This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
As events abroad rivet the media’s attention, the outlines are being drawn for a fiscal debate that will shape both the 2012 election and our economic future. Over the past few weeks, important documents have appeared which make it clear that the situation is extremely dire–but also that the public is unaware of, or in denial about, the trade-offs needed to remedy our predicament. The only solution is for President Obama to engage with Congress and begin educating the public by explaining why we need not short-term spending cuts, but long-term fiscal balance. And he needs to start now.
Several days ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its preliminary analysis of the fiscal impact of the president’s FY2012 budget proposal. Its findings were not pretty. In no year between now and 2021 would deficits fall below 4 percent of GDP. Over the next decade, enacting the president’s proposal would create deficits totaling $9.5 trillion, $2.7 trillion more than the cumulative deficit in CBO’s baseline budget. Federal debt held by the public would double from $10.4 trillion to $20.8 trillion, 87 percent of GDP, and annual interest on the debt would rise from 1.4 percent of GDP to nearly 4 percent. Even if the share of the debt held by foreign investors and governments does not increase over the next decade, CBO’s projection suggests that we’ll be shipping fully 2 percent of our GDP (almost $500 billion) overseas each year by the end of the decade, just to pay the interest on foreign holdings of U.S. government debt.
Whatever one may think about the size, timing, and appropriateness of short-term budget cuts, the CBO report adds precision to the common view that our long-term fiscal course is unsustainable. If you believe, as I do, that the best approach melds continued short-term fiscal ease with long-term restraint, then moving toward the long-term discussion as soon as possible is essential, for the simple reason that there’s no viable political path to the former that is not linked to the latter.
It’s clear that President Obama could do more to make this a reality. During the same time period, 64 senators–32 Democrats (60 percent of their caucus), 32 Republicans (70 percent of theirs)–sent a letter to President Obama urging him to “engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package.” Referring to the work of the president’s own fiscal commission, the letter went on to define the meaning of “broader”: “Specifically, we hope that the discussion will include discretionary spending cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform.” While some observers have dismissed this demarche as odd or inconsequential, it is anything but that–especially in these polarized times. Beyond the adjective “broader,” the most important words in the letter were a verb and a noun. By “engage,” the senators meant, “Mr. President, please get off the sidelines and get personally involved, because this process can’t succeed without your active participation.” And by “discussion” they meant an ongoing face-to-face dialogue, not occasional presidential monologues with little follow-up.
Meanwhile, the public is agitated but unsure how to solve the problem. On March 21, Gallup issued its latest survey of public concerns, and the economy remains at the top of the list, with 71 percent reporting that they worry about it “a great deal.” The budget deficit/federal spending is a strong second, at 64 percent. Notably, there is a wide gap between Democrats and Independents on this issue: While Independents rank spending/deficits second on their list, behind only the economy, these fiscal issues don’t appear at all on the Democrats’ list of top concerns.
Yet as a gap in the latest Pew Center survey underscores, regarding our fiscal condition as a serious problem is one thing, but endorsing a serious remedy is quite another. By a margin of 2 to 1, the public favors cuts in domestic spending. That’s where support for fiscal stabilization ends. American are split down the middle (47 percent in favor, 49 percent opposed) on cutting military spending, they reject changes to Social Security and Medicare by 65 percent to 30 percent, and they oppose raising taxes by a similar 67 percent to 30 percent. Compared to six years ago, support for cutting discretionary spending, domestic and military, has risen significantly, while opposition to tax increases hasn’t budged.
For the most part, these sentiments cross party lines. Seventy-five percent of Democrats oppose changes to Social Security and Medicare, but so do 61 percent of Independents and 59 percent of Republicans. Seventy-six percent of Republicans oppose tax increases, as do 67 percent of Independents and 61 percent of Democrats. Seventy-one percent of Republicans favor cuts in domestic spending, but so do 60 percent of Independents and even 54 percent of Democrats. The only area of significant disagreement is defense, where 57 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Independents favor cuts, compared to only 33 percent of Republicans.
No budget analyst who has mastered fourth-grade arithmetic believes that we can regain control of our fiscal future solely through reductions in discretionary spending. The Pew survey makes it clear (if further evidence were needed) that public concern about the problem far outruns public understanding of its sources and scope. As I have argued, the only way to change these public attitudes is to level with the people about our fiscal situation and educate them about the true choices we face. This task is essential and long overdue. But if former professor Obama isn’t willing to take the lead, it’s hard to see how an informed public discussion can ever begin.

If you thought the nuclear power plant disasters in Japan were going to recast the energy debate in the U.S., you may have to think again — or at least wait a while. That would be a prudent conclusion drawn from the just-released CNN/Opinion Research Poll, conducted 3/18-20 (PDF here). According to CNN’s ‘Political Ticker’:

Opposition to building new nuclear power plants in the U.S. has edged up since last spring, a likely reaction to the nuclear power plants crisis in Japan, according to a new national poll.
But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday also indicates a majority of Americans approve of using nuclear energy to produce electricity…Fifty-seven percent of people questioned in the poll say they approve of the domestic use of nuclear energy, with 42 percent opposed.
“Attitudes toward nuclear power in the U.S. are more positive than they were after Chernobyl in 1986, when only 45 percent approved of nuclear energy plants, or Three Mile Island in 1979, when 53 percent approved of nuclear energy and the number who said nuclear plants were not safe was 10 points higher than today,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

I was a little surprised by the 57 percent approval, given the horrific video and images coming from Japan. But opponents of nuclear power plants may find encouragement in some other findings in the poll:

The survey indicates that 53 percent of the public opposes building more nuclear power plants in the U.S., up six points from last year. Forty-six percent support the construction of new plants.

A fairly even split, but favoring nuclear power skeptics. Six in ten would opose building a nuclear power plant in their community, while 57 percent say that the U.S. should rely less on nuclear power as a future energy source. Another new poll, by CBS News (conducted 3/18-21) found that 50 percent of respondents opposed new construction of nuclear power plants, with 43 percent favoring new plants. The CBS poll found that 62 percent opposed having a nuclear power plant in their community, with 35 percent saying it would be OK.
When it comes to existing nuclear power plants, however, the gap widens, favoring those who want to keep them, according to the CNN/ORC poll:

Sixty-eight percent say continue to operate all of them, with 27 percent saying that some should be shut down and one in ten calling for all of the plants to be closed.
According to the poll, 28 percent say domestic nuclear power plants are very safe, with just over half saying they are somewhat safe and one in five saying they are not safe.

The CNN report notes that 54 percent of the respondents considered nuclear power plants on or near earthquake zones and oceans “very safe) (12 percent) or “somewhat safe (42 percent). Two out of three respondents expressed confidence that the federal government was prepared to handle a major crisis at a nuclear power plant, which may be a bit of an “ostrich reflex,” given the post-Katrina mess. There are nuclear power plants on the Gulf of Mexico, near New Orleans, Galveston and Tampa, in addition to the two located on the Pacific in California earthquake country. The CBS poll found a higher level of skepticism, with 35 percent saying the government is prepared to deal with a nuclear emergency, while 58 percent say it is not
There are 104 nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the U.S. It’s hard to imagine that the public has a realistic grasp of the enormously expensive and complex security and safety issues surrounding the plants that merit concern. President Obama has expressed support of the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S., while calling on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the safety of the 104 operating plants, most of which are aging significantly.
I was one of those ostrich Democrats who became complaisant about nuclear power in recent years, thinking that the diminishing anti-nuclear power plant protests had started to sound like Chicken Little. After all we had not seen reports of any major disaster threats in the U.S. since Three Mile Island.
But the sobering images from Japan have jerked my head out of the sand. And reports like the one out today noting that there is an advisory to new mothers in Tokyo not to let their babies have any tap water because it has double the level of radioactivity considered safe for infants insures that I’m staying opposed to it. It’s not like we’ve got a big edge in scientific or technical expertise over the Japanese. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that U.S. Nuclear Power Plants had 14 “near misses,” or serious “events” in 2010 alone, involving “inadequate training, faulty maintenance, poor design, and failure to investigate problems thoroughly.”
I’m hoping President Obama will rethink the issue, declare a moratorium on new construction of nuclear power plants and invest the money saved in developing truly green energy options, like solar thermal and wind, which would create a hell of a lot more jobs, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Despite the relatively small number of jobs they create, nuclear power plants often end up being more expensive, because of unexpected safety issues that must be addressed. For a disturbing account of the ever-increasing expenses and dangers associated with nuclear power in the U.S., read Christian Parenti’s article “After Three Mile Island: The Rise and Fall of Nuclear Safety Culture” in The Nation.
The more you read about the dangers and expenses of nuclear power plants, the harder it gets to accept glib assurances about their safety and economic feasibility. Even if one accepts the premise that the odds are very high against a major disaster in the U.S., all it takes is one long shot disaster to do vast damage to America’s economy and politics. At the very least, Dems should consider a much stronger emphasis on development of alternative sources of power. Anybody up for a Manhattan Project/Marshall Plan for solar/wind power development?

The American Prospect‘s Paul Waldman has done us all a great favor by reading and interpreting the latest batch of “campaign books” from prospective 2012 presidential candidates, including Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty. And after duly noting the relatively low political value of such books, and the low standards governing the genre, he offers some key insights about what they reveal about the Republican zeitgeist of the moment:

Despite their surface differences, the books raise some common questions. How do we answer key policy questions? How important is God to our politics? Is Barack Obama merely wrong about everything, or is he actively attempting to destroy our country? Just how great is America?
Actually, that last question is something the candidates all agree on: America is stupendously great, awesomely great, so great that “great” doesn’t begin to describe its greatness — and Obama just doesn’t get it.

Aside from a peculiar emphasis on “American exceptionalism” that appears to exempt this country not only from healthy self-doubt but from ordinary logic and the lessons of human history, notes Waldman, the books are dominated by an equally unreflexive attitude towards the 44th president, who is always wrong:

In their attempts to understand Obama, the candidates again and again reach the conclusion that when Obama does or says something they like, he’s either shrewdly hiding his real intentions or has been cornered by political reality. When he does or says something they don’t like, he has revealed his true self. So Romney can claim, without any supporting evidence, that “another of President Obama’s presuppositions is that America is in a state of inevitable decline,” just as Palin avers that Obama “seems to see nothing admirable in the American experience.” How do they know this? Well, they just do. None of the candidates provides any quotations in which Obama apologizes for America because he never actually has. And don’t bother bringing up the hundreds of speeches in which Obama has lavished praise on this country, because as Romney says, “President Obama is far too gifted a politician to say in plain words that America is merely one nation among many.” However, if we take some things Obama has said out of context and make a series of absurd leaps in logic to arrive at the worst possible interpretation of them, then we will learn the truth.

America is great, and Obama wants to destroy it. That’s the overriding theme of proto-candidates working in the most expansive format they’ll ever use.
As it happens, I was involved as a “ghost” in a “campaign book” for a candidate running against an incumbent president in 2004, and I can tell you that George W. Bush’s sins and shortcomings were in the background, not the forefront, of the policy-heavy tome. And while the book was full of invocations of America’s greatness, they were deployed not to congratulate Americans for their superior virtue, but to encourage them to meet common challenges, most of which have yet, seven years later, to be seriously addressed.
It’s an open question as to whether GOP presidential candidates can make it all the way through the nomination process–and for the winner, all the way to November of 2012–on a message that essentially tells Americans there is nothing wrong with their society that firing Barack Obama can’t fix. I guess if you get all your information from Fox News, that’s a credible argument. But for everyone else, a positive agenda that goes beyond telling a suffering nation and world that they need to shut up and salute the flag (and oh yes, cut taxes and regulations allegedly afflicting their economic masters, from whom all good things come) might prove necessary.

Good news from Democracy Corps:

A new DCorps survey A new survey by Democracy Corps in 50 of the most competitive battleground Congressional districts — nearly all of which gave a majority to Obama in the last presidential election — shows the new Republican majority very much in play in 2012.
The Republican incumbents in these districts, 35 of them freshmen, remain largely unknown and appear very vulnerable in 2012 (depending on redistricting). In fact, these incumbents are in a weaker position than Democratic incumbents were even in late 2009, or Republican incumbents were in 2007 in comparable surveys conducted by Democracy Corps.

You can read the rest of the DCorps overview right here.

Near the end of Karen Tumulty’s solid assessment of Haley Barbour’s likely presidential campaign for the Washington Post appears this very interesting passage:

Race — and presumptions about how he feels about it — rattle the normally unflappable Barbour as few other things do.
“The only people who ever asked me about it are reporters,” he said, bristling when asked about it yet again in the interview.
But he and his team know that race is one issue he can’t dodge, and that is why Barbour — just as Obama did during his presidential campaign — is considering giving a major speech on the subject. The likely venue: a 50th anniversary reunion of the Freedom Riders, set for late May in Jackson.

A “major speech” by Haley Barbour on race? A speech guaranteed to be compared to Obama’s 2008 “race speech”? What on earth would that sound like? A purely for-the-record denunciation of Jim Crow? A defiant neo-Rebel shout that the only racism worth mentioning these days is prejudice against southern white Christians? A paean to color-blindedness (e.g., an attack on affirmative action)?
And how would the Freedom Ride alumni feel about serving as props in a Haley Barbour sanitizing effort?
This could be very interesting.
UPDATE: A friend of mine emailed to ask: “Wonder if he’ll do a ‘lobbying speech’ as well.” If so, he might as well turn it into a “tobacco speech” while he’s at it.

The National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein reports that a “slow warming trend toward President Obama continued in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll,” with 30 percent of respondents agreeing that the president has “changed his approach in office” for the better, during the past several months, while only 13 percent said he had changed it for the worse (Half saw no change).
Brownstein believes that the poll indicates that “some voters may be giving Obama a second look as he has repositioned himself with a series of high-profile bipartisan legislative agreements and a new rhetorical emphasis on international competitiveness.” Brownstein adds,

even in groups that have been skeptical of the president, pluralities believe that he is moving in the right direction. Independents, seniors, and college-educated white men all broke solidly for Republicans in the 2010 midterm landslide. But about 30 percent of each group said they believed that Obama’s approach to office was improving. In each case, that was at least double the share that said his performance was deteriorating.
…Most political scientists and electoral strategists agree that a president’s approval rating is the best barometer of his chances for reelection, and on that front, Obama continued to improve his standing, although only gradually.
In the latest survey, 49 percent of those polled said they approved of Obama’s performance as president, and 44 percent disapproved. That’s a change only within the margin of error since the December Heartland Monitor, when 48 percent approved and 46 percent disapproved. Still, Obama’s approval rating is the highest the poll has recorded for him since September 2009.

In addition, Brownstein reports that for the first time since September ’09, more independents approved than disapproved of Obama’s performance (47-43 percent). Even more encouraging, Brownstein notes that “the fire of intense opposition to Obama seems to be slightly cooling,” down 9 percent from August, and “The gap between Obama’s strong supporters and fervent detractors is the narrowest it has been since January of 2010.”
However, the poll indicates that President Obama still hasn’t made much headway with whites in particular:

Obama’s approval rating among whites remained at just 39 percent; it hasn’t cracked 40 percent since September 2009…As in those earlier polls, a solid plurality of whites placed more trust in Republicans…In April 2009, whites put more trust in Obama over Republicans, by 17 percentage points; now whites trust Republicans over him, by 14 points…In no Heartland Monitor since last April have more than one-quarter of whites said that Obama’s agenda is increasing their opportunities.

The trendline may nonetheless be bending in Obama’s direction, as Brownstein concludes:

Asked about the impact of the president’s policies, 36 percent say that his actions have already made the country significantly worse off. Only 13 percent say that the country is already significantly better off because of his policies, but another 44 percent say that although Obama’s efforts have not yet produced significant improvement, they are beginning to move the nation in the right direction.
That combined 57 percent, almost unchanged over the past year, represents Obama’s margin of hope. That is the potential majority coalition that still sees cause for optimism in his course, even if he hasn’t yet closed the sale.

It’s early, and a lot can change over the next 20 months. But with the economy improving, the “hopeful majority” may grow and provide President Obama with the edge he needs for a second term.

With all the skirmishing over non-defense discretionary spending in the fight over FY 2011 appropriations, it’s easy to forget the bigger budgetary picture that will soon get attention if and when House Republicans release their own long-term budget document in the context of next year’s budget resolution.
For all sorts of fairly obvious reasons, Republicans desperately want Obama to agree at least in principle to reduce future spending on Social Security and Medicare before they formally move in this direction, which their own budgetary arithmetic makes absolutely necessary. GOPers certainly don’t want to make their House members vote for a budget resolution that includes such political risks as partial privatization of Social Security and voucherization of Medicare without bipartisan “cover,” exposing them to sustained attacks from Democrats going into the 2012 elections.
And while Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has been perfectly willing to hint very generally at potential support for “entitlement reform” to reduce long-range deficit and debt projections, he’s not about to go further unless Republicans abandon their theological opposition to higher revenues (an important part of “Social Security reform” in and of itself, aside from their importance in moving the budget towards balance).
Now a few Republicans–notably Sen. Tom Coburn–have expressed a willingness to consider more revenues if they don’t involve higher general tax rates, as part of a larger deal that includes “entitlement reform.” That was the proposition laid out by last year’s deficit commission report, which Coburn endorsed even as the House Republican commission members voted “no.” And the idea of some sort of “base-broadening” revenue measures that keep or even reduce current tax rates is probably the basis of the support of 32 Republican senators for the bipartisan letter to Obama urging him to lead deficit reduction negotiations that’s in the news this week.
As TPM’s Brian Beutler explains, there are genuine divisions in the White House (and undoubtedly among congressional Democrats as well) about when if ever Obama should be willing to play his big budget chip of contemplating significant changes in Social Security and/or Medicare. But there’s no disagreement at all that Republicans are going to have to offer a lot more than they’ve been willing to offer up until now on the revenue side, and perhaps in the parallel discussions of appropriations. Here’s Beutler on what either the House GOP budget proposal or any bipartisan Senate budget proposal would have to involve:

[I]f their efforts are serious, Obama’s economic team sees an opening — to take pressure off the non-defense discretionary portion of the budget, and to send a signal to markets that the U.S. government isn’t so paralyzed that it can’t address larger, looming fiscal challenges.
So what constitutes a serious effort? Basically a recognition that Social Security revenues and general revenues have to rise, if the administration is going to accept anything that cuts benefits, even modestly.

Despite the fears of many progressives that Democrats will once again “cave,” there appears to be no serious risk that Obama will move on entitlements until Republicans have already moved on revenues. If they don’t, then GOPers will face the painful choice of moving forward on entitlements on their own, or giving up on their much-boasted deficit reduction efforts. With the public generally favoring tax increases on the wealthy as part of an overall deficit reduction package, even as Tea Party folk demand deep entitlement cuts and oppose revenue measures, Republicans will not be in a very good position.
All of these conflicts will play out, of course, in the context of a short-term crisis over appropriations and the debt limit, so GOPers will not have much time to weigh options or influence public opinion, either within their own ranks or with the public at large. So we really are likely to see some high-stakes poker playing during the next two or three weeks.

I doubt the Obama White House was under any illusion that the country would erupt with biprtisan applause or offer uniform salutes of support when the decision was made to launch a military strike on Libya. But still, the reaction of Republicans is pretty amazing given the years they spent complaining that Democrats wouldn’t support George W. Bush on Iraq as a matter of simple patriotism. This Politico lede says it all:

After demanding for weeks that he be more decisive on Libya, not one candidate in the field of 2012 GOP hopefuls has expressed support for President Barack Obama since he began bombing the North African nation.
The GOP’s presidential prospects either sharply criticized the commander-in-chief this weekend or avoided weighing in.

The self-styled Churchillian figure Newt Gingrich has been typical of his peers, alternating between complaints that Obama didn’t act unilaterally weeks ago to attack Libya and snorts of derision about the slight strategic importance of that country to begin with.
Get used to it. People running for the 2012 presidential nomination are aware that the early-state caucus and primary voters who will determine their fate hate Barack Obama with a deep and abiding passion, and do not believe the president is capable of or even interested in action in the country’s interests. So the candidates will oppose him no matter what he does, and if he changes his mind to agree with what they said two hours ago, they’ll attack him for being weak or irresolute.
If there is to be any sort of real debate over the administration’s actions towards LIbya, it’s going to have to be mainly among Democrats.

This item by TDS Co-Editor William Galston is cross-posted from The New Republic.
The struggle over fiscal policy is likely to preoccupy official Washington for most of the 112th Congress. Although this fight is necessary and important, it should not divert our attention from fairly disturbing developments in the economy, where some key indicators are flashing warning signs. Consider the following.
Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in February, and so-called “core” inflation (excluding food and energy) was up 0.2 percent. Although official statistics treat food and energy as non-core, ordinary Americans regard them as central. After all, these are the items that households purchase most frequently, and they shape public perceptions about changes in price levels. That’s the biggest reason why the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index dropped last week to its lowest level since last August.
Changes in food and energy prices are also influencing the public’s economic priorities. As recently as last December, Pew reports, 47 percent of Americans cited the job situation as their top economic concern, compared to only 15 percent who mentioned rising prices. By March, those most worried about jobs had fallen by 13 points to 34 percent, while those most concerned about inflation had nearly doubled, to 28 percent. And as more foreclosed homes are being thrown on the market, housing prices have resumed their decline, and housing starts fell sharply in February to their second-lowest level since 1946. Even more significant, permits for new construction in February fell 8.2 percent from January and were 20.5 percent below the already depressed level of a year ago.
Are these developments likely to be transitory? I think not, for two reasons. First, we are now competing for resources in a global market. As developing countries continue to grow strongly, their demand for food and fuel will only strengthen. Upward pressure on prices in these sectors can persist even if growth in the United States remains anemic.
Second, as I have argued repeatedly over the past year, the era of rapid increases in consumer spending has ended. Wages continue to stagnate, but households can no longer compensate by withdrawing equity from their homes. Understandably, they are trying to reduce their debt burdens, which peaked at unsustainable 136 percent of disposable income right before the crash. (Mortimer Zuckerman’s recent article usefully summarizes the evidence on this point.)
There are only two alternatives to growth led by domestic demand–rising exports and increased public and private investment. The administration has talked a good game about doubling exports over five years, but up to now it has been unwilling to bite the political bullet and send the long-stalled trio of trade agreements to the Congress for ratification. And as Bruce Stokes pointed out in a recent article, “U.S. exports have only doubled once in any five year period in modern history and that was when the dollar halved in value against both the Japanese yen and the German deutsche mark in the late 1970s.” Today the list of currencies against which the dollar must fall would have to include China, but the administration has been unwilling to force the issue.
The administration has also talked a good game about public investment but has yet to make a serious push for the promising vehicle it claims to support, a national infrastructure bank. Just last week, a bipartisan group of senators including John Kerry, Mark Warner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced the BUILD Act to create a financing mechanism that could leverage up to $600 billion in new private investments. The Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO both support the proposal. Maybe the administration favors it as well, but I have yet to find any public evidence to that effect.
The White House has clearly shifted into full reelection mode, and it has decided to position the president above the fray rather than push for more legislative action that could boost the economy. (Even legislation, as in the case of the free-trade agreements and the infrastructure bank, that could draw bipartisan support.) But by not pushing those policies–and letting the Congressional budget battle drag out in endless gridlock–Obama may be undermining the very economy that will determine his chances for reelection. What is he waiting for?