On the face of it the Republican Party should be in the pound seats - they won the midterms in grand style. They now control the House and the Senate and they can set the agenda. The Democrats by contrast should be cowering in a corner rushing to regroup, cringing at the upcoming clearcut GOP legislative onslaught. If this was indeed the narrative then it should have been easy to see who were the Democrats and who were the Republicans in the President’s State of the Union address - but it wasn’t. The Republicans looked glum and you would have sworn it was the Dems that were fresh off an electoral triumph as they hailed their all conquering leader. It appears that win, lose or draw the GOP is too mired down in its identity crisis to be happy about anything. Obama too knows that his populist manifesto has little hope with the paralyzed Republicans but he can spend two years thumping it up and down the country in effect giving Hillary a big big push.
The theme of the Commander in Chief’s call to the nation was to the values that had resulted in the American Republic’s fame and international domination. In addition he outlined specific remedies in order to be get the country back on a financial equity track again. The basis of his message was the need to return to the American dream where if you worked hard you would be appropriately rewarded, that the USA was a nation of immigrants and that justice and democracy here and abroad were overarching values. He also warned against attempts to undo what has already been done - he would veto that! The Commander in Chief pleaded, more in hope than in sincerity Jay H. Ell imagines, “for an end of the tired old ways”.
Initial Republican response to the State of the Union: Two cameos told it all - behind Obama Vice President Biden was beaming and Speaker Boehner was squirming and the other giveaway was the new refurbished Republicans needed 5 disparate responses to the POTUS State of the Union address reflecting the chaos within the Party. This did not stop every other Presidential candidate from chiming in adding to the confusion as to where the GOP wanted to go.
OBAMA RUBS HIS ECONOMIC SUCCESSES IN GOP FACES
Obama took credit for the fact that the unemployment rate had dramatically decreased, (it was 10% in February 2010 and was now below 6%), that eleven million jobs had been created, the stock market values had doubled, the defunct American iconic motor car industry was once again thriving, ten million more Americans had health care, manufacturing jobs in America were on the increase, consumer confidence was increasing, (together with increased property values and housing start ups), the country has decreased its dependence on foreign oil and had become the biggest producer of energy in the world, the average American was saving $750 annually on the lower cost of petroleum, the deficit has decreased by two thirds, taxpayer bailouts of “too big to fail” companies were less likely and watchdogs had been appointed to prevent predatory credit card practices, for example.
At the annual economic conference at Davos in Switzerland the cognoscenti were marveling at the USA recovery from the 2008 recession. Every other country is still in the doldrums, even China, but the USA through bold financial moves, thinking outside the box, by the administration and the Federal Reserve, righted the ship and its now full steam ahead.
Republican response during the recession: The POTUS hammered home the fact that throughout all his administration’s stratagems to effect this recovery, the GOP had sneered that, “Goals were to ambitious or misguided, that we would crush jobs or explode deficits”. In fact the President was subject to a steady stream of ridicule and abuse throughout and now was payback time.
Republican Response Immediately following State of the Union: Mitch McConnell, the new Senate Majority Leader unabashedly put the economic recovery down to the fact that the GOP were now in control of the legislative process!
THE MIDDLE CLASS “PROBLEM”
While employment is up the income gap between the one percenters and the rest, particularly the middle class, is increasing by leaps and bounds and is at its highest since the Great Depression in 1928. According to the Pew Research the top 1 percent are garnering nearly 23 percent of the income while the bottom ninety percent are sharing less than 50 percent. When overall wealth is measured these discrepancies were that much higher.
Obama was far reaching in his legislative suggestions to reduce this gaping disparity in income. These included:
* An increase in the minimum wage - Obama challenged those against it to live on $15,000 a year.
* To provide two years free tuition at community colleges.
* To fix interest rates on student loans that are outstanding.
* To provide a credit of $3000 where both members of the family work.
* To alleviate the high cost of child care where both parents are employed.
* To provide a Credit of $500 per child.
* To exact an excise fee from the richest banks.
* To provide for a mandatory 7 days paid sick leave.
All this would be paid for by an increase in the Capitol Gains Tax rate from twenty - four to twenty - eight percent which it was under Ronald Reagan and would only applicable for those earning more than $500,000. The reason for this is most of the income of the one percenters is regarded as Capital gains. In addition there would closing of some of the shelters that the chosen group use to avoid death duties that only kick in over $5 million!
Republican Response then, now and forever: To a man they stoutly defended the privilege of the one percenters with the lame argument, “That why should they be punished for making all that money?”. These are the “job creators”, “the givers” while all the rest were “the takers”. There was total denial of the fact that the poster child of all this, the last Republican Presidential candidate fat cat, Romney pays 17% income tax which is about the same rate a married couple earning $20,000. There was denial too that the minimum wage was no longer an entry level school vacation salary when so many Americans had the minimum wage as their full time and permanent salary.
One wonders how much longer the GOP base is going to buy this baloney and continue voting for the fat cats to pay less tax than them while they struggle to make their stagnant wages go further?
SOCIAL ISSUES AND CLIMATE
Obama covered all the hot button issues from immigration, to LGBT rights and abortion. The GOP has an ongoing response to this, and it is “no way hosay". Already they have proposed that Obama’s executive action be nullified on immigration. Their original motion on abortion was so off the wall that female GOP congressional members revolted and it had to be modified but nevertheless even what followed won’t play in Peoria. He wants and is going to shut Guantanamo Bay political prison. He banned torture from day one - the latter is “Not who we are”.
He all but scoffed at the Republicans disbelief at climate change. In response the perennial Romney ,the GOP frontrunner for the 2016 Presidential nomination, (can you believe it), says he is one of the Republicans that believe in climate change, once again accentuating another of the cleavages in the Grand Old Party.
FOREIGN POLICY
This was also bragging rights time - he delivered on Iraq and Afghanistan - there are only 15,000 “advisors” left. The Obama doctrine of no boots on the ground is being stuck to with the fight against terrorism which he and all the world pledged against. Drones are the order of the day and a promise was made to review the policy. Also America’s financial diplomatic might was another string to his bow in international relations as Russia was being brought to its knees partly by sanctions.
Obama maintained that he was on the verge of a breakthrough with Iran on its nuclear program and any attempt to increase sanctions he would veto. The fact that Iran were around the table was another example in this digital age how America can utilize financial pressure to effect political victory.
The long overdue recognition of Cuba was widely accepted throughout the country and left the GOP flatfooted. However their expected knee-jerk action to oppose anything Obama, regardless of the political consequences, followed. Senator Mark Rubrio, the son of a Cuban refugee, was anointed as the spokesperson on the subject and he hysterically attacked the decision.
AT THE END OF THE DAY.
Same old same old
The GOP are giving us the same old same old playing to their minute financial and static social base which gives them no hope of winning a national election. Their only actual legislation is to pass the Keystone pipeline that actually maybe veto proof. For the rest it is undo Obama and leave the policy making to the activist right wing Supreme Court.
GOP, Netanyahu, Israel and Iran
There is one area that they could really dent Obama and that is Iran. For this they have flouted diplomatic convention by calling in a recruit, Israeli Premier Bibi Netanyahu to plead their cause at a joint session. Bibi always does best when running for office in America where he received his formative training. The Israeli PM is running in an election at home as well and is no shoo in. So between this and military action in Lebanon he is hoping to revive the dying interest in his sterile premiership.
Netanyahu just persists in biting the hand that feeds him. His memory is pathetic - Who bailed him out just a few weeks ago at the Security Council on Abbas’s Palestinian Statehood move and who came out on the same day as Israel condemning the International Court at the Hague for investigating Israel for war crimes? Bibi persists in intervening in another country’s domestic affairs. Has one ever heard of a premier from one nation actively campaigning in another nation's legislative forum against the host country’s administration? No wonder Kerry and Obama will not be meeting him on this visit. Shame on him and shame on the politically bankrupt Republicans for interfering in delicate foreign policy negotiations for short term gain.
However as Jay H. Ell has blogged if Obama sells out on Iran, which he and his administration repeatedly reassure that they will not, he is toast. On the other hand if his diplomatic and financial moves force them to concede on their nuclear ambitions he will have changed the world and the latter’s territorial ambitions. The sixty - four million dollar question is how can Iran allow this financial tourniquet to remain around its neck for ever?
2016, Hillary and The GOP
You now have a gung ho President back on the campaign trail, where he is at his best, detailing his agenda, which all the Dems, (now!), enthusiastically acknowledge was their policy all the while. All the GOP can respond is merely to threaten to undo Obamacare, immigration edicts and other Presidential achievements. They have no immigration legislation, no proposals as to where the money would come to uplift the middle class that they proposed to champion other to take it away from the selfsame middle class's safety nets such as Social Security and Medicare.
Three terms in the WhiteHouse is rare for one party. It requires sound economic conditions and an outgoing President with good approval ratings otherwise the electorate just go against the party in power. In effect you are voting for a third term of the outgoing President. Reagan - Bush 41 was the last to do it. Gore blew it as Clinton, (Bill that is), left him with high approval ratings and a flourishing economy. Gore was determined to run as his own man, and although Bush 43 needed the Supreme Court to push him over the line, Gore was his own worst enemy deliberately snubbing Clinton, (Bill that is).
Clinton, (Hillary that is), is unlikely to make the same mistake. With regard to the President's State of the Union Hillary maintained that Obama had pointed the way to an economy that works for all. "Now we need to step and deliver for the middle class". Obama had already anointed her two years ago in an unprecedented interview on Sixty Minutes. The economy has steadied itself and the POTUS will spend the next two years making it quite clear that it is the GOP that are preventing the middle class from improving their lot. His approval ratings are improving by the day and the Rasmussen poll already has him at fifty percent.
As for the Republican party one can just sigh that this great party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower is so bereft of ideas and cannot come to terms with the new America with its advances in women’s rights and its mix of cultures that will result in the white population being outnumbered by the mid century. They have as many potential candidates as they have factions in the party, none of whom seriously looks like President 45. This motley crew will have a blog to itself in the near future.
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