Is Obama Burnt Out?

[Kulindahr]

Well, now...

That was below the belt, Kulindahr.

And here I thought we were making some progress...

Did you even read the post I was describing?

I was being nice.

 

[Kulindahr]

Reagan carried out, full scale war against poor people, and people facing temporary setbacks.

We can thank Reagan and his massive tax increases on social programs and hidden taxes on the middle class, while he sliced and diced a number of them. He slashed taxes on the rich. But 3 of his most horrific decisions regarding taxes are:

The Alternative Minimum Tax! This originally was only supposed to hit 155 individuals. Under Reagan's two large changes in 1982 and 1986 it put it on its tragectory that its now on where it will hit about 50% of middle class filers this year, and expands every year here on out.

In 1982 Reagan had the IRS start taxing unemployment benefits along with other social benefits! It's effectively a 20% to 25% cut across the board on these programs! It's disgusting! Obama was the first President to try to help this awful tax "gotcha" many people don't know about until they get their tax bill, by making the first $ 2,400 of each year's unemployment benefits "non-taxable". Additionally, he screwed renters over by removing tax breaks for investors building rental properties, which was a large reason for the S&L disaster shortly thereafter. He also, instituted the start of phaseouts for Schedule A deductions, which have hammered many an upper-middle / middle class taxpayer.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Equity_and_Fiscal_Responsibility_Act_of_1982
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Minimum_Tax
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/UnemploymentInsurance.html

"Slashed taxes on the rich" -- and got the Alternative Minimum Tax to balanced that -- so more than a few of the rich ended up paying more (JohanBessler can fill in details).

Taxing unemployment was dumb. But I would have agreed with stopping subsidize people building apartments; those folks went ahead and charged all they could get away with anyway.

 

[Kulindahr]

Getting back on-topic, the reason Reagan was brought into this discussion was his excitement, positive attitude, and excitement for America. None of which I see in Obama.

I watched Obama the other day talking to a group -- don't know which one it was -- he was talking like he was giving a lecture. Very boring.

Again, the point was that Obama could learn from Reagan's attitude -- the point had nothing to do with his policies.

Quite. Reagan had a charisma that kept people some of his idiocy was screwing, cheering for America and optimistic about the future.

 

[Kulindahr]

So in your world..... it's not WHAT he says, it's HOW he says it. Oh I see now, it's all about style. He must have worn the "correct" tie because you didn't describe that in a disparaging fashion.

However Mrs. Obama and her sleeveless dresses are incorrect. First Ladies are supposed to wear Laura Bush pant suits and look up adoringly at their husbands and bat their eyes.

Yet another Republican sore loser.

You must have been in the Rove SOS -- School of Spin.

This post is another fine example of twisting someone's words to say something entirely different -- or just hauling in a pile of fictions and stringing them together.

 

[MoltenRock III]

But I would have agreed with stopping subsidize people building apartments; those folks went ahead and charged all they could get away with anyway.

It was more of a community lending / tax credit issue, not just a broad build apartments anywhere kind of thing. It tipped nominal projects over the line into being profitable. It would have been fine if they had unwound it slowly, but instead it was cut virtually overnight. Suddenly, the tax policy did a 180 degree, turnabout. This massive, overnight change, was a big portion and reason the S&L debacle happened. Remember the S&Ls were only able to loan money for housing projects, at most. They weren't allowed most of the diversification avenues commercial banks had.

 

[Kulindahr]

I understand what you're saying. I just find it tragic Jack, that America is so damn dumb that they'd rather be titillated by a snake oils salesman like Beck or Reagan, all the while they are getting screwed, but hey! At least they feel good about it! Whoo hooo!

It's why Gore had such a problem connecting. People found him too professor like. People like slogans and sound bytes. Again, I'm in the advertising business so I know this very well. However, big, fundamental problems and challenges facing America can't be summed up in a pithy phrase or sound byte on how to fix America. And when an Obama or Gore try to explain it to people of what it will take, they are turned off because they're "bored", or "don't want to be talked down to", or similar. Instead, these people rally around (typically Republicans) a pithy phrase that does nothing, fixes nothing, and changes nothing. It just sounds really nice.

Think about it, how do you sum up fixing the nation's energy problem, transportation problem, healthcare, and other large issues in 10 seconds or less? Or even 30 seconds or less? I do this for a living, and I can't. It can't be done. But if Americans aren't interested in learning about anything then the country deserves the fucking its getting, and will continue to get until things change fundamentally. *shrug* I wish it was easier Jack, but it ain't.

Interesting -- you tip back and forth between actually speaking to the issue and misrepresenting it.

As for those large issues, Reagan could have handled energy and transportation in under thirty seconds -- probably together. If I recall his voice in my head, I can hear it happening quite easily.

Health care... give him a whole minute.

See, the trouble isn't addressing an issue thoroughly, it's describing it in a way that makes people trust you to do the details (a very uncertain proposition with Reagan, but a fair bet with Obama), and in a way that makes them want to cheer you on and support you. Most voters don't want to be students in your university classroom, they want to be helped to see where you're leading.

Beck has a fair batch of that, but even those who like him frequently couldn't tell you where he's aiming them, if their and their loved ones' lives depended on it. But he lacks the substance underneath that could make people actually trust him to do the job.

Much as I despise FDR and his delight in moving the country closer to what his bosom buddy Josef had, the man had both of the qualities needed: he had the organizational and decision-making skills to demonstrate that he had a handle on things and understood things, and he had the ability to get people to listen and pitch in. Reagan had the latter to an astounding extent, but came in far behind FDR in the substance.

Obama has got substance. He can wrap his mind around an issue and examine it from half the points on the compass all at once. People should trust him to pull us through all this mess -- but only his fans do, for the most part, because he can't put that substance into some pithy phrases that will energize people, in a way that says he can boil the complexity down, toss away the dross, and carry that burden along ahead of us, and make us want to come along.

It's that quality which Reagan had, and Obama lacks, that is the point in this thread. After all, if a man unable to focus on more things at once than he could count on one hand could get Americans motivated, how much more a man who can juggle that many and need to borrow some Cabinet members hands and feet as well to number how many things he can be aware of and track on at once?

 

[Kulindahr]

It's not just one sound byte or phrase -- we listen to many before we make decision on who we want to put our trust in.

My take is that we have too much communication -- too much thoughtless communication. We talk too quickly without thinking. When people had to write letters they put more care into what they wanted to say. Now we just talk.

We blog. We tweet. We chat. We text. We use cell phones.

During elections all we hear are negative ads from both sides. Most people, including me don't know what to believe anymore.

Too much communication -- interesting proposal.

Yet that only shifts things: in spite of too much communication, Reagan would focus in a way that would cut through most of it and make people think that America really can get through this. Obama, OTOH, seems far too much like just another droning voice.

Oh no, I get your point. It's Obama bashing. What's the next problem going to be?

Your omelette at IHOP okay this morning or was is slightly undercooked?

Fox News couldn't do better.

Read again. You STILL don't get it.

Actually, I think he gets it; he just wants to idolize Obama and yell at people who don't so he doesn't have to take seriously any suggestion that Obama might be flawed -- even if it's positive input saying, "You know, if Obama could do this, he'd be so much better!"

Really, Bob, there's no Obama bashing going in, except in your imagination. No one is suggesting that Obama is a piece of trash who would be elevated to heights of glory if he'd just become a Republican, in fact what I gather is that the people here who have gotten the point are saying that Obama may not be all we need, but he does have substance and a lot of knowledge, and the ability to turn that into solutions, but he'd be closer to stellar than good if he could pick up that one skill/talent that Reagan had.

I keep thinking as I read and post here of whether it was inborn or learned, and if inborn, can it be learned?

Like it or not, if next month we started hearing Obama speak and communicate like Reagan, there'd be no question any more of whether he could hold the White House. The only question would be how many of their members with brains the Republicans in Congress would be counting out of their reckoning, and how many Americans would start calling their senators and representatives and telling them that Obama has the vision, so get in there and work with him... and foreign leaders would realize that here is someone to contend with, because he doesn't just have a nation out there beyond his desk, but standing behind him, praying for him and cheering him on and willing to sacrifice because they know he's not just the President, but their President.

That's what we're talking about.

 

[Kulindahr]

I honestly think with the advent of technology and various SCOTUS rulings over the past 20 years, there is only one solution left. Elections public financed. Until you get the onslaught of corporate and special interest monies out of the electoral process nothing is going to change. Nothing! Having Congress tweak a law here and there, ain't going to work. I am almost positive this has to come from a group of states getting together and enforcing their mandates that candidates must abide by their rules in order to be considered. Remember, the Constitution give states wide leeway in deciding how their Senators and House members are chosen.

There's another solution than public financing: a constitutional amendment defining "person" for the sake of rights protected by the Constitution, at least as regards involvement in the political process. Define a person as a living human who is, or will be, eligible to vote, i.e. citizens.

The only role I can see for public financing would be to make the playing field broader -- but with a 'two-party system', that's a bit on the impossible side. But if anything's burnt out in D.C. I'd say it's the two-party system.

 

[Kulindahr]

It was more of a community lending / tax credit issue, not just a broad build apartments anywhere kind of thing. It tipped nominal projects over the line into being profitable. It would have been fine if they had unwound it slowly, but instead it was cut virtually overnight. Suddenly, the tax policy did a 180 degree, turnabout. This massive, overnight change, was a big portion and reason the S&L debacle happened. Remember the S&Ls were only able to loan money for housing projects, at most. They weren't allowed most of the diversification avenues commercial banks had.

Ah -- the dynamics are in the details.

That fits what I noticed when at OSU: gobs of apartment buildings of a similar age (and design), but not more than three new ones anywhere near campus.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Interesting -- you tip back and forth between actually speaking to the issue and misrepresenting it.

As for those large issues, Reagan could have handled energy and transportation in under thirty seconds -- probably together. If I recall his voice in my head, I can hear it happening quite easily.

Health care... give him a whole minute.

As I said, the only reason a conservative like Reagan can sum it up in 30 seconds or so, is because HE'S AGAINST IT AND NOT GOING TO DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT! Don't you see the difference? It's very easy to come up with a slogan for a position that makes someone feel good/nice, but doesn't do anything. That's easy! I can come up with 50 slogans overnight that would sell nothing but "feel good'ism".

There's a huge difference between just blathering shit that is pithy, vs. explaining a policy that needs to work for America by a person actually interested in doing something about a huge problem. Make sense?

 

[Kulindahr]

Molten, you just did what you might call a Republican, as in "doing a Republican": you ignored the content of the discussion, redefined it in a way you'd rather talk about (as opposed to the actual discussion), and made a "reply" that dealt with ... nothing.

Corrections:

1. Reagan summed up things in thirty seconds that he was focused on and wanted people to be excited about -- this is history. And he did get people excited that way -- also history.

2. All good policies can be summed up briefly. No matter how complex something is, it can be packed into a goal statement, a vision statement.

3. The ability to formulate substantive policy and communicate it to the public in memorable statements are not mutually exclusive.

That's what this has been about. To attribute the talent Reagan had to stupidity and maintain that because someone is intelligent he can't communicate core concepts to the public is not only self-contradictory but in a sense cowardly. If stupidity can do it, so can intelligence. You don't have to pack everything into the short statements -- Reagan, after all, left us basically clueless about how others could be convinced to reduce the number or nuclear weapons, in fact he himself was aware he himself didn't understand it -- but he knew it needed to be done, and he got across to the American public that it was a good thing to do. And when a moment came, he seized it -- the epitome being his "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" that made his speechwriters and handlers cringe, but which stirred vision in more than one set of people.

Lastly, if you can come up with a slogan to sell "feel-good-ism", then you can come up with one to sell substance.

 

[MoltenRock III]

There's another solution than public financing: a constitutional amendment defining "person" for the sake of rights protected by the Constitution, at least as regards involvement in the political process. Define a person as a living human who is, or will be, eligible to vote, i.e. citizens.

The only role I can see for public financing would be to make the playing field broader -- but with a 'two-party system', that's a bit on the impossible side. But if anything's burnt out in D.C. I'd say it's the two-party system.

And it will never come up, nor pass to be circulated to the states.

The federal politicians will never handicap themselves (according to the way they think). It will have to come from the states. An amendment even if it could or would pass, would take 7 or more years to circulate to get its approval, which won't happen any day soon. Think about it, it requires a 2/3rds approval in the House (which maybe, maybe might pass with enough arm twisting), a 2/3rds vote in the Senate (LMAO! This will never happen), and then circulate to be passed by 2/3rds of the states (I think I just saw a pig fly just now.)

 

[Kulindahr]

And it will never come up, nor pass to be circulated to the states.

The federal politicians will never handicap themselves (according to the way they think). It will have to come from the states. An amendment even if it could or would pass, would take 7 or more years to circulate to get its approval, which won't happen any day soon. Think about it, it requires a 2/3rds approval in the House (which maybe, maybe might pass with enough arm twisting), a 2/3rds vote in the Senate (LMAO! This will never happen), and then circulate to be passed by 2/3rds of the states (I think I just saw a pig fly just now.)

The only trouble I see there is the Senate.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Actually, I misstated the states needed to invoke/pass an amendment.

2/3rds of the states are needed to vote for a Constitutional amendment to be initiated.

To RATIFY an amendment 3/4ths of the states need to vote in favor of it. Therefore, currently it takes 38 states to pass it. There's no way 38 states would agree to something like this, especially with the years it would take, and the all out advertising blitz corporations would launch against it.