Economics and Justice
Obama in Chains
Jeffrey D. Sachs
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NEW YORK – It is hard for international observers of the United States to grasp the political paralysis that grips the country, and that seriously threatens America’s ability to solve its domestic problems and contribute to international problem solving. America’s governance crisis is the worst in modern history. Moreover, it is likely to worsen in the years ahead.
The difficulties that President Barack Obama is having in passing his basic program, whether in health care, climate change, or financial reform, are hard to understand at first glance. After all, he is personally popular, and his Democratic Party holds commanding majorities in both houses of Congress. Yet his agenda is stalled and the country’s ideological divisions grow deeper.
Among Democrats, Obama’s approval rating in early November was 84%, compared with just 18% among Republicans. Fifty-eight percent of Democrats thought the country was headed in the right direction, compared with 9% of Republicans. Only 18 % of Democrats supported sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, while 57% of Republicans supported a troop buildup. In fact, a significant majority of Democrats, 60%, favored a reduction of troops in Afghanistan, compared with just 26% of Republicans. On all of these questions, a middle ground of independents (neither Democrats nor Republicans) was more evenly divided.
Part of the cause for these huge divergences in views is that America is an increasingly polarized society. Political divisions have widened between the rich and poor, among ethnic groups (non-Hispanic whites versus African Americans and Hispanics), across religious affiliations, between native-born and immigrants, and along other social fault lines. American politics has become venomous as the belief has grown, especially on the vocal far right, that government policy is a “zero-sum” struggle between different social groups and politics.
Moreover, the political process itself is broken. The Senate now operates on an informal rule that opponents will try to kill a legislative proposal through a “filibuster” – a procedural attempt to prevent the proposal from coming to a vote. To overcome a filibuster, the proposal’s supporters must muster 60 of 100 votes, rather than a simple majority. This has proven impossible on controversial policies – such as binding reductions on carbon emissions – even when a simple majority supports the legislation.
An equally deep crisis stems from the role of big money in politics. Backroom lobbying by powerful corporations now dominates policymaking negotiations, from which the public is excluded. The biggest players, including Wall Street, the automobile companies, the health-care industry, the armaments industry, and the real-estate sector, have done great damage to the US and world economy over the past decade. Many observers regard the lobbying process as a kind of legalized corruption, in which huge amounts of money change hands, often in the form of campaign financing, in return for specific policies and votes.
Finally, policy paralysis around the US federal budget may be playing the biggest role of all in America’s incipient governance crisis. The US public is rabidly opposed to paying higher taxes, yet the trend level of taxation (at around 18% of national income) is not sufficient to pay for the core functions of government. As a result, the US government now fails to provide adequately for basic public services such as modern infrastructure (fast rail, improved waste treatment, broadband), renewable energy to fight climate change, decent schools, and health-care financing for those who cannot afford it.
Powerful resistance to higher taxes, coupled with a growing list of urgent unmet needs, has led to chronic under-performance by the US government and an increasingly dangerous level of budget deficits and government debt. This year, the budget deficit stands at a peacetime record of around 10% of GNP, much higher than in other high-income countries.
Obama so far seems unable to break this fiscal logjam. To win the 2008 election, he promised that he would not raise taxes on any household with income of less than $250,000 per year. That no-tax pledge, and the public attitudes that led Obama to make it, block reasonable policies.
There is little “waste” to cut from domestic spending, and many areas where increases in public spending are needed. Higher taxes on the rich, while justified, don’t come close to solving the deficit crisis. America, in fact, needs a value-added tax, which is widely used in Europe, but Obama himself staunchly ruled out that kind of tax increase during his election campaign.
These paralyzing factors could intensify in the years ahead. The budget deficits could continue to prevent any meaningful action in areas of critical need. The divisions over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could continue to block a decisive change in policy, such as a withdrawal of forces. The desire of Republicans to defeat the Democrats could lead them to use every maneuver to block votes and slow legislative reforms.
A breakthrough will require a major change in direction. The US must leave Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby saving $150 billion per year for other purposes and reducing the tensions caused by military occupation. The US will have to raise taxes in order to pay for new spending initiatives, especially in the areas of sustainable energy, climate change, education, and relief for the poor.
To avoid further polarization and paralysis of American politics, Obama must do more to ensure that Americans understand better the urgency of the changes that he promised. Only such changes – including lobbying reforms – can restore effective governance.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org
For a podcast of this commentary in English, please use this link: http://media.blubrry.com/ps/media.libsyn.com/media/ps/20091120Sachs159.mp3
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angellight 02:19 09 Dec 09
There should be a Mechanism put in place that Senators can be Recalled by the people in the states they are supposed to represent.... It is very disappointing to see the Power the Insurance Companies have on many senators in the Senate. There is not much we can do at this time but take what we can and cut our losses and not fail to remember Who those Senators were/are who care more for the Insurance Companies than the people they represent, and Vote them out come their turn to run again. There must be retribution for their failure to do what is right for the people. However, I do believe Sen Reid had the power to do a Reconciliation and I am disappointed that he did not have the Courage to take that road! They had a chance to do something Nobel, right and meaningful and because of a Few bad apples, the dream cannot be materialized. If we let them, the GOP and the Conserva-Dems will not only destroy the United States (guns and outsourcing jobs), they will destroy the world (climate change and love of wars). These enemies of the people are not Noble in otherwords -- they are not trustworthy, they are not lovers of humanity and they are the slaves of their cheating, deception and greed!
[Blackbird/Commenter on Alternet] "I live left the US about 7 years ago and live in Scandinavia. I have to say that socialized medicine is fantastic. Everyone gets treated, including nasty foreigners like myself. I love that I don't have to worry about it. The doctor is free, the hospital is free. Medicine is very cheap. My kids get free dental until they're 18. But even having to pay for dental is still pretty cheap. It's just great to not have to worry. It's too bad that americans are so easily frightened by words like socialism, because in reality, the whole idea is that everyone, regardless of their social or financial status, should have access to decent healthcare. I'm sure glad to live in a country which puts the welfare of its residents above the profits of industry. Socialized medicine works."
http://www.alternet.org/
afzalrizvi 10:10 12 Dec 09
I would positively agree with the astutely crafted- perception of Jeffrey D. Sachs regarding the prognosis he has given with regard to the presently observed domestic crisis that US faces today.The most irrefutable fact is that the US's obsession with its foreign policy-orchestrated goals, has been the major rhyme and reason of its domestic policies' fragmentation( as has been the case with the US administrations that they have been used to having a "centrifugal frame work" regarding the domestic policy whilst tuned to practicing a "centripetal frame work" for its foreign policy). The imbuing domestic cleavages can only be repaired or doctored once the US administration prevents itself_ from the ongoing affliction of its military-expansion designs_ thereby ardently adhering to the norms of the "restraint-strategy" engineered by the sane and prudent political and economic thinkers in the US.
lambert 03:57 16 Feb 10
Paralysis? What paralysis?
Versailles was perfectly capable of passing TARP NOW NOW NOW NOW -- aided by Obama whipping for it, I might add -- to hand the banksters $700 billion dollars.
And Versailles, in the course of 2008, put the taxpayers on the hook for $22 trillion in bad bets by the banksters with no accountability or transparency whatever. Versailles works just fine. It's only a question of for whom.
interactidiomas 04:30 09 Jun 10
A large part of American polarization is America's failure to come to grips with a changing world and its place in it.
The multiple genrations that currently populate the country were raised to believe in the innate superiority of their system of government and in their society. All of them have lived in a world dominated economically, technoligically and politically by their country. As these different sectors evolve, and the US position in them shifts, Americans feel threatened by the destruction of their entire belief system.
Instead of evolving and adapting to meet these changes, a great segment of American society is desperately trying to recapture the essence and fabric of the America that dominated the last half-of the 20th century, believing that we strayed too far from that unique path to fortune and success.
That America had a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestand society, immigrants were tolerated only to the degree that the homogenized and adopted prevailing customs and culture, and we were extremely nationalistic while we considered all other countries (with the possible exception of Great Britain) as inferior. We imagined ourselves as carriers of pioneering, fronteirsman genes, and believed ourselves to be more just, creative, independent, and self-reliant than any other people the earth has known.
First Japan, and now China have surged forth, the latter even putting a man in space. Magnificent, state of the art cities are spring forth in arab deserts, computer prgrammers from India are competing head to head with westerners, and Brazil's agricultural output has begun to surpass the US.
What's the US response? The Tea Party movement.
hdiwan 06:22 23 Nov 09
I'm no economist, but am European by birth and upbringing. I wonder what is special about a value-added-tax in Dr. Sachs' opinion vis a vis the sales tax used in the United States. It would appear to me, as a layperson, that instituting a VAT just enhances the bureaucracy needed to track and collect money at every stage on smaller amounts than at the point of sale. Your response are most appreciated. Many thanks!