Posted on 02/18/2011 11:45:51 AM PST by neverdem
Jonathan Alter wrote a book about Barack Obama’s first year in office called “The Promise.” That’s a great title because it works on so many levels. For example, over the past four years, Obama’s career has been marked by a constant promise: He has continually said he is on the verge of doing something serious abut the national debt.
He started making the promise back when he was in the Senate. In “The Audacity of Hope,” published in 2006, he expressed alarm at the “mountain of debt” caused by $300 billion...
--snip--
The president and his aides may really believe in this strategy, but it is wrong. This is not like fixing Social Security in the early 1980s. The current debt problem is of an entirely different scale. It requires a rewrite of the social contract, a new way to think about how the government pays for social insurance.
The president has enormous faith in getting smart people around the table and initiating technocratic reform. But you can’t renegotiate the social contract in private. You have to have public buy-in. You have to spend years out in public educating voters about the size of the problem and what will be required. You have to show voters what a solution looks like.
The New Deal wasn’t passed by a president who led quietly from the back. Neither was the Great Society or the Reagan Revolution. President Obama’s softly, softly approach is a rationalization, not a coherent strategy. It’s the latest version of Obama’s eternal promise: I’ll do it tomorrow.
So the mantle of leadership has passed to Capitol Hill. While Obama asked for patience yet again, Eric Cantor announced that Republicans will put entitlements on the table. It may be politically risky, but it looks more like leadership to me.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The government pays for nothing. The people pay for everything. Brooks obviously thinks Obama is on the side of the angels. When he woke up, what a dream!
I don’t care how smart the people around the table are they can’t change the fact that soon only two workers will be supporting every retiree.
That is the problem with almost ALL government. They made promises and contracts for the past 40 years that THEY wouldn’t ever have to pay up on. And now that the GOP has literally inherited the biggest mess in the world, the Rats are resisting all attempts to fix it. Their “solution” is to once again continue to spend money as though there is no problem and try to kick the can down the road for someone else to deal with.
Hey, David, I feel the same way about General M’Bugaboo of Nigeria. He promised he’d put $35 million in my bank account, and he never delivered.
“Well, I’m here to tell you now each and ev’ry mother’s son
You better learn it fast; you better learn it young,
‘Cause, “Someday” Never Comes.”
—John Fogerty
He never put anything in MY bank account either — and I wired him the money he needed to pay the transaction fees and EVERYTHING!
At least we can say we're as smart as David Brooks!
Wasn’t David Brooks the fairy who once mused aloud about how he admired the crease of Obama’s trousers?
I don’t believe this is in the president’s head. It would be morally reprehensible to bankrupt the nation for the sake of a campaign theme. Obama is not that sort of person.
Brooks remains delusional.
Reading the comments at the NYT, it’s always the same answer, make the rich pay their ‘fair share’.
Tax the rich
Feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more...
I wish someone would do a reality check about the ‘Bush tax cuts’. While rates went down for the higher income earner, there were many, many fees that made up the difference. The Government still earned the 28% (state, local and fed) they always did.
Nope. Brooks is the man who rhapsodized about the crease in Obama’s “pant”. Look it up. I said then and say now, no true heterosexual gets all excited about another man’s “pant”.
Plus here is the little known context. From gazing rapturously at that pant crease alone, Brooks was able not only to foretell Obama would be president, but that he would be “a very good president”.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Yes, I believe he was. Rush Limbaugh was talking about it the other day.
Give him a bit of credit this time... It sounds like Brooks is waking up and seeing what a disaster this (lack of) leader is creating. Of course, this will be the Brooks article that the lefty readers of the NY Times will reject.
David, you're insane. Zero is exactly that sort of person.
I’m a big fan of The Who, and I “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
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