Obama Sets Stage for Clash of Governing Ideals
By DAVID E. SANGER
NYT
WASHINGTON — At a moment when the momentum in Washington is driving toward slashing budgets and shrinking government, President Obama argued on Tuesday evening that the politics of austerity, mindlessly applied, would amount to a pre-emptive surrender to China, India and a raft of smaller competitors who are investing while Americans are cutting.
It is a theme Mr. Obama has struck repeatedly since the Democrats’ devastating losses in the midterm elections exactly 12 weeks ago. He warned soon after that America must “step up our game,” and on Tuesday night he told Congress and the nation that this is “our generation’s Sputnik moment.”
With those words, Mr. Obama was defining the ideological battle of the coming year: strikingly different views of the role of government, even as both sides agree that cuts will be necessary.
To the new Republican majority in the House, the path to restoring American “competitiveness” — the word itself is something of a Rorschach test — includes slashing taxes and getting the government out of the way. To Mr. Obama, even a leaner federal government must play a central role in guiding the country’s economic future, helping the United States to confront the rising economic powers that ate away at America’s lead while the country was distracted in the post-Sept. 11 decade.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — At a moment when the momentum in Washington is driving toward slashing budgets and shrinking government, President Obama argued on Tuesday evening that the politics of austerity, mindlessly applied, would amount to a pre-emptive surrender to China, India and a raft of smaller competitors who are investing while Americans are cutting.
It is a theme Mr. Obama has struck repeatedly since the Democrats’ devastating losses in the midterm elections exactly 12 weeks ago. He warned soon after that America must “step up our game,” and on Tuesday night he told Congress and the nation that this is “our generation’s Sputnik moment.”
With those words, Mr. Obama was defining the ideological battle of the coming year: strikingly different views of the role of government, even as both sides agree that cuts will be necessary.
To the new Republican majority in the House, the path to restoring American “competitiveness” — the word itself is something of a Rorschach test — includes slashing taxes and getting the government out of the way. To Mr. Obama, even a leaner federal government must play a central role in guiding the country’s economic future, helping the United States to confront the rising economic powers that ate away at America’s lead while the country was distracted in the post-Sept. 11 decade.
(More here.)
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