Getting Back to a Grand Bargain
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT
THIS is not an easy time to be president or minority leader. Our cupboard is bare, and the only thing we have in surplus is political venom. Indeed, if political venom could be turned into a transportation fuel, we’d be energy independent today.
Alas, it’s just venom, and it’s weakening us — along with everything else we’ve done to sap our national vitality. We have underinvested in the sources of our strength — infrastructure, government-funded scientific research, education and immigration — over the last two decades, opting to consume rather than save and invest. To make up the difference, we chose to stimulate our economy with massive borrowing that all went bad in 2008, leaving us with a huge deleveraging challenge, millions of mortgages under water and the economy nearly at a standstill. Finally, our political system has become paralyzed by partisanship to a degree that has many citizens, and investors, depressed and wondering whether we are capable anymore of collective action. (And, if we’re not, why risk investing now?)
I’ve been arguing that the only antidote to this debilitating situation is a Grand Bargain between the two parties — one that cuts long-term entitlement spending and raises additional tax revenues to get our fiscal house in order, while making short-term investments in the sources of our strength (particularly new schools and community colleges, scientific research and roads, bandwidth, mass transit and airports) that can also cushion this recession. While President Obama has talked generally about such a Grand Bargain, he has never put a detailed offer before the American people and his own party faithful. It was a failure of leadership.
Thursday night in his speech before Congress, President Obama finally rose to that challenge in a thoughtful, credible and substantive fashion.
(More here.)
NYT
THIS is not an easy time to be president or minority leader. Our cupboard is bare, and the only thing we have in surplus is political venom. Indeed, if political venom could be turned into a transportation fuel, we’d be energy independent today.
Alas, it’s just venom, and it’s weakening us — along with everything else we’ve done to sap our national vitality. We have underinvested in the sources of our strength — infrastructure, government-funded scientific research, education and immigration — over the last two decades, opting to consume rather than save and invest. To make up the difference, we chose to stimulate our economy with massive borrowing that all went bad in 2008, leaving us with a huge deleveraging challenge, millions of mortgages under water and the economy nearly at a standstill. Finally, our political system has become paralyzed by partisanship to a degree that has many citizens, and investors, depressed and wondering whether we are capable anymore of collective action. (And, if we’re not, why risk investing now?)
I’ve been arguing that the only antidote to this debilitating situation is a Grand Bargain between the two parties — one that cuts long-term entitlement spending and raises additional tax revenues to get our fiscal house in order, while making short-term investments in the sources of our strength (particularly new schools and community colleges, scientific research and roads, bandwidth, mass transit and airports) that can also cushion this recession. While President Obama has talked generally about such a Grand Bargain, he has never put a detailed offer before the American people and his own party faithful. It was a failure of leadership.
Thursday night in his speech before Congress, President Obama finally rose to that challenge in a thoughtful, credible and substantive fashion.
(More here.)
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