Machiavelli's Obama

In his brilliant political advice to the leader of Florence in 1512, "The Prince", Niccolo Machiavelli offered four choices:

A. Be honest; Appear to be honest

B. Be dishonest, Appear to be dishonest.

C. Be honest, Appear to be dishonest.

D. Be dishonest; Appear to be honest.

Most American poliiticians follow the advice of the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria, pursuing Plan D. After hearing President Obama twice claim that he was putting "domestic discretionary spending" on a path to be the lowest since the Eisenhower administration, I figured it was worth a look on some fact checking sites - PolitiFact (relatively liberal) and FactCheck.org.(relatively moderate) It couldn't just be a lie could it?

My first reaction is to revert to Bill Buckley's great put-down: "Sir, I am not going to insult your intelligence by pretending that you believe what you just said." But maybe our president does! And maybe the media does too. This isn't a question of where John Wayne was born which got Michelle Bachmann much attention, it gets at the centerpiece of the liberal philosophy.

Like much of Washington budgeting it is all about timing and definitions. Forget the fact that intervening administrations have created a Department of Education and a Department of Energy. Forget Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit and No Child Left Behind. Hell, forget all of Lyndon Johnson Great Society. The President said it so it must be true. Right?

Well, a few caveats:

1. We'll be on a path. The basic calculation is that Ike's number was 2.2% of GDP and Obama's vision will get us to 2.1% in 2015. Forget the fact that his 2012 budget (that was defeated 97 - 0 in the Senate) put discretionary non-security spending at 3.4% of GDP. If future Congresses and the next President follow his vision we'll get there.

2. Fortuitously for politicians, definitions have changed over the past half century and even the fact checkers cannot connect all of the dots. (Obama's categorization changes from non-defense to non-security.) What they do know is that things like the highway system have become "non-discretionary" as have Pell grants for college tuition. It helps to eliminate from the discussion Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Obamacare as "non-discretionary". And "security", that's a bigger category that gobbles up a lot of stuff that previously would not have been considered "defense" - well, get rid of the Department of Homeland Security stuff for example.

Somewhere on the staff of David Axelrod or David Plouffe there's got to be a junior intern looking up what the Secretary to the Second Chancery had to say about how to maintain the appearance of honesty in the face of deliberate distortions that are obviously false on their face. Perhaps she'll send a tweet.

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This week's video is a brief clip of the glorious victories by our Libyan allies four and a half months into the non-hostilities which have conservatively cost over a half billion dollars thus far.

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Comments

[Bill McCormick]

REMEMBER THE ALAMO-----

Harrycat when 2012 concludes you will see that your optimism about Obama's polling was just as unfounded as it was prior to 2010. Few can have much confidence in his leadership on many fronts at this point no matter what they feel about taxes, entitlements or debt. My guess is that his program to fix things later today or this week will be to have the Fed print more money and further devalue the currency. I just hope American workers are beginning to understand the value in supporting small businesses. And, I hope that when this market stops it's free fall there is something left of the pensions and savings of Americans.

As for your comment to Lisa on the polls I showed you why the polls are misleading. If you pay no tax and they ask you if you support raisng taxes then of course you are going to say "yes". That's pretty simple. It's like asking a kid if they want some free candy.

As for you being a fiscal conservative, it is inconceivable that you could be a fiscal conservative and favor Obama's policies.

[Harrycat]

Lisa - please do your research before you deny the polls:
Gallup 76 20
Ipsos/Reuters 61 27
Rasmussen 56 34
CNN 60 40
NBC/WSJ 62 27

Of course you can average - when they all say the same thing. Even Rasmussen.

Reps can deny, but the fact is the nation both blames Reps for the recent crises and wants a balanced approach. As Yogi Berra said "you can look it up", and you should.

For the record: I am a fiscal conservative and social liberal (sort of). I used to be in the middle, but the wack-job Rep party left me. If you aren't careful it will get very lonely on the right.

Bill M. - Deny, deny, deny, and your reasoning is a mess.

[Bill McCormick]

I actually believe it Harrycat. If 50% pay no taxes already then you would expect them to vote for more taxes to support them. So subtract that from the 65% and you have 15%. So the actual split is 15% for taxes versus 30% against it. So if those represent the 50% of Americans who support the system with their taxes it is 66% against and 33% for taxing the other guys-- MORE. You see how misleading polls are?

I am for a 1-2% minimum tax on everyone and a %40% tax on anyone making more than $20 Million a year for more than 5 years in a row. That way everyone who votes will have some "skin in the game". And, only the truly super rich will be over taxed. But, California and New York have proven that if you over tax the rich they move. Let's see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill just bought an Island somewhere. Wonder if there was any tax shelter in that? And, Senator Kerry parks his yacht in Rhode Island to avooid taxes--he's a liberal Democrat and now a member of our new deficit reduction committee. He'll be calling for new taxes on the rich--won't he? Hypocrite. Geitner cheated on his taxes and he's head of Treasury for the Democrats. Are we all suckers or what?

[LisainStLouis]

You can't average polls. Data is not collected the same way, same groups are not polled, questions asked are not the same. Talk to a true pollster and you will see what goes into creating any poll and you will see that seldom are they done in the same manner. You have a mish-mash when you average. Some lean left, some lean right. The best way to collect data is to find polls that you trust and then follow them looking for changes. At least then you are watching the same groups of people being asked the same questions using a poll that would seemingly have the same bias.

If you are still using pollstercom, Harrycat, and you know they are owned by the Huffington Post, that is fine. Just admit that it is a liberally biased way of looking at things. Be honest! You are a liberal. That is fine. I can respect that honesty. I am a conservative, a small government person.

[Harrycat]

A average of 23 polls asking if the responder thinks that balancing the budget should include raising taxes on the wealthy, versus spending cuts only, shows that raising taxes is preferred by 65% to 30%. Does the Rep party really feel that they are on the "right" side of this issue?

[Bill McCormick]

IT APPEARS TO ME-----

Here we go again. KUDOs for promptness as Senator Reid annonced his line up for the committee: Kerry --ultraliberal, Perry --anti business(the co-chair) and Baucus-- perhaps ok. Only Baucus on paper appears to be a reasonable negotiator. So, it appears the signal is set for another round of "line in the sand" committee workings. You know Pelosi will be even further left. McConnell is rumored to be considering moderates but after this perhaps he'll change. And, Boehner is likely going to send in people like Kantor, Ryan or Paul but perhaps not. Can we construct a group of compromising people to get to the cuts we need? It reamins to be seen but early indications are we are headed for more political war between now and Thanksgiving.

What we really need is leadership. Boehner and Reid could do it. Just premept the committee and get together and figure out $500B in cuts and call them back and pass it. Then let the rest find the other $1T. At least that would send the signal (that the President doesn't want to send himself) that American government really can work. It would also help if Reid and Boehner would sit down and agree to begin work on entitlement reform. The President seems frozen out of fear of his base and unable to come up with anything he can work on. At least Reid and Boehner could take him off the hook and let him raise money for 2012. I'm worried that he is going to panic and announce another round of spending or worse more devaluation of the dollar by the Feds. In effect his extension of the payroll tax reduction is already spending.

In a few more weeks 4 million (former) white construction workers come off unemployment benefits after 99 weeks and they are not happy. This is going to apply more pressure for extension of benefits--more pressure on the states and more spending. What will the market do then?

At least the committee is being formed. Now can it act and agree? Or is this another round of who did what to America?

[Bill McCormick]

NO SPIN ---

Harrycat: there are about 80 Tea Party members. 40 of them voted for the compromise and it passed. If the President had taken the $4T in cuts then Boehner likely would have gotten enough of them along with the Democrats to support and pass it. The problem here is we have a President who came in with an agenda and is now facing reelection. He'd like to win but not at the cost of rolling back his gains. So, he balked and lost. We all lost. What will win out however is the American economy. It will set us back but the lower oil prices will stimulate the economy and put more money in consumers pockets than any government program can. And, the lower stock prices will eventually create merging and buying opportunities for American companies to acquire their stock and to acquire other companies gaining market share. The problem is that the working people will get laid off and the companies will not expand operations. Instead they will continue to make profits by lowering costs and closing less efficient locations for a while. Obama hurts the people of his base when he fails to help American businesses grow. His programs raise costs and that creates reductions in force. His dream of "greeen jobs" is just that: a dream. His failure to stimulate energy production, his imposition of a healthcare plan that was poorly thought out and passed in haste simply threw the cost of uncovered workers on America's businesses and created more layoffs. His regulatory policies are creating more problems for small businesses who are slower to hire. What I can say is employers are continuing to interview and perhaps hiring will slow down for a while but in the end they will be back.If stocks and housing values stay low then baby boomers will put off retirement but they can't put off dying and eventually those 20 million jobs will be taken by younger people. The Tea Party is just a new name for Goldwater conservatives. They've always been there. Now they have a new name being exploited by the opposition. 80 votes does not run the country nor does it block anything that both parties support. It's a convienient excuse for a President who's over his head. And, let's all hope that Beck is not right and this President does not want the country to fail so progressives can restructure it. I prefer to think he just doesn't understand or appreciate capitalism.

[Harrycat]

Boehner never had a chance to make a deal. The TP Reps control enough votes that a deal involving increased revenue was not ever going to happen. Our system has allowed a fringe group of the party that controls one third of our political process to bring the economy of the world to the brink. Spin it any way you want, but S&P clearly identifies the TP radicals as the sand in the gears, not Boehner, not Obama, and not Pelosi.

[Bill McCormick]

PATHETICALLY WEAK-----

Afraid to act is the only way to describe what we just watched. The market down 400 when took the stage announcing more tax extensions while at the same time calling for more tax increases. Then he added that we need more infrastructure spending. MORE SPENDING! As if the same guys who build houses build roads.He spent $31B of the last trillion on infrastructure. Soon the unions with all these losses in the markets will be calling for pension bailouts. US small businesses the only ones hiring will be holding off. Then indirectly he blames the Republicans for taking us to the brink. The Democrats had full control up until January. He could have increased the debt ceiling then but instead he waited to put the blame on the Republicans. He walked away from a deal with Boehner that included $800B in tax increases that would have avoided all this for now. He knew Boenhner would not take it when he raised the request to $1.2T in new taxes. Leadership is trumped by political games with this President. One hour later the Dow is down $585. Even his remarks to the Seals was wishy washy and simply reminded the left that we are leaving.

[Bill McCormick]

THEY BLEW IT----

The President knew it, the leaders of Congress knew it as did the Feds. They all had been clearly told that there needed to ba a $4T cut in spending over ten years. The Tea Party was holding out for what they knew we had to have to avoid a downgrade. Like them or not they were right. S&P told us they would downgrade with anything less. So here we are after losing 16% in our investments over the last 6 weeks waiting anxiously to see how far down we go.

The President should immediately call in Boehner and Reid and tell them to find $1T in cuts for the next fiscal cycle beyond what they have now. And, they should reconvene Congress and find another $1T in cuts in the out years. The Hell with the "Commission". It is time for the leaders we elected to stand up and lead or step down.

Today is going to be an excellent day for US "Big" business leaders to put a lot of that cash to work buying back their stock and supporting the American system. Let's see if they do it.

And, finally, wouldn't it be nice if our President would remind the world he we are the best economy in the world and the most stable govenment to turn today into a buying opportunity. Instead all I hear is that this is Bush and the Tea Party's fault. Does anyone remember the budget proposed by Obama that was defeated 97-0? If that had gone through the US rating would be AA-.