Last year, Velma Hart made headlines when she addressed President Obama at a town hall on jobs.  Unlike many of the town halls that Obama has attended as presidential candidate and president, not all of the participants were prepared to deliver softballs to the President, such as Velma.  She famously told Obama that she was “exhausted of defending you [President Obama].”  That phrase was shared across newscasts, blogs and radio shows – particularly with Republican-voting audiences – and gave Velma her “fifteen minutes of fame.”  Unfortunately, since then, Velma has disappeared into obscurity as Washington and the media has moved onto something else to obsess about, but the activities during the past few weeks reminded TOC of another statement from Velma:  “I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class.”  This begs the question, who IS fighting for the middle class and “ordinary Americans?”

Who are our leaders fighting for, anyway?

Consider two events that have captivated political pundits over the past few months.  The most recent is the coming vote on raising the debt limit.  The US cannot legally allow the national debt to stay above $14.29 trillion (consider that if you went back in time to the days of Jesus Christ and spent $1 million per day, every day, until the present, you still would not have spent $1 trillion).  Barack Obama’s press secretary stated that the President believes it was a mistake to vote against raising the debt limit to $9 trillion back in 2006 (when a different political party owned the White House).  Now that the debt and annual budget deficits have grown more, he feels it is important to have it raised?  Was it Barack Obama’s political allegiance to Democrats and the Democratic political agenda that caused him to curb Bush’s agenda back in 2006, or was it his “altruistic leadership instincts?”

A more direct consideration is the tax deal at the end of 2010.  For months, the GOP had demanded that everyone get the extension of the Bush tax cuts, not just the middle class.  Barack Obama, who campaigned against tax breaks for the rich, magically changed his mind at the last minute.  Why?  Why is it that the GOP was willing to hold out on the tax cut extension for the middle class in the first place, holding it hostage in exchange for the tax cut extension for the rich?  Some arguments suggest that it was an economically-based decision in that the recovery could not handle any tax increase.  Historically, across-the-board tax cuts lead to economic growth.  Others suggest that tax revenue would have fallen as economic activity would slow as more of the reward of that economic activity would have gone to government – a disincentive for growth (the so-called Laffer curve).  TOC’s conservative beliefs force him to consider such arguments; however, TOC never saw any evidence that a directed tax increase on the wealthy would have stifled economic growth or forced us back into recession – if any reader to this post can produce such evidence, feel free to do so.  The Obama administration made feeble excuses for the flip-flop.   Additionally, we got analysis from CNN and other news outlets on who “won” and “lost” and praise for Obama on his ability to “politically maneuver.”  In the meantime, the very people Obama was supposed to take to task got their tax break.  If there were objective reasons for Obama to accept the tax break for the rich, why did he make the recent speech on the rich paying their “fair share”?   Of course, that speech is just talk.  Maybe when you need $1 billion to run a campaign, you cannot depend exclusively on middle class donors giving $20 on barackobama.com.

TOC’s objective is not to discuss economic theory here, but instead to ask, who was the main focal point of these negotiations and outcomes?  The Democrats (Obama) and Republicans are equally culpable.  It seems that stopping the deficit is not the end in itself, but instead a means to an end (the end being gaining political power).  Politicians and pundits see it as an issue that has strong reaction in focus groups and that is their issue – their path to political office or a larger radio/TV audience.  Meanwhile, the “ordinary Americans” are the ones who are going to have to shoulder the brunt of larger and larger debt servicing costs with little in return – the rich have their loopholes that neither Congress nor the White House have the political fortitude to close (although such a move polls well with middle-class Americans).

This is precisely why we have to ask who is fighting for us, the ordinary Americans?  If a politician says he or she has always fought for the middle class, it should be evident.  We need to stop getting bogged down into “I’m a Republican, all Democrats are bad,” and vice versa.  We need to stop allowing colorful language, generalities, and the thrill of “our side versus theirs” on some pundit’s news show to blind us to the fact that we serve as props in a game for the lobbyists and special interests.  Let’s challenge our leaders and make sure they, “change things in a meaningful way for the middle class.”

In closing, we return to Velma.  Unfortunately, Velma was laid off from her job as CFO of AmVETS, only 2 months after her famous discussion with Obama (no conspiracy theories, please).  I am sure she appreciated all of the “fighting for the middle class” the politicians did for her when she became unemployed.  Let us remember that when we watch these discussions about politics and negotiations on TV, these people are not our heroes or our gods, but they are our employees and they need to be fighting for us and that there are real people whose lives are at stake.

Obama and Libya – A Reflection On Us?

As a preface to this post, it must be made clear that TOC is not the biggest fan of Barack Obama’s presidency.  In fact, waiting in freezing temperatures for 12 hours to vote for a feasible Republican or third-party candidate in 2012 would not be a problem for TOC.  Of course, if the GOP continues to put up celebrity hopefuls (a la Donald Trump and the Double-Stuff Racing League and Sarah Palin’s Alaska) instead of people with solid ideas to lead a nation and no significant third-party candidate emerges, this is subject to change.

Despite the above, a point must be made about Libya.  Obama has taken some serious heat from the right and left in his approach to the Libyan rebellion.  While the criticism from the left has been consistent with the criticism that was displayed during Bush’s invasion of Iraq, it is the criticism from the right that is troubling.  Some conservatives who backed Bush loyally when he made the determination to invade Iraq and Afghanistan now are saying that Barack Obama made the wrong decision.  The hypocrisy is amazing – there were even Fox News stories about how much each cruise missile fired at Qaddafi’s military strongholds cost, never mentioning such in 2003!  Some argued that Obama should have went to Congress first, but ignored the fact that Obama wanted to ensure a rapid, pinpointed attack to help save a rebellion that was near death (a strategic move that, if worked, would have removed Qaddafi from office without risking lives of American soldiers).  Others argued that he wavered and waited too long, but the decision to have such an attack should not be hasty – second- and third-order effects have to be considered.

More than the aforementioned, TOC is mostly troubled by another set of criticisms.  Some of the right-wing media actually criticized the President for intervening in Libya and not considering supporting civilians in regions of unrest such as the Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Congo.  Never were these places, or places like them, mentioned when George Bush was performing his invasions.  This hypocrisy is offensive, unacceptable and typical.  It is bad enough that the US ignores atrocities in such places – you have to tune in to BBC to even hear the name of Robert Mugagbe (President of Zimbabwe) – but to use those atrocities to advance a petty political agenda is beyond disgusting and insulting.  The last thing we should be doing is using the misery of these people for our purposes, considering none of the criticizers would ever consider backing an invasion to support these sufferers anyway.

TOC believes the President did the right thing with the operation.  This is not because TOC believes in attacking the illegitimate leader of a country that is strategic for the energy supply of US allies (Libya supplies significant amounts of energy to France and the UK) and not an illegitimate leader of a country that has limited resources for sale to Western nations.  Instead, TOC believes that the American people mandate that the President do such.  Our news media spends far more time addressing the trials of Lindsay Lohan and the gimmicks of Charlie Sheen than discussing massacres in Zimbabwe and the Congo because we demand it.  We react to it, we watch it and we follow it.  The President is supposed to be a leader, but at the same time, he is supposed to represent the mandate given to him by the people.  Gas price spikes will lead the nightly news, but the millions being starved in Sudan (Darfur) do not make it at all.  If we truly want to affect change in those countries instead of using them as props for some political agenda, then let’s do it.  Else, let us kill the stench of hypocrisy and be honest – the afflicted be damned, do something about $4/gal gasoline.  That is where our principles lie.

What else is Obama supposed to do?

In the recent thriller “The Adjustment Bureau,” Matt Damon plays a politician.  In the opening scenes of the movie, Damon’s character loses a heated race for a US Senate seat.  TOC neither gives movie reviews nor gives away movie endings; however, TOC did find the concession speech given by Damon’s character captivating.  In it, he goes into detail on how every aspect of his campaign was polished and fabricated, even down to the “amount of scuffing on his shoes to appeal to the working man while not overdoing it and alienating the bankers.”  Unfortunately, art does not always imitate life.

In the real world, nothing could be further from reality.  We have serious problems to face in this country, and a serious dose of honesty is needed from our political so-called leaders.  To illustrate this point, there are a few recent politicians that come to mind.  First, there’s Chris Christie, the closest person to an exception available.  One of the most exhilarating quotes in all of recent politics is Christie’s claim that he is not afraid to be a one-termer.  What Christie was saying was that in order to get the business of New Jersey done, he would do some things that would be unpopular.  Taking on the teachers’ and other public-sector unions is not very popular; nobody likes to cut the pay of teachers and firefighters.   On top of that, most people believe that “soak the rich” taxes are moral and acceptable.  Those are opinions, but the facts are, at the state level, such taxes are ineffective and counterproductive as the rich are free to move from one state to the other.  Christie understands these facts, which is why he is focusing on tackling pensions and healthcare costs of public employees instead of chasing business out of the state by raising taxes.

Next, we have our President, Barack Obama.  In 2008, we were enticed by then-Senator Obama into thinking we could have a green revolution, re-gain our position as leading the world in education, reform our healthcare system without any major costs or pain and close Guantanamo Bay – all without any significant sacrifice by the average American citizen.  TOC cannot list all of the pie-in-the-sky promises that were given to us by that campaign in this entry, but it is very clear that we did not have a clear dialogue of what it would take to move the country forward.  The most recent example of Obama’s lack of reality is his administration’s budget proposal.  The budget is a laughable sham of an attempt to curb our horrendous budget deficit.  Obama, always the polished politician, asks nobody to make real sacrifices and suggests we can “get there” by not spending more money.  In other words, you can get out of debt by just not spending more than 74% above what you take in during a given period (or, a $1.6T budget deficit on top of estimated federal tax receipts of $2.15T, leading to the estimated $3.75T Obama budget).  Clearly Obama 2012 is off and running.

Finally, we have Scott Walker, the embattled governor of Wisconsin.  TOC supports the actions of Scott Walker – it is clear that he must do something serious about the budget deficit in his state and he has such a mandate from the taxpayers that elected him.  The one problem is that he did not have an honest discussion on his plans to curb union power during the campaign.  Indeed, the strongest statements Walker made during the campaign for Governor were around his intentions to removing residency requirements for teachers, removing enrollment caps for private and charter schools and installing a “qualified economic offer” for school labor negotiations.  These are far more palatable options than what he is saying is necessary now (ending collective bargaining in a fairly liberal state).  Yes, being honest about what he felt it would take to balance Wisconsin’s budget may not have been good for his political future, but when do we, as citizens, raise the bar and focus on what is good for our country and not their political careers.

What TOC is yearning for is such honesty, an honest discussion on how we are going to solve our nation’s problems and support our people.  Obvious pandering to special interests that pay for campaigns, such as Obama’s declaration that Walker’s moves were an “assault on unions,” solves no problems.  Consider this, if he truly felt this way, we should expect him to solicit congress for collective bargaining for federal employees – as an honest leader would do.  When do we get to a point that we, as citizens, demand more from our leaders; that they bring only their beliefs on what will solve our nation’s problems to the table and leave the “politically-expedient” talk at home.

In closing, we return to Damon’s character.  When he made his concession speech, he had just had a life-altering experience that caused him not to care about his political future.  This led him to find a value that is the antithesis of politics – honesty.  That honesty allowed him to become wildly popular, even more popular than before.  Why?  Because the people in the movie were willing to hear the truth – even exhilarated by it.  It’s not a stretch to see such people willing to have an honest conversation on challenges such as education reform and energy . . . willing to accept the real sacrifices necessary to generate real change in America.  If only life could imitate art.