How will Obama’s agenda affect the North Country?
Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook) and Bill Owens (D-Plattsburgh) show their bipartisanship at last night's State of the Union speech (PHOTO: Rep. Richard Hanna's office)
So as the In Box begins to transition into full election season mode, here’s a thread to discuss last night’s state of the union address.
Early reactions from Republicans in the North Country were mixed. Rep. Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook) — whose district stretches up to Saranac Lake — said he thought some bipartisanship is possible in Washington this year.
“I firmly believe 2012 has the potential to be a year of growth and recovery for our country, if we make the right choices. Specifically, I think there are five areas with which we can find common ground. They include: comprehensive tax reform that creates a simpler and more fair tax code, regulatory relief, the expansion of domestic energy production, infrastructure investment, and bureaucratic consolidation and reform. These are all areas which will directly help our country’s hardworking families, small business owners, and farmers, while ensuring our nation returns to a path of fiscal responsibility. My constituents want Washington to achieve results and I’m confident that, working together in an era of divided government, we can do just that. Additionally, as a former soldier, I appreciated the President’s recognition of the fine work our men and women of the military have conducted as well as the parallel he drew between their missions around the world and what we need to accomplish here at home.”
In tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama offered his vision for an “America built to last.” But what our commander in chief actually presented was a nightmare.The Obama blueprint is to create a “fair” society, in which government uses its heavy hand to try and erase the disparity between poor and rich. The president’s assumption is that government can devise a more equitable society than the people can themselves create.I could not disagree more.
Our founding fathers envisioned a country where everyone was guaranteed equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. In suggesting “everyone does their fair share,” Obama is hoping to channel populist frustrations over income inequality into a justification for taking more from the wealthy.
So what do you think? Did Obama hit the right notes for you last night? And how do you think the presidential contest will affect North Country races this fall — particularly what could be a very tight contest between Bill Owens and Matt Doheny?
Comments welcome.
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Doheny says:
“The Obama blueprint is to create a “fair” society, in which government uses its heavy hand to try and erase the disparity between poor and rich. The president’s assumption is that government can devise a more equitable society than the people can themselves create.”
Well, I see no evidence that U.S. society – if left to its own devices – is capable to creating anything remotely resembling “a more equitable society”. Does Doheny see something that everyone else is missing?
Oh Mr. Doheny…We’ve tried that. It didn’t work in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and it won’t work now. That kind of capitalism only works if you ignore all those people who were worked to death. Go to an old time mill town or coal mine town… Walk around the old cemetery and count the graves. You will find far too many…for the size of the town…Far too many who died long before old age…Far too many who were never mentioned in the history books. They worked their short lives away so that the bosses could become rich. They were ground up to feed the desires of Wall St. and the rich never knew their names.
And Chris Gibson…Haven’t you learned so well, how to speak those words that sound so right. I especially like “expansion of domestic energy production”, which is coded speech for raping the landscape, damning the groundwater, and bulldozing the countryside to make a quick buck on subsidised gas. Fifteen years from now, we will find you in the business of protecting the gas companies from the expense of clean-up.
I thought it was a pretty good speech. Lots of stuff about jobs and as much as possible he tried to counter Republican themes. That the republicans are going with laissez faire (had to look up the spelling) capitalism isnt a shock, but I hope people pay attention to the arguments of Hank and Tootight above. There are good reasons no 1st world country uses laissez faire economics.
And it will be called “regulatory relief”.
I note that the fact checkers found no falsehoods in the speech. Both Politfact and Fact Check faulted him though on things he didn’t say (but in their opinion coulda/shoulda said), things that one or two experts somewhere have a dissenting opinion on, and things that they feel he implied and which, had he said outright, would be open to debate. Apparently they felt obliged to find some fault however lame.
I didn’t watch/listen. I’ve read the reviews in this morning’s paper and I think he done good, as the saying goes. The opposition agenda seems to be to return to the free wheeling, anything goes as long as it makes a buck economics of the Bush years. He sent a clear message that he will fight that, as I hope he will. My major complaint about Obama so far is that he has spent way too much time trying to placate the boneheads who got us into a fiscal mess. Maybe the GOP should have the donkey as their symbol because like the one in the old joke they have to be whacked with a 2×4 to get their attention. I guess though that the joke was about a mule.
The donkey is already taken. How about a jackal?
Matt Doheny may wish to bone up on his history a bit before the election. “Our founding fathers envisioned a country where everyone was guaranteed equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.” Well, not to African-Americans, or Native Americans, or women.
Maybe he should read about eminent forebears in his own party, like President Grover Cleveland who attacked the “communism of pelf”, his term for monopolies and banking combines that gained enormous wealth while the middle class and poor got poorer. How different was Coxey’s Army from the OWS crowd?
Let us not forget other great Republicans of the past, like Teddy Roosevelt and his “Square Deal” that emphasized consumer protection and control of corporations, with the aim of helping middle class citizens, attacking the plutocracy with the phrase “malefactors of great wealth.”
To the question posed – not much.
To the Republican mantra that government is too big, all I can say with some regret is that if we are to have Big Business, only Big Government has a ghost of a chance to stand up to it. You can’t stand up to Big Business, especially now that it is global. Only the government is capable of standing in our corner.
Most of the republicans in that chamber last night don’t want taxes or regulation on commerce (they love regulation on social issues, however), and they kinda like war abroad. Makes them feel safe. It is still bewildering to me that McConnell and Kantor can sit there and argue for more of what Bush gave us. Are they that selfish and single-minded? From what I can tell of upstate Republicans in general, they are more moderate than the red-meat tribe in Washington. I don’t think Doheny’s intent to keep obama from “taking more from the wealthy” is going to get a lot of votes–or enough.
The speech was good. I think there are places where we can make progress. But like you see here with the comments there is little room for compromise on either side so getting anything done is highly unlikely.
Walker,
Teddy Roosevelt is an interesting guy and a rich guy also.
I wonder if he got the kind of criticism that Romney is getting for his fortunes.
Paul, we could get quite a lot done if, in fact, enough voters are sufficiently fed up with Republican obstructionism to vote them out of office. If we remain stuck on a 50/50 split, we’re in big trouble.
Roosevelt also went to Harvard like Romney and Obama.
“My constituents want Washington to achieve results and I’m confident that, working together in an era of divided government, we can do just that.” Gibson.
Is there any evidence that Gibson isn’t as much of an obstructionist as the rest of his House Republican colleagues?
Paul, Teddy Roosevelt is an interesting guy who was rich, as is Franklin Roosevelt. Some rich folk are willing to use their wealth to try to make the nation a better place for ALL to live, rather than using their wealth to promote policies that benefit primarily the wealthy.
Louis Brandeis was another wealthy Harvard grad, who wrote “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Obstructionism is part of Democracy. We are not a “team”, we are free individuals with individual liberty living under a constitution.
We certainly need to look at fairness in our culture I do agree, particularly when it comes to the tax code. Also taxing the wealthy at higher rates is not a problem for me, but we should realize that it will not radically change the distribution of income in the US.
The largest public school system in NYS the New York Public school system and also in the US has a graduation rate of 55%. You will NEVER have an even distribution of income with that many untrained uneducated , people being produced every year, not competing in a global economy.
“Some rich folk are willing to use their wealth to try to make the nation a better place for ALL to live, rather than using their wealth to promote policies that benefit primarily the wealthy.”
I agree.
“Paul, we could get quite a lot done if, in fact, enough voters are sufficiently fed up with Republican obstructionism to vote them out of office.”
Like I said we ‘could’ get some things done. But these comments show it is probably unlikely.
So Walker you are saying that nothing can get done till there is an election and maybe not even after that either?
Anyone democrat or republican (or whatever) that thinks that there is only a problem with republicans in congress just doesn’t understand the problem.
Also, the grid-lock in Washington could easily be unlocked with a take over of the senate by the republicans which is a very real possibility in 2013.
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145406129/previewing-three-2012-senate-races-to-watch
If Mitt Romeny were to win the white house (along with a take over of the senate) then things could really be freed up.
Paul, I certainly do not believe that there is only a problem with Republicans in Congress. But I do think that the economy would be in much better shape today if Obama had had a veto-proof majority in both houses of congress for the last four years. And I do believe that Reagan’s anti-tax, anti-union, anti-government, deregulation movement is what has led directly to the position we’re in today.
Granted, though, that Democrats are part of the larger problem of too much money in politics. How do you feel about Citizens United?
Mervel, who — apart from maybe those on the extreme left, who are not currently represented in Washington — is asking for “even distribution of income”? What Obama and most democrats are looking for is a more even distribution of the tax burden. They are two very, very different things.
“How do you feel about Citizens United?”
I am torn on that decision. I don’t like the influence that some organizations have but I can understand the courts point given the decision. Free speech is a very important thing to uphold so you have to err on the side of caution.
Sure we want to see less influence from some groups but do we want to shut them all up which is what we would have to do.
For example this decision protects the free speech rights of a not-for-profit environmental organization as well as a for-profit oil company. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
“What Obama and most democrats are looking for is a more even distribution of the tax burden.”
Laurie, many republicans are as well.
For example the president continues to talk about “Buffet’s secretary” and the fact that she pays a lower tax rate than her boss.
What he is referring to is that Warren Buffet pays capital gains tax on most of the money he has made over the year.
That rate is about 15%. What would his secretaries rate on capital gains be? It is 15% same as the boss. So on that type of “income” the distribution is dead even. Why does the president want to change that?
Personally I think the president lumps these two types of things together to try and confuse people to his side of the argument. That is not really fair.
Paul, I don’t think he’s trying to confuse anyone– that would be those people who insist that Democrats want an even distribution of income.
What Obama wants to do is to abolish the tax break given to hedge fund managers on ordinary income that just happens to come from capital gain, and probably also to get rid of the special treatment of capital gains income. Nothing deceptive about that.
Paul, Walker, etc. –
I think one thing that is peculiar about this part of the debate — taxes on the wealthy — is that it’s often portrayed as controversial, or edgy, or evidence of ‘class warfare.’ In fact, there is enormous consensus on this point. I found this data point in a post-speech poll:
“The dials [of approval] spiked when the President made his strong populist pitch for the “Buffet Rule,” with Democrats exceeding 80 on our 0-to-100 scale and both independents and Republicans moving above 70. There was no polarization here, as voters across the political spectrum gave Obama high marks.”
So this isn’t an area where there are red states and blue states or liberals and conservatives in the usual 50-50 sense that defines modern American politics.
http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2012/01/president-obama-scores-with-middle-class-message/
Brian, NCPR
Paul, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to speak freely without censorship. You’re talking about freedom to spend vast amounts of money to try and influence others– an entirely different proposition.
More than pleased with our Presidents speech IF action is taken. America as a country has changed dramatically but our government has not. CHANGE needs to happen starting with educating the young people in this country about how our government works. The people have not been a part of the American Government in a very long time; it has grown untouchable by outsiders and is controlled by the majority of those with power not by “the majority” of American people. I believe that our president is trying to fix a broken government that has grown out of control. It is obvious that our government needs to be fixed it has taken a path so separate from what it was built for that the people in this country have no faith and little hope for the millions of challenges we as a country are facing.
The opposition to our president I believe is based on fear, the fear of change, the fear of increased taxes on those in power, and the fear of losing the control those in power have. For the first time in my life Someone (President Obama) is standing up to those in power (Congress and the Senate) and calling them out on there faults, not to condemn those that are not doing right by the American people but to seek a common front, to focus on what needs to be done now to save this country from not only financial ruin and corruption but also economic and foreign destruction. We must get away from the illusion that we are the biggest and most powerful and realize that we have been falling apart for along time the hunger for money and power is corrupting our very foundation, if we allow this to keep happening we will be no better than the countries we are fighting.
Walker, don’t you think taking that “speech” off the air is a form of censorship?
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that this ruling struck parts of down did just that.
Like I said, I don’t like some of what we are seeing but I think individuals or groups of individuals should have the rights to speak out against or for any cause they choose.
That law seemed to clearly limit this right. How not?
Paul, there’s no confusion on my part as to the difference between the income tax rate and the capital gain tax rate. At issue is the belief that “income” is “income”, regardless of where it comes from. Buffet and his secretary may pay the same rate on capital gains, but like most Americans, she doesn’t have the income leftover to invest much, if anything, on which to make those capital gains and benefit from the reduced rate. Buffet, meanwhile, has enough capital that he can live off the gains while he works for a nominal salary. That’s where the disparity lies.
“You’re talking about freedom to spend vast amounts of money to try and influence others– an entirely different proposition.”
Should the Nature Conservancy not be allowed to spend vast amounts of their donors money to influence others to help protect the environment?
This is a very slippery slope.
laurie, first of all the money that was invested was already taxed at some rate before it was invested and then taxed again as capital gains. If you raise the capital gains tax rate (which is what I assume the president has in mind) then you will certainly make it more likely that Buffet’s secretary will get even farther away from the opportunity to invest money and improve her lot like the boss. Also, you will most certainly limit some business activity that creates jobs like the very job that Buffet’s secretary has.
But I think they are two issues.
We have income disparity because we don’t need a good portion of our work force anymore who don’t have advanced skills, who don’t even have a high school diploma. We have as a society failed those people, and they have failed themselves; they are probably around 1/4 to 1/3 of our workforce. Is this Reagan’s fault or the Republicans fault? Not really it is the fault of how we manage, practice and fund education in the US.
The second issue is fairness and I think that the tax code should be simpler and more fair, not only did Romney pay a 14.5% rate on his income, his taxes were 500 pages long. But that won’t help income disparity in the aggregate.
In that regard the Republicans are correct it is a red herring, we always want to blame someone in the US, its easier than really looking at long term complex intractable societal problems.
“What Obama wants to do is to abolish the tax break given to hedge fund managers”
It is my understanding (and I could be wrong) that he wants to raise the capital gains tax rate on any individual that has an income that exceeds $200,000 dollars. That doesn’t sound like something targeted at “hedge fund managers” to me? It also sounds like something that would require a new government agency just to determine how to calculate the income??
Walker, what is the actual proposal?
Mervel, you are correct. Productivity in the US is not only going up because people are working harder but because technology has made us way more productive (and eliminated many jobs in the process). How else could I work and follow this blog at the same time!
Paul says: “Sure we want to see less influence from some groups but do we want to shut them all up which is what we would have to do.”
You mean you think that before Citizens United, Nature Conservancy couldn’t advocate for environmental regulation?
Look, there’s more than one slippery slope involved. The same SCOTUS that gave us Citizens United ruled that Massey Energy’s $3 million support for a state judge could create a reasonable expectation that the judge would be under an obligation to the company, and so he should have recused himself.
Surely you’re not going to argue that free speech was abolished by the campaign finance laws that Citizens United blew away.
We should probably get into that discussion some other time. Like I said I don’t like what we have now but I don’t see an easy way around it either. I think that “free speech” was impacted by that campaign finance law. I don’t think I said that I felt that it “abolished” free speech?? Did I?
“You mean you think that before Citizens United, Nature Conservancy couldn’t advocate for environmental regulation?”
Again no I didn’t say that. Stop that you are driving me crazy here.
My point is that the Nature Conservancy’s ability to advocate for environmental causes, especially if they want to try and connect that cause to a particular political candidate (which is pretty easy to do), could easily be affected by the law that was struck down in this case. Just think about it.
I have thought about it. So did Congress when they passed a whole series of Campaign Finance laws.
So did Justice Stevens when he wrote “The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its “identity” as a corporation. While that glittering generality has rhetorical appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may be required to finance some of its messages with the money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”
“…The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.”
Paul, given the time you’re putting into this thread, I’m glad you’re not working for me.:)
Walker it is possible that the justices were contemplating some of the tings I brought up. It is also possible that the were hoping with a decision to “undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation”. I think it is actually a complicated case.
Like I said I am not happy with the current state of affairs in campaign financing either so we certainly agree on that point.
Walker said: “You mean you think that before Citizens United, Nature Conservancy couldn’t advocate for environmental regulation?”
Paul said: “Again no I didn’t say that.”
Well, Paul, at 2:20 pm you _did_ say “Should the Nature Conservancy not be allowed to spend vast amounts of their donors money to influence others to help protect the environment?”
This in the context of how we needed the Citizens United decision to keep freedom of speech free. You tell me what you meant.
I already told you what I meant but I will try one last time. It is possible that AFTER that law was passed that an organization like that (whether it be the NC or any other group heavily involved with lobbying efforts) might have less ability to do some of the things they did before it was enacted. It is also possible that it had no affect. I am just guessing what the justices may have been thinking. What do you think they were thinking?
I think it was Judicial Activism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_activism )
Walker, you probably disagree, but I consider Kennedy to be a fairly moderate guy and when he writes that the law does the following in his opinion he may be onto something, but he may be an activist out to swing elections also I guess:
“muffle[d] the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.’ And ’the electorate [has been] deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function.”
How do you feel about a company that you own stock in electioneering on behalf of a candidate that you oppose?
As to your Kennedy quote, it strikes me that a claim that campaign finance law would deprive the electorate “of information, knowledge and opinion” is absurd on its face. If there is one thing that the electorate is absolutely drowning in, it is “information, knowledge and opinion.”
So when an intelligent person says something patently absurd, it seems to me to fully justify Justice Stevens’ characterization as offering “glittering generalit[ies seeking] rhetorical appeal.”
“If there is one thing that the electorate is absolutely drowning in, it is “information, knowledge and opinion.””
That is true. If we are drowning in it, and this law was supposed to limit it, then how can the statement be absurd?
If groups of individuals (be they corporations or whatever) cannot come together and use their money to try and get their point across who dose that leave? I guess wealthy folks like Mitt Romney who can afford to do it themselves.
Paul, pay attention. The law that the Citizens United decision overturned was supposed to limit it.
And you’re failing to address the issue of corporations spending money supporting candidates that not all their shareholders support– that’s where the personhood of the corporation breaks down entirely.
Also, your idea that allowing corporations unlimited spending somehow offsets the spending of the uber-wealthy is absurd– who do you think controls the corporations? It sure ain’t Joe-the-Plumber. Citizens United just amplifies the voice of the uber-wealthy, by allowing them to direct that money of nickel and dime shareholders be spent to advocate lower taxes on the wealthy.