There You Go Again

I think the largest reason Obama seemed overwhelmed by his opponents aggressive, lying attacks in last nights debate was because he was afraid of one line: Ronald Reagan's quip "There You Go Again". It was dishonest in 1980 (Carter argued that Reagan had fought medicare and was fighting Carter's plan, which was true, but Reagan claimed he had an alternative, which he didn't), but that didn't seem to matter.  Over and over, Romney lied about Obama's policy and his own proposals, or blamed him for things which were clearly not his fault.  For example, a few days after he was inaugurated, Obama promised to halve the deficit.  This was done before the magnitude of the collapse was understood and when TARP was still expected to be used to buy toxic assets and minimize foreclosures instead of subsidizing banks.  Nevertheless, he has brought the deficit from $1.5 to $1.2T and is on course for $900B in 2014.  (fy 2013 has already started).  Why has this happened? Almost entirely, republican obstructionism.

Ending the Bush tax cuts on schedule after 2010 would have subtracted about $400B from the deficit, but it's an article of faith for republicans and some democrats that this would have sent the fragile economy into a dive.  Many economists disagree but lets ignore that.  Obama wanted to end the cuts only for incomes over $250K--about 2% of tax filers, but  about 30% of all income.  The 2010 "deal" added about $80B a year to the deficit instead of ending the Bush tax cuts on schedule--subtracting almost $500B had nothing been done or $230B had we done what Obama wanted.  Had the Bush cuts expired, and nothing else been done, the deficit would be half what the president inherited, just as promised, and had Obama's plan been used, it'd have been about 2/3rd.  instead, it's about 5/6ths.

What's going to happen after the election?  Panic about the "fiscal cliff", which was caused by this foolishness and the even more foolish debt limit fight last year, will probably push all of this off another few years.  What should happen? Abandon the "sequester".  Rescind the Bush cuts for high incomes, keep them for low incomes.  Rescind the payroll tax cap completely and restore rates to their pre 2010 level (6.2%.  It's now 4%) for incomes over $100K.

Had the original House health care plan (the one with the public option, which oddly, Romney endorsed last night) been passed, it would have already been in effect, saving $200B or more, while the most important parts of ACA for the budget, the mandate and the exchange, don't go into effect until 2014 and won't have much impact for some years to come.  Add this to the Obama tax hike for millionaires plan, and we'd have been almost to the half he promised.  But the republicans filibustered this, with help from a couple of right wing democrats.  (the democrats sort of had 60 votes for about 3 months.  Franken wasn't seated until Kennedy was out of the picture, and the time that Kennedy's substitute (Kirk) and Brown's election was the only period when the Ds might have had enough votes to override a filibuster.  But Lieberman and Ben Nelson sided with the Rs on health care.)

Romney had the gall to blame all of this on democrats refusing to to work with republicans.  All night he was baiting Obama to blame the republicans for their extreme obstructionism.  But he never fell for it, but he was intimidated into not fighting with the facts, which are completely in Obama's favor.  He had the gall to accuse Obama of lying, "using his own facts", which was exactly what he himself was doing.

Romney is right, that congressional democrats work with republican presidents much better than republicans work with democratic presidents.  This is not the fault of the democrats.   The fact is, the deficit is almost entirely the fault of irresponsible republican policies and maintained by irresponsible republican obstructionism.