Andrew Sullivan and Obama's Leadership on Fiscal Reform

When Obama punted on Simpson-Bowles way back when, Andrew Sullivan came down hard on him for his lack of leadership then. And now Sullivan is contending that Obama’s behavior in this current round of debt/deficit debate was just awful. I disagree. Maybe I am hopelessly deluded by my rose-colored glasses when it comes to trying to understand Obama, but as someone who considers himself a die-hard liberal worried about the country’s real debt/deficit problem, I can’t help but be immeasurably impressed by Barack Obama.

This is how I read Obama on the whole debt/deficit situation, even going back to his punting of Simpson-Bowles. We all know that a big part of the solution to getting our fiscal house in order involves paring back government spending, and making serious reform both to entitlement programs and the tax code. All of those necessities require tackling the sacred cows of the liberal left. That means they are MY sacred cows. And they are. And yet … Barack Obama knows that to get movement from the left on reforming our sacred cows (hell, even just acknowledging that we are fanatically wedded to them), he’s got to transform the left’s way of thinking about our sacred cows.

Obama also knows (as does everyone) that his ability to influence the trajectory of fiscal reform is greatest on the left. He can get more done on that front than he can on the revenue side given the current state of the GOP. So he concentrates on where he can be most effective. But Obama also knows that he’s got to move deliberately and slowly lest he face a Tea Party revolt of his own from the more irresponsible of us on his left flank. So, what did he do?

He first created a crack in the entitlement program sacred cow on the left by building in the idea of Medicare reform as a means of cost containment into the overall health care reform plan. There was nary a peep from the left because the overall goal of health care reform was such a big deal that imposing cost controls in Medicare as part of a larger health care reform effort that would expand healthcare coverage to many more Americans was acceptable. So the idea of cost control reforms to Medicare got a positive presentation and reception on the left. Seemed reasonable to me! A small dent in one entitlement sacred cow that most of us among the left came to accept, if not embrace joyously.

Then he got Simpson-Bowles to put entitlement reform on the table. Yes, he promptly punted; but he still got the idea circulating out there in liberal land that entitlement reform had to be included in any debt/deficit negotiation. Once again, we on the left grumbled, but the left’s culture of entitlement reform intransigence inched a bit more towards the end goal of reform necessity. Simpson-Bowles didn’t get most on the left to buy into such reform; but it conditioned us not to automatically knee-jerk into opposition mode by the mere mention of reform to our sacred cows. Because Simpson-Bowles came from Obama, we on the left listened a bit more than we would have otherwise. I know I did. Now we get this debt ceiling situation and the current compromise deal, and we on the left still grumble loudly (and I think with good reason); but it is unmistakable that we’ve been brought to a much more responsible position regarding our entitlement sacred cows and their need to be on the reform table.

When I look at my own attitude and thinking over the past two years, I see an evolved person. I almost don’t even recognize it; but there it is. It’s been incremental. Almost imperceivable. But Obama has brought the only constituency that he really has much influence over to a position where we on the left are much more comfortable than we ever would have been with doing what we need to do with our own entitlement sacred cows to put our fiscal house in order.

As many others have noted, the country’s fiscal house cannot be put in order without attention to the revenue side of the equation. We simply can't cut our way into solvency without throwing this country into a demoralizing and disastrous economic depression. That’s where we on the left justifiably bitch and moan. But, frankly, that’s a problem that bedevils the Republicans; and it is responsible leadership on the right that will have to do the hard work of bringing their side along on their own sacred cow of “no higher taxes.” Eventually, Obama will have to push hard on that side, too; but he’s doing his part with the left. And he’s done it (and continues to do it) brilliantly. He hasn’t abandoned his liberal principles, but he’s tried to recast them in the light of a fiscally responsible liberalism. And though his popularity numbers are on the downwards slope, they’re not atrociously bad. He certainly hasn’t lost me (and I’d venture to make that claim for many others on the left, too). And win or lose 2012, he has done his part to win for America with the left. I just wish some responsible Republican would do the same on the right.