Obama-Vision

Obama has called for cutting the deficit, freezing government salaries, and even, cutting corporate taxes (most large corporations don't pay any), joining a throng of right-wingers, and also the Conservatives who took power in the UK not so long ago. But look what's happening in the UK in the wake of huge cuts to the UK government budget.

"It's not enough just to slam on the spending brakes. Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse," said Sir Richard Lambert, outgoing director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. NYT 01/25/11. In the wake of the Conservative/Lib-Dem budget cuts, the UK suffered a decline in GDP in the fourth quarter, after several rising quarters.

The UK made cuts very much like the ones Rep. Ryan proposed in his Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address. How do you stimulate an economy by cutting the government's budget? Market fundamentalists claim government spending crowds out private spending, so if you cut the government, corporate energy will be "unleashed."

This doesn't make much sense right now. In a boom, excess government spending will crowd out private investment. We are not in a boom. While corporations are realizing fair profits--from overseas sales--and the banks are pocketing huge returns, few are hiring, even when there is increasing demand for their products or services; they are demanding more of their current employees, instead--overtime usually, mandatory unless a union is involved, and at regular, not overtime wages unless a union contract requires otherwise.

That's why we still have over 9.5% unemployment officially; it's estimated to be as high as 19% when discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers are counted.

At least Obama proposed only a modest freeze to government, and insisted that it should invest in clean energy, etc. He could have made a strong case for the government as employer of last resort to invest in workers, and in addressing our sliding housing crisis, but he didn't: maybe not "centrist" enough.

One of his signature issues is education, which is logical, when talking about the future, but if the US is going to "win" the future, Race to the Top won't do it. Our children are not successfully competing with the rest of the world, but if we are to "win," they have to, not on standardized tests, but in skills and creative thinking: penalizing teachers won't accomplish that. Encouraging good teaching and supporting teachers would have a better chance--in colleges, too.

Obama's proposals, however, won't "win the future." The US must face its decline, withdraw from empire, and focus on its long-term deficits, not only of government, but of infrastructure, education, skills and trade.

That won't happen as long as the elite hold on to the status quo that enriched them. What the US needs is a democratic uprising like the one in Tunisia.