Tom Friedman’s fact-free wager
by David Atkins
Thomas Friedman, serving again in his role as austerity cheerleader and reluctant Obama backer, issues the following fact-free postulate and wager:
What the president should have done is follow the advice of the Princeton University economist and former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, namely lay out a specific “three-step rehab program for our nation’s fiscal policy.” Call it the Obama Plan; it should combine a near-term stimulus on job-creating infrastructure, a phase-in, as the economy improves, of “something that resembles the 10-year Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan — which would pay for the stimulus 15-20 times over” and a specific plan to “bend the health care cost-curve downward.” Obama has already offered the first; he still has not risen to the second and the third would be an easy extension of his own health care plan.
Obama needs a second look from independents who could determine this election. To attract that second look will require a credible, detailed recovery plan that gets voters to react in three ways: 1) “Now that sounds like it will address the problem, and both parties are going to feel the pain.” 2) “That plan seems fair: the rich pay more, but everyone pays something.” 3) “Wow, Obama did something hard and risky. He got out ahead of Congress and Romney. That’s leadership. I’m giving him a second look.”
I’d bet anything that if the president staked out such an Obama Plan, Buffett and a lot of other business leaders would endorse it. It would give the G.O.P. a real problem. After all, what would help Obama more right now: Repeating over and over the Buffett Rule gimmick or campaigning from now to Election Day by starting every stump speech saying: “Folks, I have an economic plan for America’s future that Warren Buffett and other serious business leaders endorse — and Mitt Romney doesn’t.”
Has Mr. Friedman actually looked at any polling to see how Americans feel about cuts to Medicare, Social Security and critical discretionary spending during a recession? Has he asked himself why the Simpson-Bowles commission was dead in the water from the moment it was first unveiled, leading some Obama enthusiasts to hypothesize that it was an eleven-dimensional chess move to discredit the idea at arm’s distance from the beginning? Has he considered the actual demographic in America that would support both tax increases on “job creators” and significant cuts to America’s most cherished safety net programs?
Furthermore, has Tom Friedman asked himself just how many voters there are out there who are open to the idea of supporting a Democratic President who endorses tax increases, and also gives a damn what “business leaders” have to say on anything?
The constituency for such a thing is mostly limited to wealthy pundits like Tom Friedman. But he’d be willing to “bet anything” on its success.
I wish, in an alternate universe, someone really were able to take Friedman’s bet and have him risk his entire life’s savings and whatever is left of his credibility on it. Then when he lost, even Tom Friedman would be able to personally feel the pain of the austerity he so devoutly desires.
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