Setting the Tone for a Presidential Narrative

After more than half a year of pugnacious Republicans bellowing about what they will not accept, it was refreshing to hear President Barack Obama go on the offensive in his speech before a joint session of Congress Thursday night. Now we have to see if he will maintain his assertiveness.

The President’s speech outlining the American Jobs Act contained the passion and no, nonsense tone that was missing from the White House and the Democrat Party. For too long, the GOP and its “tear down the government” minions were allowed to dictate the narrative coming out of Washington. In doing so, they created a false debt crisis that wasted precious time that could have and should have been spent on improving the American economy. And during that time, Obama and his party seemed content to allow the petulant children run amok through our nation’s Capitol.

But Thursday night the President stood firm, outlining a jobs package that should help to ease some of the pain cutting across our nation. Of course, the proposed jobs act will not solve all of our ills. Anyone who believes that it will is delusional. It can, however, be a driving force in restoring confidence in our national economy. Because of the dysfunction that is being passed off as political discourse, too many business leaders and consumers doubt our ability to throw off this economic malaise.

It does not matter that businesses are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash; taxes for corporations are at an all-time low with some companies paying little or no taxes; interest rates are well below anything we might have expected; the stock market, though volatile at times, is strong; and profits are high at many companies. There remains a disbelief about how we govern ourselves, and whether we will work together to move this nation forward.

That is why it was important for the President to speak to the heart of America, and it is even more important for Obama and the adults in Washington to be steadfast in seeking solutions to our nation's woes.

“No single individual built America on their own,” Obama said. “We built it together. We have been, and always will be, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all; a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another.”

While that declaration was a reminder of what it means to be an American, Obama's speech was an important call to action, an admonition that the problems we face are man-made, and, therefore, can and must be fixed by man.

The United States has been at its strongest when government, academia, labor, and business have worked together. The four did not have to always agree, nor did they have to be warm and fuzzy with each other. They just needed to respect what each brought to the table. When they did America emerged as a superpower, an exceptional example of not only what can be, but what should be. It is through that paradigm that America will again emerge strong.

If we rebuild the infrastructure we will create jobs that will provide people with disposable income, as well as upgrade the transportation system. If we invest in updating the electrical grid we not only create a better energy network, but we increase the potential for even more jobs. If we invest in research we can provide an environment that encourages new industry. If we revamp the business and personal tax codes, as well as set reasonable regulations on energy and the environment, we can give businesses the confidence that actions taken now will not be reversed after the fact. And if we increase the amount of money spent in the short-term, we can create the demand that leads to long-term development and job growth in the private sector.

“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union, founder of the Republican Party,” the President told us Thursday night. “But in the middle of a civil war, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican President who mobilized government to build the Transcontinental Railroad, launch the National Academy of Sciences, set up the first land grant colleges.”

Indeed, it is that kind of vision that we need now, not the myopic view of the world that permeates our national debates. We have allowed our eyes to become jaundiced, and in doing so we can no longer see what makes America great. It is not proclamations made by self-described patriots or damnations issued by political provocateurs. It is the willingness and the ability of Americans to come together to build, to fight for what is right, to put the nation above ourselves, to recognize that ideology, while a subtext in our story, is not the story.

“Ask yourselves – where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways, not to build our bridges, our dams, our airports?” Obama asked Congress. “What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the G.I. Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?

“How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip?” he continued. “What kind of country would this be if this chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?”

The answers to those questions may be too terrifying to ponder.

Our Don Quixote Moment

There is so much going on in this country that it is often hard to make sense of it all. From battles over education, to budget debates, to Wall Street bonuses, to banking reform, to assaults on collective bargaining, to corporate propaganda disguised as grass-roots advocacy, to tax cuts for the wealthy, to cuts to the safety net, to multi-billion dollar corporations paying little or no taxes. It just seems to be out of control and beyond belief, as if ignorance, anger, greed, and self-indulgence trump everything that occurs in this land.

Just look around the nation. Vindictive proposals are being peddled as fiscal restraint; fingers of blame are being pointed across the country, from right to left, and back again. And so few people are capable of engaging in honest and fair discussions that it is almost impossible to distinguish the truth from the lies.

The problems are most evident in the Congressional budget debate in Washington. Last year, during the midterm elections, Republicans declared that the Democratic controlled House and Senate should not pass a budget for the current fiscal year because of an anticipated change in power. Senate Republicans in the 111th Congress even blocked any budget deal with filibusters, and Democrats seeking re-election were more than willing to allow them.

Now, we are faced with a possible government shutdown, with the Republicans, who are seeking excessive cuts that cannot and should not pass, claiming it’s the Democrats fault, and vice versa. Meanwhile, the ignorant among us scream that the government should be shut down, as if sending 800,000 government workers home for a week or two will resolve the systemic problems that plague the government.

We know that making major cuts in the budget at this time would further slow the nascent economic recovery. Yet, Republicans and Tea Party operatives seek to slash every program for the sake of slashing. Retrenchment now, when confidence is beginning to build, would set back efforts to pull the nation out of its financial funk. That does not seem to matter to too many people, including those in Congress.

Instead of creating a workable solution to our economic problems, they rage and bellow against liberal policies, greedy unions, Socialism, and high tax rates for companies that actually may not even have to pay taxes because of numerous loopholes.

The same is being played out on local levels across the nation. There is no need to recount the assaults on collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida. They have been discussed ad nauseam. Nor is it necessary to detail the extensive cuts that various governments have proposed to education and social services programs, while giving tax breaks to businesses and the well-to-do.

There is such a disconnect in this country that honest and sincere debate is almost unheard of. Instead, everything is the fault of liberalism and socialism.

For example, The Detroit News ran two columns recently. One column, by Daniel Howes, tried to make sense of Detroit, asking whether the city is headed for further decline or revival. The second column, by Laura Berman, detailed how home vacancies had increased in the well-to-do communities of Oakland County, MI.

According to some of The News’ readers, at least those that are most vocal, the problem in Detroit and Oakland County were caused by liberals and socialism. It doesn’t matter that the economic meltdown began under President George W. Bush, who can be confused for many things, neither of which is liberal or socialist.

Missing from the debate about Detroit and Oakland County were the words greed, misguided optimism, economic crisis, hysteria, and the relation each has to the other.

It was greed that prompted lenders to provide money to anyone who asked, regardless of whether they could pay it back. Some lenders even went so far as to fudge numbers to make home loans. Who cared if the loans were paid back? The money was made by bundling the loans early, and passing the risk on to someone else.

Then, of course, there was the misguided optimism that the housing bubble would never burst, or if it did it would burst so far down the line that it would not matter to most people. That optimism was shattered by the very real economic crisis that saw a booming Wall Street pressed hard against a struggling Main Street.

As Wall Street struggled the hysteria set in. It’s the fat cats who caused the problems, critics screamed until the lobbyists and public relations firms turned everyone’s attention to other culprits. It’s the government, others said, particularly the public sector unions whose members have fat pensions and health packages. Actually, its teachers. It's all a liberal and socialist plot.

The result is we have become a country of Don Quixotes, lost in our delusions, unable to see the world for what it really is. Peasants are now princesses, buffoons are great thinkers, and the most honored are the most dishonorable.

It’s becoming harder and harder to make sense of it all.

Not So Lame Duck

After the results of the mid-term elections had been recorded, the 111th Congress seemed poised for a stalemate. Republicans were swaggering about, drunk on election results that saw them gain six seats in the Senate and control of the House of Representatives. Democrats, on the other hand, were licking their wounds; reeling from what President Barack Obama called a shellacking, and pointing fingers at each other.

Now that the 111th Congress has ended, one might wonder if, in some demented way, the rise of the Republicans will prove good for America. Power concentrated in the hands of a few is deadly. When those powerful few are intoxicated with arrogance and their own sense of self-importance it can be devastating. We need only look at the results of the 1994 mid-term elections when the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, took over the House of Representatives then quickly acted with utter disregard for what was in the best interest of the country. Arrogance led Gingrich and company to assume that they could do as they wished, including shutting down the Federal Government. It backfired on them.

It appeared that the Democrats, after they took control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in the 111th Congress, had not learned any lessons from the Gingrich years. Party leaders acted with impunity, ignoring the seeds of discontent being sowed throughout the country. Democrats argued among themselves, seeking not to lead, but rather to dictate through extremes. As a liberal, I am more than elated that we have a national health-care plan. I am also overjoyed with many of the other legislative initiatives enacted in the last two years. Yet I am also disappointed that others were not completed – a revamping and strengthening of No Child Left Behind, for example – and that some of those initiatives that I cherish were set in motion through arrogance and a disregard for debate.

Democratic control of the 111th Congress reminded me of a conversation I had with a white postal worker in New York City after the 1993 election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor.

"It's our time," the white postal worker proclaimed. "Now we're in control."

His statement carried the threat of revenge, a sense that it was time for white New York to lash back at the liberal agenda New York City had experienced. Enough with that liberal agenda and its leader, David N. Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, the postal worker argued as we continued to talk. White men had regained their rightful place in New York and they were ready to serve up retribution, he appeared to be saying. In his voice, and in the actions of many, there was a sense of entitlement and self-importance, a sense that now he and his put upon friends could finally put the city's minority population back in its place.

The comments that followed the 2010 mid-term elections carried the same threat. After two years of refusing to work with the current administration in an effort to win back Congress and make Obama a one term president, Republicans swore to continue their march, blocking all legislative action until they got what they wanted – a continuation of the tax cut for the wealthy. They did, indeed, receive what they sought. But at what price?

After the initial bellowing and grandstanding, several Republicans finally stood up and did the right things. The results were not totally to my liking, just as I am sure they were not to yours. But for the first time in many years, Washington seemed to at least be moving toward solutions to the problems that plague us as a nation.

Of course, this is not to absolve the far right of the Republican Party. They were obstructionists for the last two years, and they will seek to be obstructionists for the next two. Nor is it meant to coddle the far left of the Democratic Party, for many of them acted with the same arrogance as Gingrich's GOP majority.

At least, for a few days, we can bask in the sense of accomplishment that permeated Washington for the last few weeks. In doing so, we cannot forget that the afterglow of the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress was created by cross-aisle communication. And with a new year approaching, we should pray that leveler heads will prevail and more legislators will have the gumption to stand up, reach out to their counterparts and say, "Let's fix what we has been broken for too long."