, an act of amazing arrogance and contempt that could only happen by the enormous distraction and manipulation of unemployment. Times are tough, we all have to sacrifice, that’s what the thieves will seriously say.



Leaks are extremely useful in a variety of ways: they coddle and ensnare the reporter to a clubby insider status, they manipulate various political actors, they offer reaction gauges to proposed ideas, and steer the political conversation of the Village (DC) in a desired direction. Given this, just why would the Obama Administration leak that cutting Social Security story to Politico?

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    • on 12/30/2010 at 14:36
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    • on 12/30/2010 at 18:03

    has enough problems since he has managed to not just alienate his Liberal base but also disinterest Independents and moderate Republicans. Despite his mediocre accomplishments that are pointed out by his loyal supporters, his capitulation to the right wing Republicans and corporations has further damage the image of “change”.

    • on 12/30/2010 at 18:45

    Will?

    • on 01/01/2011 at 02:35

    place, number one.  But I guess that is what politicians do best.  I’m pretty much horrified, at the delusion, that is still in place in the Democratic Party, after the Clinton/Obama Team (Clinton’s will never, ever, ever leave the White House) that we can’t and will not see the truth:  

    To me, President Obama is more like Clinton on steroids, but, hey, he’s just better at hiding it.  It no longer matter, if you as a activist point out his votes, and the facts and evidence.  

    Rather than face the raw and real truth, I’ve learned the hard way, the Progressives are being systematically purged from the party, and from certain websites.  

    I get it, totally, but it sure took me a long time.  That’s ok with me too.  I’m ready to move towards reality, and not let others call me a purist, or a racist or ‘not understand how politics really work.’  

    I suppose, in the past few years, my greatest regret, is knowing how hard so many of us people worked to get our so called ‘transformational President elected,’ and how Teddy Kennedy (on his death bed with his families support) handed over the ‘New Deal,’ to President Obama, who is now ready to be the new President Reagan.

    Whatever, live and learn. I’ve come to believe the only damn thing about how transparent President Obama is, is: who he really was in the first place.

    So much for the lost Democratic Party.  So much for our new Depression, so much for the Great Heist of 2008, and so much for President Obama selling out the Middle Class to get elected again.  

    Our nation was lost a long time ago, and now all we are doing on many websites, is to talk about New and Better Democrats, (when the Supreme Court put us all into total control of the Corporations), but that, is what we get when we get real, real delusional.

    Ms. B.

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