Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Liberalism, Taxes | Tags: 60-Minutes Interview, Based On a Myth, Class Warfare
On Sunday, 60–Minutes’ Steve Kroft interviewed President Obama on a wide range of topics, including Obama’s performance in office, the U.S. economy, unemployment, congressional gridlock and the mounting deficit.
“After months of listening to attacks from Republican presidential candidates and congressional leaders, President Obama took off the gloves this past week and emerged in full campaign mode. It began with a major speech in the nation’s heartland, with a vigorous defense of his economic policies, directed at the middle class.”
I was under the impression that President Obama had been in full campaign mode for months. What was all that flying Airforce One all over the country for fundraising speeches, sometimes as many as three a day? Kroft said “I mean you were really talking [in your Kansas speech] about income inequality,which suggests redistribution of wealth.
Obama: Look, the problem is, is that our politics has gotten to the point, where we can’t have an honest conversation about the greatest income inequality since the 1920s. And we can’t have an honest conversation about the irresponsibility that resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, without somebody sayin’ that somehow we’re bein’ divisive. No, we’re bein’ honest about what happened and we’ve gotta be honest about how we move forward.
(Have you noticed that when Obama is in campaign mode—just talkin’ to the folks—he drops his ‘g’s all over the place, but doesn’t do it elsewhere? )
Kroft: Why do you think you deserve to be re-elected? What have you accomplished?
Obama: Not only saving this country from a Great Depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re gonna start lowering health care costs and you’re never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Makin’ sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts and the system is more stable and secure.
Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. But when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re– we’re gonna keep on at it.
(There was one notable exchange:)
Obama: What happened was that [the Republicans] made overtures, where they were willing to raise about $200 billion in exchange for $2 trillion or so worth of cuts of core programs like Medicare that seniors depend on for their security in their golden years. And what I said to them was a balanced approach means exactly what it says. It means it’s balanced. What we haven’t seen is any serious movement on the other side.
Steve, the math is the math. You can’t lower rates and raise revenue., unless you’re getting revenue from someplace else. Now either it’s comin’ from middle class families or poor families or it’s comin’ from folks like you and me that can afford to pay a little more.
What Obama does not grasp is that the problem is a spending problem. The government is spending way too much money. He is clinging desperately to his idea that Keynesian economics — putting a few taxpayer dollars into the hands of consumers will create demand— which will cause business to improve and in turn generate more jobs. Trouble is, it doesn’t work.
The economists who established that were Christina Romer (Obama’s first Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors) and her husband in a celebrated study of what worked in recessions and what didn’t. (Not sure what happened there). What works, is making it as easy as possible for companies to hire — reducing the corporate tax to a level more equal to the rest of the world, reducing regulations. Obama remains convinced that the reason for “the worst economy since the Great Depression” is that there weren’t enough regulations controlling business. Business was heavily regulated already , and the financial crisis was caused by the collapse of the housing bubble, not a lack of regulation.
The math may be the math, but Obama’s is incorrect. If you lower rates, you will raise revenue. If you increase the opportunity for business to make a profit, business profits will improve and you will therefore get more in tax revenue. You won’t raise revenue enough from that, nor would you raise revenue enough from taxing ‘the rich’— even though they are rich, they don’t have enough money to fix the deficit.
I just don’t believe that most people are consumed with class envy. I keep trying to figure out how Bill Gates’ wealth, or Warren Buffett’s wealth, or even someone in the mere multi-millionaire class, has had the slightest negative effect on me. They didn’t take any of my money to become millionaires and billionaires. Well, I take that back, I’ve willingly paid for and enjoyed the benefits of many Microsoft products. I got my money’s worth. Bill and Melinda Gates are making a huge effort to do good things for the world with their Microsoft wealth, and Warren Buffett admires their efforts so much that he’s adding much of his wealth to the effort. Good for them.
I just can’t think of anything which a millionaire or billionaire has done that affects me negatively in any way. The idea of wealth as a pie — if Bill and Warren make more money then there is less left for the rest of us — is a myth. And it is the myth on which Obama’s class warfare depends. If millionaires and billionaires make more money, the economy grows to accommodate the increased money. In other words, he’s counting on fooling people once again.
