I'm the President, and I'm Mad as Hell

Barack Obama was elected president for two reasons. The first is that he did not rise in anger to the baiting of his opponents. Nor the baiting of his friends either, but that is a more complicated matter. The prospect of campaigning against an “angry young black man” was so attractive to various Republicans that they tried very hard to get him to say something angrily on television.

The second is that he promised bipartisanship. “There are not red states and blue states,” candidate Obama proclaimed several hundred times, “There is the United States of America.” Partisan gridlock in Congress was already a grievance to independent voters and campaigning against it was a really smart move.

That was then. This is now.

The New York Times editorialized this morning that President Obama is finally starting to do it right. He is on a bus tour in the Midwest and at every stop, he is showing his anger at the failure of the Congress to act responsibly and is blaming the Republicans for the current impasse. Maybe the Times thinks that Obama can afford to be the “angry young black man” now that he’s president. Maybe the Times is so angry and partisan that it can’t appreciate a president who is not as angry and partisan as they are. Maybe the Times thinks that the country is now hungry for an angry and partisan president.

I don’t know, but I’m partial to explanation number 2, myself.

CBS/New York Times Poll, August 2011

There has been so much hand-wringing about the debt-limit debate. All of it justified, in my opinion. A few posts ago, I compared it to a “game” of Russian roulette rather than the more common metaphor of a “game” of chicken.

Then I read the New York Times/CBS Poll for August 2 and 3 and it occurred to me that it is always possible that democracy might solve our problem this time. Maybe not. I’m not predicting anything. But I do want to pause briefly to talk about the much-maligned “responsible party model” (RPM).

Here’s the way I talk about it in PS 102. In Step 1, policy-oriented parties recruit candidates who will support those policies and fund their campaigns. If you want a policy-oriented national party, you can’t have yellow dog Democrats running in liberal districts and blue dog Democrats running in conservative districts—and then voting against each other in Congress. In Step 2, the parties run policy-oriented campaigns (rather than personality-oriented ones). The party that wins the majority now has an elected majority capable of fulfilling the party’s promises—more like the situation we expect in parliamentary systems. So in Step 3, the party in power enacts and approves the policies it campaigned on. Then, in Step 4, the crucial step, they return to their constituents with a record to talk about. Maybe even the beginnings of actual achievements based on their legislative stewardship. At that stage, the party says, “We did what we said. How do you like it? If you send us back, we’ll do more of it, so consider your policy desires carefully.”

It isn’t very realistic in modern American politics, but you can see why I like it, right? I like that last stage particularly because it is the only circumstance under which people can evaluate actual policy-generated outcomes and say whether they like them. Evaluating promises and intentions is uncertain work; evaluating outcomes is more the kind of thing it is fair to expect voters to do.

So what about the Times/CBS poll? Here are some results that caught my eye. Obama’s approval rating is at 48%. It hasn’t been above 60% since June 2009 and it hasn’t been about 50% since April 2010 except for a one poll spike in May of this year. That was bin Laden’s execution, I suppose.

People are not happy about the way “things are going in Washington.” Combining the two least approving columns gets you 84%. Combining the two most approving columns gets you 15%.

Since June of last year, the percentage of people who disapprove the way Congress is “handling its job” has been above 70%, but it has moved from 70% in June to 82% in August. Here are some relevant additional figures. Approve of John Boehner? Yes, 30%, No, 57%. The way Republicans in Congress have handled the recent negotiations? Approve 21%, Disapprove 72% Approve Democrats in Congress (same question)? Approve 28%, Disapprove 66%. Do “most members” of Congress deserve to be re-elected? No, 74%

I see anger, frustration, and pain there. The natives are restless.

Who do you trust more to make the right decisions about the nation’s economy? Republicans in Congress, 33%; Barack Obama 47%. Is it better for the parties to compromise or stick to their positions? Compromise, 85%; hold fast, 12%. Who is mostly to blame? Here I’ll give you the current figure and the trend since the last poll. The Bush administration is to blame, 44%, up 3% since April; The Obama administration is to blame, 15% up 1% since April; the Congress is to blame, 15%, up 3% since April.

Who do you blame more of “the difficulties in reaching an agreement” on the debt ceiling? Republicans in Congress, 47%, Barack Obama and the Democrats 29%. Did the Republicans in Congress compromise too little? Yes, 52% (15% said “too much” and 32% said “the right amount.”) Did Barack Obama and the Democrats compromise too much? Yes, 26% (34% said too little and 32% the right amount.) Those percentages are roughly thirds; that’s very good for the Democrats. Are you optimistic about the ability of this Congress to deal with future issues? Yes, 12%, No 66%. Should taxes be increased above the $250,000 level to help balance the budget? Yes, 63%, No 34%.

So that’s how Americans were feeling earlier in the week. What if the RPM kicks in for the general elections in the fall of 2012? People who said they absolutely would not raise taxes run into an electorate two thirds of them disagrees with them and now these “candidates” are incumbents and they are presenting what they have done, not what they promised to do. That doesn’t seem a good prospect for Republicans in Congress who campaigned on holding firm and not compromising and who signed a no tax pledge.

If I were Barack Obama, I would make the campaign about whether you want actual adults in charge of the economy or adolescent zealots. I would NOT make the campaign about whether I had done a good job of managing the economy over my first term, but in trying to avoid that, I would be helped by the 44% who still blame the Bush administration for what is wrong with the economy.

If the voters react in 2012 by rewarding people who promise to compromise and to include more revenue in out “living within our means” issue, then democracy will have done what it is supposed to do. It will have registered the judgments of actual voters on actual outcomes. If the voters felt otherwise—if they felt, for instance, that the economy wasn’t all that bad in 2009 and that Obama should have fixed it by now—then democracy would work exactly the same way and the Democrats would be slaughtered by the new round of votes.

But I don’t think they will be.

Where Does This Issue Belong?

It’s an “issue,” as we say. It concerns a lot of people. Something ought to be done about it. Let’s imagine the easiest possible resolution. There are three leaders in this societal constellation: one of the polity, one for the economy, and one for the society Let’s call them tyrants—meaning nothing scurrilous by the term—so that we have three “areas” to consider and a tyrant for each.

All we have to do is to decide which tyrant gets to decide on this issue.

Well, that’s not entirely true. First we have to explain the diagram. The three colored figures are the polity (red rectangle), the economy (blue oval) and the society (green oval). Each figure has a core—the darker color marked A—and a periphery. The periphery—the lighter color marked B—is a kind of antechamber. B is where an issue is when it is on its way to being a part of the core or when it is on its way out of that figure entirely. An issue does not, in this figure, move directly from A in the polity to A in the economy. It would first move from A to B in the polity, then from B to A in the economy.

This possibility of issue mobility is a concern to the tyrants, of course. In most cases an “issue” belongs to me because it is something from which additional authority and additional revenue can be extracted. When someone says, “This is a problem for Superman!” Superman smiles. More heroics and more fame are in the offing. There are issues, on the other hand, which are dead losers. Sometimes they simply can’t be solved and whoever has the issue is “it” and will take the fall. Sometimes an issue can be dealt with, but it will cost more to solve it than you will gain in revenue. That’s a loser. Sometimes it can be dealt with, but the only successful ways of dealing with it will make you enduringly unpopular. That’s a loser too.

Such issues as these really belong somewhere else. It’s about those issues that Superman says, “You know, Batman is the right person to take this job on.” The tyrant of the economy says that each family ought to save more. The tyrant of the polity says that consumer spending ought to increase. The tyrant of the society says that the welfare of each family—not the aggregate demand or the aggregate savings—is the proper goal.

That much of an explanation will show why some potentially mobile issues—the ones in the B areas—are sought after while others are nearly pushed out the door. What remains is to consider why C is there; that oddly astrocyte-shaped blob. I wanted it irregular because problems that have not yet been placed as issues are…well…irregular. I wanted those odd little rays to look just a little like tentacles. I wanted the whole shape to strike you an inchoate and faintly menacing.

In C, an issue could belong anywhere. That’s a jump ball for all the people (and their tyrant) who want it. It is a live grenade to all the people (and their tyrant) who don’t want it. But if we are talking about new issues—and that’s why I developed this particular image—it isn’t an “issue” until it is a “problem” that is placed somewhere.

Problems are personal. Issues are public. It’s when someone in authority says, or when a lot of people who have no authority say, “Say, that’s really a job for ______” that it become an issue. It could be a job for the polity, a job for the economy, or a job for the society. It doesn’t “belong” anywhere, the way a lost wallet full of one hundred dollar bills and a credit card “belongs” to its owner. It “belongs” somewhere in the way a job belongs to the only person in the community who has the tools and the equipment to keep the river from flooding the town.

So by the time a problem is “socialized” as we say; by the time it has become an issue, there is still the question of where it can best be dealt with. If I am the tyrant of the economy and I can see that my ownership of this issue will benefit me, I do everything I can to claim it for myself and to render your claims—you other two tyrants—less attractive or plausible. If it looks to me like the kind of issue that will tar the hands of anyone who tries to manage it, they I will see it belonging properly to you. I might say you are responsible for it. I might say only you can deal with it. I can say that no one else has the necessary authority or popular support or access to resources to manage it properly. What I really mean is “Anyone But Me.”

A strong smoothly functioning society will have three powerful settings and a clear process for placing the right issue in the right place. Compared to those two things, nothing else matters much.

Dr. Obama's Bedside Manner Needs Work

It occurred to me recently, that back in the bad old days of medicine when there was very little you could actually do for a patient, people understood their job to be “being with” the patient and making him or her comfortable. The illness was going to what it was going to do. Before germ theory came along, everything was even more mysterious than it is now. The bedside manner emphasized “I’m here for you” rather than “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”

When “take two of these” works, I’m pretty happy with it and I am delighted in the great progress medicine has made since it discovered germs. But I didn’t have these little medical reflections for no reason at all. There was something going on that had those same contours and it took me a little while to catch just what it was.

It’s the economy. It’s in bad shape and it’s going to go on being in bad shape for quite a while. Dr. Obama would really like to be a “take two of these and call me in the morning” kind of president. It’s his style. But Dr. Obama doesn’t have access to anything, two of which will help his patient. The president will, of course, do a lot of Republican bashing over the next year—as he should—but he is still going to be held accountable for the bad economy and he doesn’t have any way to treat it.

Let’s consider some possibilities. Let’s give the banks a bunch of money so they can loan it to people who will do something productive with it. Dr. Obama can see to it that the banks get a bunch of money. He cannot require them to actually lend it to anyone. When the banks get the money, they will consult their own needs for reserves, for security, for high return loans and when they have considered all those, they will just sit on the money.

Let’s encourage companies to hire more workers. This would help with the unemployment problem, one would think. As the economy picks up, the companies really could use more workers, but they make more money by reducing workforces than they do by increasing them. The new economic situation, in other words, allows quite a few currently unemployed workers to get their jobs back, but it doesn’t require the companies to rehire them. The new “leaner” companies are going to be much more profitable, even as the economy continues to crawl along in low gear. Nothing the President can say will cause these companies to make less profit so that the economy will improve.

The President could always raise taxes on businesses, of course, and use the new revenues to invest in new technologies and more employment. But there’s this problem with the businesses. They get the same services from the U. S. government whether they pay taxes or not and a business that has an accounting department that does NOT know how to keep the profits safe in an off-shore bank has a very uncreative accounting department.

The President could always cut taxes on the rich, of course, allowing them to create new jobs as their market savvy allows them to. That has been prescribed many times and actually tried several times and it turns out that the rich have better things to do with their money than use it to increase production and therefore employment. Yachts and corporate jets come readily to mind, but I am sure there are lots of less visible things to spend the money one. The point is that they don’t spend it in ways that help the economy in any broad way.

Robert Reich argues persuasively in his book, Aftershock, that the fundamental problem of the American economy is that we don’t pay our workers enough to enable them to buy what we make. Consumer spending is two thirds of the Gross Domestic Product, I heard yesterday on the radio. Increasing what we pay the workers would enable them to spend more money—and they would spend it—which would increase demand, which would increase employment, etc. This is the well-known Henry Ford solution. It was Ford who scandalized the whole world of business by paying his assembly line workers enough money that they could buy Ford cars. He sold a lot of Ford cars that way, but Reich passes along some of the commentary that appeared in the Wall Street Journal when he did that. Scathing!

So that is a “treatment” that would work. There is nothing Dr. Obama can do, unfortunately, to get that prescription filled. Nothing. Actually, there isn’t anything in the whole “take two of these and call me in the morning” world that the President can do. And that’s why I think it is time for him to break out his bedside manner and get into the “I’m here for you” mode. This guy’s got the idea, I think.