Retreating Forward

Congress will block it, but it’s popular with the voters.

What’s a president to do when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in his country? When the army of unemployed numbers 14 million (officially) and another army of 46 million officially lives below the poverty line? When the national budget has a deficit in the tens of billions of dollars? When his own economic competence is doubted by over 60 percent of the electorate?

Obama’s solution is to retreat forward to the front lines. While his administration thus far has been characterized by a willingness to compromise with Republicans, he’s now going on the offensive. He wants to raise taxes on the super-rich. He wants to close tax loopholes. Only then does he indicate any willingness to make further cuts in social programs, only when a tiny group of top earners makes an equally tiny contribution toward lowering the deficit.

The president’s recommendations don’t have the least chance of gaining congressional approval because Republicans have the necessary majority in the House of Representatives to block them. Their mantra of “no new taxes” has become dogma to them. But outside the beltway, Obama’s suggestions enjoy great popularity. Fourteen months before the elections that will determine the future occupants of the White House, the House of Representatives and part of the Senate, Obama’s suggestions are no longer being pitched to Congress, but to the voters.

The president is driving Republicans into a corner with his popular populist plans. He’s trying to show voters that he is the only one they can count on to solve their economic problems in a socially equitable manner — but he can’t do so until his second term in office.