Monday, September 19, 2011

Welcome Back!

Greetings, Obamadogs members!

Here we are at the outset of a new academic year in the fall of 2011, after months of a much-needed hiatus from national and presidential politics.  In the interim since our last series of comments, we have survived -- barely -- the summer's debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling.  Depending on one's perspective, this was not our finest hour politically.  From the standpoint of the White House, it was a tough slog.  The President's approval rating has dipped into the icy depths of the high 30's/low 40's, and his disapproval rating is as high or higher.  More importantly, the unemployment rate remains above 9% in formal terms, above 15% when we factor in those who are under-employed and those who've given up a search for a job.  Meanwhile, picking up the thread we left with, Republicans convinced the media and the country that our nation's debt is a more pressing public problem than our jobless and tepid recovery from the Great Recession.  Obama meakly allowed this to happen.

We are now several weeks into the Republican presidential nomination contest, with the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, now leading in the national polls as the GOP's front-runner despite his relatively late entry into the race and his penchant for launching verbal scuds.  Nevertheless, Mr. Perry has single-handedly and rapidly deflated the balloon of Michele Bachmann's once-bouyant candidacy.

Today Obama outlined his proposal for addressing the long-term debt issue.  The "controversial" part is the call for tax increases or the elimination of tax breaks for the very wealthy.  Passed off as "the Buffett Rule," after Warren Buffet because of the iconic investor's call for increasing marginal tax rates on people like him so that he paid at least as much percentage-wise on his income as his secretary, this is classic Obama: a late in-the-game oratorical effort to reclaim disheartened supporters from 2008 who are deeply disappointed in the president despite the tough hand he was dealt in the economic tsunami that accompanied the formal end of the recession that nearly metastasized into a global depression before June 2009. 

Well, fellow Obamadoggers, what should the President do?