President Obama’s proposed new tax on financial institutions is getting mixed reviews on the merits. But any doubt that it is exceptionally well-timed should be removed by a glance at public opinion research. At pollster.com, Mark Blumenthal examines a new Allstate/National Journal survey on trust in institutions, and finds that remarkably large percentages of Americans think that most measures taken by the federal government to deal with the economic emergency have primarily helped banks, corporations, and the very rich.
Now it may be encouraging to discover that not many Americans buy the Rick Santelli narrative that poor people are primarily to blame for the country’s problems, and are now benefitting from the policies of “their” president. But you’d have to figure that a majority of independents and Republicans probably follow a majority of Democrats in adjudging that the wealthy and powerful are the object of most of the government’s efforts to keep the economy afloat. “Clawing back” some of the bailout funds with a new tax will doubtless be very popular, particularly if bank executives continue to foolishly award themselves and their peers with large bonuses. And if congressional Republicans follow their instincts by opposing a bank tax, the partisan impact on public opinion could be pretty large, at exactly the right time.

At TNR today, TDS Co-Editor William Galston offers President Obama a template for a State of the Union Address designed to assess honestly his first year in office, and signal a relentless focus on economic revival for his second year.
In Galston’s “Dream State of the Union Address,” the President would explain his interventions in the financial system, and the economic stimulus package, as “economic rescue” measures, while also defending the high priority he placed on health care reform in terms of the huge impact of health care costs on the economy. Then comes the “pivot” to the road ahead:

But the issue before us right now is no longer economic rescue; it is economic growth—the right kind of growth—growth that produces jobs, rising wages, and opportunities for advancement. That will be my administration’s principal domestic focus—for the coming year, and for as long as it takes until every American who wants work can find a job with a future.
During the coming year, that goal means, first, that we must assist states and localities so that they are not forced to fire hundreds of thousands of workers; second, that we must offer the private sector effective incentives to hire new workers; and third, that we must create a national infrastructure bank that will mobilize public and private resources to rebuild our crumbling roads, bridges, and ports . . . and boost investment in the environment and information technology as well.

Moving to longer-range economic challenges, Galston recommends that Obama endorse a strong commission with the power to recommend long-term fiscal savings steps, along with comprehensive tax reform. And on a subject of visceral importance to many voters, he suggests that Obama talk very tough on financial regulation:

Finally, we must make sure that our nation’s largest financial institutions use their power and privilege to help build our country, not to line their own pockets. Congress must overhaul our system of financial regulation—this year—to make sure that what happened in 2007 and 2008 never happens again. And let me be clear: These institutions owe their profitability—and their very existence—to the steps we took that put your taxpayer dollars at risk. If they choose to ignore their responsibilities to you and once again award themselves huge bonuses, I will work with the Congress to ensure that they change course. If they’re not willing to invest their profits in our country’s future, I’ll work to redirect these resources to institutions that are working, not just for themselves, but for you. Holy Scripture and common sense are at one: Greed is not good.

Exercises like Galston’s provide an apt reminder of the power of the bully pulpit, if properly utilized, as an agenda-setter for the nation. Whether or not Obama follows something like Galston’s template, he needs to use that bully pulpit aggressively this year, beginning with his State of the Union Address.

At TNR, TDS Co-Editor William Galston shifts from the many unhappy assessments of American life in the aughts, and focuses on a formula for better economic times in the decade ahead.

During the next decade, we must save more, invest more, produce more, and export more. That sounds anodyne, but it isn’t, because it implies that personal consumption will have to grow more slowly than the GDP. And because personal consumption includes health care, which will continue to grow faster than GDP, other areas of consumption, such as home furnishing and restaurant-going, may have to flatten or even decline—an abrupt shift from 1995-2007, when consumption soared in nearly every category.
During the next decade, we better not borrow a trillion dollars a year, year after year, much of it from the rest of the world. I say “better not,” because at some point foreign lenders will come to doubt our long-term solvency and demand a higher risk premium, with devastating effects on U.S. interest rates and economic growth. There’s no way we can regain our balance with restraint in discretionary spending alone; everything will have to be on the table.

Galston goes on to argue that an “empowered fiscal commission” along the lines of the proposal recently made by Sens. Conrad and Gregg may be the only way to execute a major change in public borrowing habits. And he calls on the president to support this approach as a signal that he is serious about restoring long-term fiscal discipline.
The stakes, Galston suggests, couldn’t be much bigger:

Serious analysts ponder the possibility of a Japan-style decade of stagnation; others fear an irreversible power-shift to China. But national decline, if it comes, will be our choice, not our fate. The next decade will test our capacity to govern ourselves, to exercise some much needed restraint in the face of dire economic circumstances. As George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

At OpenLeft today, Chris Bowers notes that the efforts of Sens. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson to hold health reform legislation hostage to their own personal demands have significantly damaged their home-state approval ratings. To put it simply, both supporters and opponents of health reform didn’t like it, and both men have painted big bulls-eyes on their backs when they are up for re-election in 2012.
But Chris goes on to say there’s a lesson in this development for those progressives who favored more aggressive efforts to hold the same legislation hostage:

I think this is a lesson for public option advocates, and our high-profile hostage-taking strategy called The Progressive Block. It seems clear to me now that a strategy like that only works if you build up public support for it (which we most definitely did not do among the Democratic primary electorate), or if the fight is far more low-profile (such as IMF funding in the Afghanistan supplemental). High-profile hostage taking just doesn’t work from the left (or, as polling shows, from the right or the center, either) Voters of all sorts, including those on the left, just don’t like it, and they will punish you given the opportunity. It is indeed small comfort that the mendacious hostage-takers who stopped us are now wildly unpopular both at home and around the country, but it is also a warning that we would have been in the same position if we had become the hostage takers ourselves.

That’s a very interesting, and typically honest, admission from Chris Bowers.

This item is by TDS Board of Advisors member and contributor Alan Abramowitz, who is Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University.
Five days after the terrorist incident in Detroit, and following five days of conservative efforts to blame the Obama administration for a breach of security, Gallup’s daily tracking poll of the president’s approval rating shows no negative impact at all. Obama’s approval is actually slightly higher than before the incident. That could very well just be random noise but there’s certainly no sign of any public backlash against him so far. My hunch is that all of the speculation about potential damage to Obama and Democrats over this incident will turn out to be erroneous. The reaction of the punditocracy to this situation reminds me a great deal of the reaction to the Jeremiah Wright controversy during the campaign–vastly overblown.

In the wake of the recent party-switch by Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, it’s been sort of assumed that “opportunistic” party-switchers are obviously doing the right thing for their own political futures, if not for their constituents or any conception of duty and honor.
Wondering about that, LaGrange College’s John Tures, writing in Southern Political Report, does a compliation of every party-switch since 1980 by a serving member of Congress. Turns out that of 19 cases, seven lost the very next time they faced voters, sometimes in primaries, sometimes in general elections. Only eight went on to enjoy reasonably successful political careers.
But what struck me most about Tures’ article is how relatively small the number of congressional party-switchers turned out to be over a turbulent thirty year period, even in the South (12 of the 19 party switches), where very large blocs of voters were on the move off and on throughout this era. Perhaps I was misled over the years by the inveterate habit of Republicans in trumpeting every party-switch by some dogcatcher as “Taps” for southern Democrats, but I would have expected the number of Parker Griffiths to be higher. Maybe turning one’s coat isn’t quite the “opportunity” it sometimes seems to be.

This item by TDS contributor Robert Creamer is crossposted from the Huffington Post. Creamer is a political organizer and strategist, and author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win
There is little doubt that over the last several months President Obama’s poll numbers — and those of Democrats generally — have taken a swing for the worse. The president’s job approval numbers have drifted below 50 percent. The popularity of some of his signature initiatives has dropped. Last week, Democratic Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama announced he was switching parties — presumably in order to enhance his odds of political survival next fall.
These events have given rise to calls that the Democratic agenda needs to become more “moderate” or “centrist” and that this would somehow be more attractive to Independent voters.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
“Moderating” our goals is not a recipe for victory. It is a recipe for failure. Last fall, voters overwhelming voted for change, and they knew then — and still know now — the kind of change they wanted.
They wanted to end the stranglehold of the private insurance companies that continues to put every American a single illness — or one layoff — away from financial catastrophe. They want to take bold, clear action to assure that America is in the forefront of creating the clean energy jobs of the future — and leave a thriving healthy planet to our children. They wanted to fundamentally change the bull-in-the-china shop foreign policy of the Bush years and re-establish American leadership in the world. Most importantly, they rejected the failed economic policies that allowed the recklessness of huge Wall Street banks to plunge the economy into free fall — and cost millions their livelihoods. They desperately want leadership that will lay the foundation for long term, bottom-up, widely shared prosperity.
In other words they wanted… and still want… fundamental change.
No one should be surprised that fundamental change does not come easily. The massive array of forces with vested interests in the status quo will bite, kick, poke out eyes, lie, threaten, bully and do pretty much everything else within their power to stop fundamental change. Frederick Douglass was right: “Power surrenders nothing without a struggle, it never has, it never will.”
That means we might not win everything we want every time we enter the arena of battle. But to be successful in next fall’s elections and increase our odds of long-term victory we must do four things:

Read more…

Like a holiday shopper hitting the mall at the very last moment, the U.S. Senate passed a health reform bill today. Or should we say: Senate Democrats passed the bill on a party-line vote. In retrospect, the GOP contributed nothing to the process other than suggestions that we incorporated at one stage or another, but that didn’t swing a single vote.
There remain three difficult steps in this process: the House-Senate conference committee, and then votes in both Houses on that. And a lot of progressives remain angry or apprehensive about the likely final product. But the Senate action was still a nice holiday gift.

This items is a memo to Democratic senators from noted progressive pollster Mark Mellman. It is cross-posted from Politico.
Voters support the content of healthcare reform, while expressing opposition to a “content-less” plan identified with Congress. The individual elements of the legislation are very popular, as is the bill in total, when it is explained. Moreover, the public continues to trust Democrats and the President over Republicans to deal with the issue.
Public Opinion On Healthcare Reform Is Evenly Split
The news media has recently highlighted polls showing double-digit margins in opposition to the current healthcare plan. But these cursory stories often neglect to mention two salient facts.
First, these poll questions fail to give any content, any specific meaning to the reform proposal. Voters are simply asked whether they favor or oppose “healthcare proposals being discussed in Congress.” Focus group research makes clear that voters know little about the substance of the plan—all they know is that some on both the left and the right don’t like it and that it is the subject of intense controversy. In essence then, these questions ask people whether they favor or oppose “a controversial plan that is in constant flux.” Understood that way, it is surprising we find any support.
Second, public poll analyses often ignore the fact that a chunk of opposition to the current plan comes from those who support reform, but would like to see Congress go further. A late-November AP/Ipsos poll found nearly identical numbers in favor of the bill (34%) and opposed (35%), without describing its content. A crucial 12% initially say they oppose the plan, but told pollsters their opposition was based on their belief that it did not go far enough. So what initially appears to be a 12-point margin against reform is actually an even division.

Read more…

This item, by Washington Monthly Contributing Writer Steve Benen, is crossposted from The Huffington Post. It’s a reworked version of a piece that first appeared at Steve’s Political Animal blog.
The United States was supposed to have had a great debate this year about one of the most important domestic policies of them all. With a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address a dysfunctional health care system, the left and right, Democrats and Republicans, would bring their A games, and the public would benefit from the discussion.
We now know, of course, that Americans were denied that debate, not because of the proposals, but because the right didn’t have an A game to bring. Intellectual bankruptcy left conservatives with empty rhetorical quivers.
But as it turns out, it wasn’t too late for the debate, we were just looking in the wrong place. We expected the fight of the generation to occur between the right and left, when the more relevant dispute was between the left and left.
It’s easy to overlook right now, but the quality of the policy debate between competing progressive contingents is infinitely better and more interesting than the policy debate between Democrats and Republicans, which has unfolded in depressing ways over the last eight or nine months.
Consider, for example, two op-eds this morning — Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) attacking health care reform from the right in the Wall Street Journal, and former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.) going after reform from the left in the Washington Post. Both called for the defeat of the Senate Democratic plan, and both were written by leading figures on their respective side of the ideological fence, but only one had something sensible to offer.
Coburn’s piece was absurd, wildly misleading, and included arguments that seemed oddly detached from the substantive reality of the debate. Dean’s piece, whether one found it persuasive or not, was policy focused, serious, and credible. Dean’s piece conveys the concerns of someone who cares deeply about health care and improving the dysfunctional system, while Coburn’s piece reads like someone auditioning to be Sean Hannity’s fill-in guest host.
Of course, it’s not just two op-eds on a Thursday that bolster the point. Much has been made this week of the often-intense dispute between activists and wonks — progressive reform advocates who think the Democratic plan has merit and is worth passing, and progressive reform advocates who think the Democratic plan is a failure and should be defeated. It’s an important dispute, with significant implications.
But notice the quality of the debate. Note that Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, much of the FireDogLake team and others are raising important questions and pointing to real flaws. At the same time, note that Ezra Klein, Jonathan Cohn, Nate Silver and others are offering meaningful defenses of the Democratic plan, based on substantive evaluations.
Progressive activists and progressive wonks are at each other’s throats this week, but they want largely the same goals. Their differences are sincere and significant, but the intensity of their dispute is matched by the potency of their arguments.
And then turn your attention to the other side of the divide, and notice the quality of the arguments conservatives and Republicans have offered — and continue to offer — in this debate. Death panels. Socialism. Hitler. Government takeover. Socialized medicine. Incomprehensible charts. Incessant whining about the number of pages in a proposal.
Time will tell whether reform will pass, whether the bill will be worthwhile, and whether the activists or the wonks win out. No matter what happens, the argument will continue beyond this one piece of legislation. But regardless what side of the dispute you’re on, it’s worth appreciating the vibrancy, energy, and seriousness with which progressives are engaging in the debate, as compared to the incoherent, ridiculous, and dull qualities our friends on the right have brought to the table.