What Obama should have done in 2009

[Bull Moose Base]

Should have gone for a bigger stimulus with more in the way of infrastructure spending as opposed to tax cuts,

Didn't have the votes for it.  But I agree he should have tried harder and pointed out the GOP blocked it when he came down.

With 60 votes, he should have sunsetted the Bush tax cuts for high income workers forever, put a public option in the HCR legislation and went for the payroll tax cut all to help out the lower to middle class not just the banks and auto unions.

He tried on Bush tax cuts for rich in 2010.  Fell short.  We got the payroll tax cut.  Didn't have the votes for the public option but idea has support nationally so there should be a way to get the votes.

[Bull Moose Base]

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tempered expectations for pace of recovery.
sold, at every turn, idea of government intervention to push recovery along.

[Bull Moose Base]

But, I do agree with Torie that Obama, having made a big deal of giving Simpson-Bowles its marching orders after GOP Senators bolted on it, should have embraced its findings and approach in the budget negotiations of last year.  It would have been THAT, and not any hypothetical redo of 2009, that would have allowed him to change the narrative of this election, whether Congress would have allowed the plan to pass or not.

How do you think the narrative would be different now?

[Bull Moose Base]

How do you think the narrative would be different now?

It has taken a while to sink in with me, because I'm dumb, but I have come around to thinking that, if there was at least one substantive takeaway message from the 2010 election results, it was that people were beginning to worry not just about the economic recovery, which requires growth and not just government spending, but also about how much debt was piling up, 

I'm not at all sure about that interpretation of the midterms.  Polling after the midterms, when the beltway pundits were freaking out about the debt, showed the public actually didn't care about it that much.  People who did care about it were definitely more motivated to turn out and vote in 2010, while, as usual, the party who just won the White House, young voters and minorities, were less likely to turn out.  But there's also no way of knowing the effect of debt because there's no controlled experiment for the bad economy, which was always going to be brutal for the incumbent party.  Actually, I think it's very likely Democratic spending cuts to Medicare actually boosted the Republicans into power (where they immediately voted to end Medicare as we know it.)  Republicans probably think so too which is why they spent all that money running ads about it.

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GOP would have blocked Simpson-Bowles then attacked Obama for the growing debt.  Just as they are attacking him for the debt while simultaneously fighting desperately to extend the Bush tax cuts and reverse Pentagon spending cuts.  And attacking him on job growth while blocking his jobs bill.  Would the public have cared what Obama tried to do?  Not clear.  Obama pushed for a jobs bill that non-partisan economists say would have had a million more people working right now and for a $4 trillion debt reducer deal that was mostly (delayed) spending cuts and the GOP killed both.  He's in a tie race with the GOP.  I do think he should have explained most of the debt growth in his presidency came from the crash that preceded his election, which he still can I guess.