Angus King H’07, a distinguished lecturer at the College since 2004, is a regular contributor to the Bowdoin Daily Sun. In his latest post, the former two-term governor of Maine says last week’s election losses by Democrats might have been avoided if the White House had just shouted out its successes.
In looking over my first three Bowdoin Daily Sun posts, there seems to be a pattern developing wherein a quote from my dad becomes the text for the ruminations that follow. Today, however, my source is different—one Ellen King, schoolteacher, community volunteer, and mom (mine). It seems somewhat uncharacteristic, but I can swear I remember her saying (on more than one occasion), “If you’re going to do a good deed, be sure people know about it.” Would that Barack Obama’s mother had said something similar to him, because the political debacle of last week could have been prevented had the President (and his Democratic mates) effectively and repeatedly told the real story of the last two years.
To illustrate my point, we’ll have a quiz. No peeking until you’ve made a good faith effort to come up with your own answers. Here goes:
1.) Name the automaker (of all those in the world) for which U.S. sales increased the most in the last twelve months. Now name the second biggest “increaser” and the company that produces both brands.
2.) Name the automobile manufacturer with the second-highest total U.S. sales in the last year, just behind Ford and ahead of Toyota.
3.) Name the automaker that came within an inch of going out of business less than two years ago but was saved by federal intervention led by Barack Obama.
4.) Identify on the following graph the bar for the month when Barack Obama was sworn in as POTUS:
5.) What is the significance of this number: 20 million?
6.) (Trick question) How much have Barack Obama and the Democrats raised taxes?
7.) What was the largest single component of the “Dreaded Stimulus Package” (DSP)?
8.) If you had invested $100,000 in the stock market on the day Barack Obama was sworn in, what would it be worth today?
9.) How many U.S. troops were in Iraq the day Barack Obama was sworn in, and how many are there today?
10.) What percentage of personal income was total federal, state, and local taxes in 2009? Where did this level of taxation rank in terms of the last 60 years?
****
OK, here are the answers:
1.) Name the automaker (of all those in the world) for which U.S. sales increased the most in the last twelve months. Now name the second biggest “increaser” and the company that produces both brands. Buick, followed closely by Cadillac, had the greatest sales increase over the past twelve months; both are manufactured by General Motors. Number four was GMC.
2.) Name the automobile manufacturer with the second-highest total U.S. sales in the last year, just behind Ford and ahead of Toyota. General Motors is the second leading manufacturer over the past year, just behind Ford.
3.) Name the automaker that came within an inch of going out of business less than two years ago but was saved by federal intervention led by Barack Obama. General Motors, again. Had it not been for the President’s intervention (read bailout), the company would be gone now and about a million extra people would be out of work.
4.) Identify on the following graph the bar for the month when Barack Obama was sworn in as POTUS:
That’s right, it’s the longest bar, representing 750,000 jobs lost that month. As you can see, the jobs picture has been steadily improving ever since and we’ve been in plus territory for the past eight months. Last month, for example, saw an increase of 151,000 jobs. Bonus fact: number of net new jobs created during the eight years of the (anti-business) Clinton administration: 23 million; number of net new jobs created during the eight years of the (pro-business) Bush administration: 3 million.
5.) What is the significance of this number: 20 million? Twenty million is the number of 21 to 26 year-olds that are now eligible to be kept on their parents’ health insurance plan by virtue of “Obamacare.” Many would have been without coverage prior to the passage of the healthcare bill last ear.
6.) (Trick question) How much have Barack Obama and the Democrats raised taxes? Obama tax increases: zero. (Coincidentally, the same number as Obama gun-control initiatives).
7.) What was the largest single component of the “Dreaded Stimulus Package” (DSP)? The biggest middle class tax cut in U.S. history was the largest single component of the DSP, accounting for $300 billion of the $800 billion total. If you didn’t realize this, don’t feel bad; a recent poll revealed that only 8% of the American public knew that the DSP contained any tax cuts at all. Whose fault is that?
8.) If you had invested $100,000 in the stock market on the day Barack Obama was sworn in, what would it be worth today? One hundred thousand dollars invested in a fund based upon the Dow on January 20, 2009, is worth $180,000 today. Bonus fact: $100,000 invested the day George W. Bush took office was worth $65,000 eight years later.
9.) How many U.S. troops were in Iraq the day Barack Obama was sworn in, and how many are there today? Troops in Iraq in January, 2009: 150,000. Troops in Iraq today: 45,000.
10.) What percentage of personal income was total federal, state, and local taxes in 2009? Where did this level of taxation rank in terms of the last 60 years? Total federal, state, and local taxes represented 9.2% of personal income in 2009, the lowest level since 1950.
If you’re like me, most of this information is surprising and some of it is amazing.
And that’s my point.
Basically, the President was subjected to a two-year, non-stop “Swift Boating” and never really fought back. On healthcare, for example, he spent the entire summer of 2009 and most of the fall letting Fox News, talk radio, and the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman define him and his proposals. On the economy, he never made the case of how bad things were and what progress has been made.
Sure, President Obama made all these points at one time or another in speeches or during his Saturday morning radio address (did you know there was such a thing? What station is it on?), or the occasional press conference (why does a guy who’s so smart and articulate have so few press conferences?). But in order to really get through to people, you have to follow the country preacher rule I teach my students: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em; tell ‘em; then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” In other words, repeat the message over and over until it seeps into the public consciousness. And then repeat it about a hundred more times.
I think Barack Obama should have had that jobs graph tattooed on his forehead, for example, or least posted it on the front of the podium every time he spoke.
Ya think Rush Limbaugh never repeats himself? Have you ever seen the same or similar stories bashing Obama on Fox News? How about ten times a day every day? William James once said, “There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.” Lenin put it a little more bluntly: “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” Death panels and Obama-raised-your-taxes spring to mind—and the fact that they spring to mind so easily makes my point.
I’m not faulting the President for what he’s done or not done, but rather for letting his opponents define the narrative of his first two years without seriously telling his side. I don’t believe the public necessarily repudiated the President or his policies last week; I think they repudiated a cartoon version of what he has or hasn’t done and he let it happen. Americans like their leaders tough and scrappy (think Gary Cooper in “High Noon” or Jason Bourne). And they like Indiana Jones a lot better in the crushed fedora with a whip in his hand than as the mild-mannered professor.
It’s too late now, but I wish the president had read The Killer Angels last summer. He would have learned that when Chamberlain and the 20th Maine were on top of that hill and about to be overwhelmed, they didn’t retreat or crouch behind the rocks or talk about bi-partisanship.
They charged.
An excellent analysis. I wish that you were the President’s press secretary.
Angus King is right on, but it doesn’t look like Obama is going to change. Maybe it’s time for Hillary
I think Mr. King makes a compelling case that Democrats lost this election by the margins they did because they failed to both
a) communicate their policy platform, vision of the future AND past policy successes, and
b) stand up for the principles they used to win the elections of 2006 and 2008.
One needs to look no further than the success rates of the different types of Democrats (as defined by caucus) in this recent election. The Progressive Caucus (the “liberal” wing of the Democratic party) saw a 95% success rate on November 2nd and are now the largest caucus inside the party, representing about 38% of the membership. The centrist/conservative New Democrat and Blue Dog caucuses were slaughtered, losing about 50% of their races, will make up 28% of the Democratic House delegation in 2011.
For the past two years, the White House catered to the few sane Republicans left in the Senate and the conservative Blue Dog and New Dems to build coalitions around major legislation, sacrificing true “liberal” bills (the public option, chief among them) in favor of moderate steps in order to win passage. These are the same Blue Dogs and New Dems who ran AWAY from their accomplishments (and away from Obama and Pelosi) this past campaign season. And by and large they are the ones who suffered major electoral defeats. The Progressives, who long argued for a public option, tougher financial regulation, and a real energy/climate bill, embraced the Democratic successes of 2009-2010, and lost just 5% of the races they contested.
The American public is largely unconcerned with whether a policy is left, right, or center. They want what WORKS. And given the choice between Republicans/conservatives and Republican-lite, the electorate has consistently chosen the GOP (in 2000, 2004, and now 2010). The Democrats need only to figure out a way to actually stand up for what they profess to believe — positions that generally win public favor over Republican policies in “blind taste test” types of situations — and leave their corporate masters at the curb to win elections.
Unfortunately up to this point they have proven unable to unwilling to do so.
very interesting, how about sending it to Obama? Gibbs?MSNBC?
As he so often does, Angus once again gives incisive analysis and sense-making action steps to deal effectively with political realities. His wisdom should be repeated over and over so the barrage of falsehoods we hear are neutralized by authentic facts and sustainable truth.
Having spent my life as a marketer and having given dozens of board presentations on the business I was running at the time, I think it is fair to say that this kind of data would have been part of my presentation whether sales and profits were up at the time or not…and I would think those around the POTUS would have been ready with this kind of data. Any business person would know how to present data like this. The problem? Neither Barack Obama nor his close advisors know the first thing about running a business, with less than 20% of them ever having worked in the private sector. I am not a fan of President Obama and his policies and think he is borderline dangerous as he plans on running $1 trillion dollar deficits for the next decade and doubling the national debt. You have found good examples of some things that have happened to the economy over the past year or so and certainly things that President Obama could have packaged better, but that isn’t what the voters just reacted to. Unemployment is still just below 10% and they believe the POTUS and key leaders in Congress are not on the same page with them. It all started with Obamacare.
Lots to digest, but most political discourse is an exercise in selective presentation. For example, the private payroll employment graph looks great but shows only monthly changes in employment. It is not cumulative, which if factored in, would suggest that the “stimulus” failed badly. The small month to month gain in employment will take years to offset the cumulative unemployment figure. A deep recession should be followed (and, with recent exceptions of the last 20 years)by an equally robust recovery. The graph does not depict such a needed recovery. And Angus wants that posted in place for all to see?
Same with Iraq. The number of U.S. troops committed overseas (Afghanistan)is still large. Numbers look good if you look at only one country. The decline in Iraq was the result of bipartisan military strategy which many for some time opposed.
The problem in this political cycle, it seems to me, was that many wished themselves and others to believe in these suggestive, but partial and biased pictures of “reality”. Reality is the true unemployment number (north of 10%, really). Reality is continued American military deaths and casualties overseas. By ignoring this and choosing attractive graphs and cheery facts, the democrats managed to show apparent unconcern for the realities such as my unemployed neighbor and the recent death of yet another 20 year old high school grad, this time in my town. These facts were repeated throughout the country in every ward and precinct; no one needed a graph or happy factoid to understand what was really going on. Not listening to voters rather than poor messaging was the cause of the recent sweep.
Without realizing it, Angus shows exactly how these election results came to be.
The last two commentators show the sad reality of partisanship in the US and the fact that many voters do not base their decisions on fact but rather emotion, myth, and ideology. These presumably intelligent commentators will ignore facts and go with their gut. Obama’s communicators failed to get through, but I am not sure it was for want of trying.
The job loss chart is compelling, though – I saw an even better one in which the Research Chief of the Philadelphia Fed showed job losses in 1929-32 overlaid on 2008-2009 and the curves looked the same – except that the ’29 curve kept right on plunging for another year or more – suggesting that the bailout and the stimulus did in fact avoid another Great Depression, and saved millions of jobs.
I literally stumbled on this blogpost when I went to the Bowdoin website to check how the field hockey team was doing, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is the best, most succinct analysis of Obama’s political predicament that I have seen anywhere, and I only wish that this could be more widely disseminated. I wonder if the Democrats had spent some of their political advertising money during the past few months to publicize these facts, instead of using the cash for negative ads, what the results might have been. It would be hard to argue that they could have been worse.
One more point might be made:
Under Bush, for eight years, the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was NOT included in the reported federal deficit! Under Obama, that changed and those costs were folded in to the federal deficit. Maybe the American public is no longer able to distinguish between obfuscation and reality. Maybe a lie that feels good is better than a painful truth.
Based on his perceptive ‘analysis,’ I think that Mr. King would be an ideal addition to the Obama communications team. I strongly encourage him to apply. I have heard that there are going to be many new job opportunities at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I have written several times to the president that he conduct monthly news conferences at which he is clearly adept and for reasons unknown to us why he has eschewed them for many, many months. The press would have roasted Pres. “W” if he had done the same. Obama is a star and would have shone like Pres. Kennedy. His message would have been enunciated more clearly and the facts reported verbatim. Would that he would have heeded this advice.
Mrs. Clarke and Curtis are correct in their several observations of the ObamaDilema. In my opinion, the bottom line problems for Obama is that people did not like his policies, his handling of the economy, and the passing of health care legislation in the middle of the night using arcane rules. So much for the openness and transparency promised as a new way of doing things. And finally, Obama did not connect with Americans. It is far beyond what this blog espouses, it was and is a basic lack of understanding Obama has of the people he governs.
When Angus was the Guv, I often thought openly that he used the media better than most politicians. He truly did. Probably because he was a member of the media in a past life. Obama really could use someone of that ilk on his team. Perhaps Keith Olbermann is in the job market…..
I now understand President Mills’ concern about bringing a balance to political discourse to the campus. That someone who engages in such blatant partisan distortion of data would be allowed to teach at Bowdoin stuns me. Now the real question: does he think this is a balanced, object presentation of the data?
As regards Governors King’s teachers comment about “Good Deeds’, I was always taught that if you do a good deed you are the only one who needs to know it, nobody else.
Also I am tired of another postmortem election analysis where the problem was that the voters were uninformed. Nonsense! To borrow from Justice Stewart’s famous remarks about pornography. “I don’t know how to define it, but I know a political disaster when I see it”.
Mr. Bennekom,
I understand your point of view and though I disagree I will not berate you for itl after reading your post i went back and re read the article and I can see where it would appear to be propping up the democrats and pushing their agenda and while it certainly shows their busy activity over the lasst few years, i don’t feel that this wa Kings intent. All the questions and answers that appear to push you towards democratic thought are, as I see it, really there to show us that we don’t know what washington has done because they have failed to tell us and that it is in fact, no our fault for not knowing. This plays into an overall theme of narrative, I read the article as a discourse on the fact that we must not let our oppositions drone our narratives for us. For example, ny friend is a tea partier and is very upset that everyone assumes she is a homophobic, hyper-religious racist. I know it isn’t true because I know her, but what I told her was that if you don’t want that to be the tea party image, you should find public figures that embody how you do want to be viewed, control your narrative. Where I. Disagree with this article is inn the idea that it isn’t our fault, I believe that we are not just accountable for the lies that we tell, but as voters we are accountable for those lies in which we choose to believe, you are responsible for the things you believe in.
On your point of balance. I agree that balance is necessary, but unfortunately it is usually only invoked when someone decides they don’t like what they hear. I don’t like Fox I call for balance, well, watch CNN, or vice versa. The issue becomes is it the governments job to create balance, or are we to allow the public sector to grow the ideas that they see fit, if balance is necessary, well where qre all the fascist groups with their equal representation and the marxists and everyone else? It becomes a dangerous game, should Fox news allow Jimmy Carter a prime time spot for balance, or CNN give Rand Paul a commentary? I agree on keeping a college campus open to all, but it is up to the students to decide to form their balanced political presence and if none do, well it should not be forced(I mean that for all angles of the aisle). I come from a mixed bag of family politics, so where I don’t agree with everything on anyones side, i can see the value in the difference and i understand that everyone has the same goal, that is to protect the country, make it prosper, and try to create a better world for the kids. It isn’t blind rhetoric, for most it is the real intention behind change, there are just different views on how to get there.
So while my intention sot to force you to change your mind to my way of thinking (that would be frivolous and giants everything i pretty much said) I do hope you see why I took something different away from this article, just as I understand why you got the impression you did. It is all about narratives.
Also, sorry for all the typos, typing on the iPad is difficult, and my laptop is broken. Please don’t let it distract from my meaning, though I know it is hard.
All good points, but let me try to cast some of it in a different light. The bailouts, while effective and sometimes profitable, offended many people because they seemed to reward the irresponsible with the saving grace of taxpayers’ money, and many of the “saved” seemed to show no respect by giving themselves big bonuses to reward their failures. The job losses, while diminishing, were still adding up for most of Obama’s term and Obama’s team wrongly predicted the stimuli would result in an 8-percent jobless rate, while it actually bumped near ten-percent, and in the most recent months when jobs were added, they didn’t amount to gains big enough to do much to the unemployment rate. Ford, which did not take bailout money (but I recall did put in a “just in case” number), had taken painful, self-correcting steps before the stuff hit the fan, and has rebounded nicely on its own (with a little help from the Toyota mess). The problem, as more than one pundit has observed, is that it is hard to run on a platform of …”It could’ve been worse….” The CBO estimates it could have been 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs worse. The whole “created or saved jobs” number is a mess, because it’s hard to know if you would have lost your job or not. Yes, Obama should have touted the $300 (b) billion dollar tax cut as part of the stimulus, and the administration probably wisely (economically, not politically) made it an invisible tax cut instead of cutting checks. As for stock market gains, a lot of folks don’t have money to invest in the market — and it wouldn’t be wise to plunk down all of your money on one date anyway. Most folks with modest portfolios got hammered in ’08 and if they just rode it out, may now be back to par, with a diminished dollar value as our currency weakens and the price of gold soars to bubblicious highs (although not all-time, inflation-adjusted, yet) I’m not even going to touch the whole war thing, except to say that we are still “over there” and the end-game for the region is unclear. 20 (m) million twenty-somethings are now covered by their parents’ insurance, but premiums will go up to cover that and other aspects of the bill. It’s hard to say how much anyone’s premium is increased because of the legislation, since continued rising costs, reserve requirements, and profit are also factors. The whole process of health care reform and the stimulus was handled poorly, in actuality and politically. I’m sure your 9-percent effective tax rate is accurate in the aggregate, but between Social Security, Medicare, Sales, Excise, Federal income, State income,and property taxes, you can bet there are people who are paying a lot more. and those would be the people who can afford it the least. Energy prices were down a bit lately, but are back up — nearly three bucks for a gallon of gas, and more for heating oil. Electricity rates are high, especially here in the Northeast; Commodity prices are up — the price of bread, alone, is ridiculous. Millions of people are underwater on their mortgages, freezing their ability to chase jobs geographically, and diminishing their sense of self-worth. The safest investments — savings accounts, bonds, etc. — don’t pay much of a return. Commercial lending is stingy for small business. Health care costs continue to rise. Wages for most people are flat at best. Companies are running lean and mean, demanding higher productivity and demonstrating a continued reluctance to hire, while hoarding cash. Jobs are insecure. The deficit is huge. There seems to be no real will for structural reform to entitlements — Social Security, Medicare, Pensions — or the overall structure of the tax code. In sum, we’ve still got a lot of “work to do,” and the progress so far is not evident to a large percentage of the population, and to the extent that it is, does not give them either satisfaction or encouragement.
To me it is not about Mr. King “manipulating” the events of Obama’s presidency, rather the Democrats not effectively marketing Obama’s presidency. Objectively, there are positives and negative to each decision the president makes. Yes, Mr. King presents the GM bailout in a positive light here, just as people have branded Obama’s policies as communist. For any given event, policy, program, etc. there can always be two (or more) completely different ways of telling the story. The Republicans have certainly told their version of Obama’s presidency, and I believe what Mr. King is arguing is that Obama and the Democrats did not tell theirs.
Great analysis. Could you get Governor King’s article to Obama’s press secretary? He needs to come out swinging, advertising his victories and reminding the public of how deeply and criminally damaged was the America he inherited.
[...] If you had invested $100,000 in the stock market (using an index fund based on the Dow) the day Obama was sworn in to office, it would be worth $180,000 today. If you had invested [...]
Well said Alexey.
@James: Assuming you were referring to me, what facts am I ignoring?
Very refreshing anecdotal reminders …
of why I supported Hillary Clinton 2006-2008.
Its the economy stupid (not personal social conversion.
Doing the right things in the wrong ways.
And now we have Bush Redux …. UGH !!!
I hate hangovers !!!
SEE: Live By the Movement, Die By the Movement — Obama’s doomed theory of politics.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/79004/you-said-you-wanted-revolution-midterm-elections-obama?page=0%2C1
“Obama in office upheld the community organizers’ post-partisan credo, trying to bring together opposing forces and finding common ground, in part under the pressure of the organizer’s own reasonableness. But that was not how it worked in Washington during the past two years; nor had it worked that way for 20 years. A ruthless and right-wing Republican Party spurned talk of common ground as a sign of weakness, and did everything it could to ensure that Obama’s presidency would fail. But oblivious to the long-standing internal dynamics of the Republican Party, Obama continued to vaunt his brand of “post-partisanship.” Now, after the ruins of the midterms, the president must readjust. He can, if he wishes, draw on recent historical experience. After his rocky first two years brought on the Republican tidal wave of 1994, President Clinton, with no illusions about “post-partisanship,” entered a state of day-to-day political trench warfare, co-opting Republican rhetoric about family values to give them Democratic content, winning targeted but crucial legislation on matter such as health care, and risking political capital by endorsing welfare reform that the left wing of his own party lambasted—dogmatically and short-sightedly, it turned out—as the death-knell of liberal reform.
Presidential oratory about beliefs was an important part of the mix—recall Clinton’s effective speech on government and patriotic values following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995—but the grind of political infighting and compromise must always have priority. It could well be that Obama’s survival as an effective political force for the next two years and his prospect for reelection—and any viable future for social movements—will require engaging cleverly and doggedly in what his movement theorists derided as “status quo” politics.” — Sean Wilentz is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of Bob Dylan in America (Doubleday).
“If you’re like me, most of this information is surprising and some of it is amazing.”
I guess I’m not like you because I have been hearing these points and others like them for the last two years. It has not been difficult at all to learn this.
Of course I’ve been hearing all the other noise out there too. Like the one about how Obama was overexposing himself and fatiguing people’s attention… Or how Obama is an arrogant condescending preachy egghead…
Get real. Right now we have an electorate filled with individuals with sick personal values and ethics. They are easy prey to one line of attack filled with hate fear and scapegoating of the weak. They are not susceptible to sensible grown-up argument. We have a Republican party not afraid to jump both feet first into dangerous pandering to hate.
Governor King, if you want and have the resources to become another Rupert Murdoch, then find your Roger Ailes to help you run things, please do that soon.
Here is a small scale suggestion if you don’t have the resources to create a national TV network:
How about next time, in response to a national Republican party spewing hate and coded (and not so coded) racism… with a governor’s race where the Republican candidate is an excellent personification of that hate and immaturity – Don’t wait until the last second to make an endorsement. Also, in the face of that dangerous wall of coordinated Republican hate, don’t blame Democrat party functionaries maybe having hurt Elliot Cutler’s feelings as the reason why you finally endorse. You give ammunition to the Republicans-in-disguise-as-Independents line of false equivalence arguments. Nothing is more dangerous out there right now to sound election results than arguments made that Republican and Democrat political behavior is equally bad. That is an obvious falsehood. In quantity and quality of dangerous pandering, Republicans are orders of magnitude worse.
Figures don’t lie but liars can figure.
How much would $100,000 invested in Google when it went public be worth today? wHAT IF, WHAT IF, WHAT IF? Hind site is great and so that argument is worthless.
Obviously our current administration totally lacks the understanding of Economice 101: money does not GROW ON TREES!
History will prove that this is one of the most socialistic and economically destructive administrations in American history. Bush was no saint and the Republicans are going to self-destruct with their right wing social views but the Obama, Pelosi, & Reed combination are arrogant as heck and are pure poison to the America that our forefathers envisioned.
Want to talk about history? Look at the legislative history surrounding what the Democratics have done to the Social Security System. Why not allow a few more illegals to put their hands in my pocket while you are at it?
Regardless as to political persuasion, personally and naievely, I wish there was no such thing as party politicians – lets get back to running the country the way it should be without having to maintain party lines or repay political favors!
Obama wanted change; he brought this change upon himself
Comment flagged as inappropriate.
I understand King’s main theme is that Obama didn’t communicate his successes well enough, but the successes he uses are VERY suspect, which could help explain why Obama didn’t tout them so much…
Two of the ten quiz questions right off the bat make no sense at all to me…I asked my CPA about #10 to see what I might be missing as it makes NO sense to me at all. Her reply: “I have no idea…does not appear accurate at all! The lowest federal tax rate is 10%. How can the taxes for federal, state and local be 9.2% of personal income????”
The other is #8 regarding investing in the Dow… I don’t know where he is getting his numbers. Obama took office on 1/20/09…the Dow closed at 7949 that day. On 11/5/10 the Dow closed at 11444. That is a 44% increase. By the way, 11444 is the high close in the last few years! If you use the close from 1/16/09 (the close on the last trading day before he took office and end it on 11/3 (just two days earlier) the numbers are as follows: 1/16/09-8281 / 11/3/10-11215 which equals a 35% return.
Also, the Dow was at 10678 on 1/20/01 when Bush took office and was at 7949 on 1/20/09…that is a 25% reduction, not 35%.
#6) He is also wrong about not raising taxes. If he had said INCOME taxes he would be accurate, but he has raised taxes on some things already (cigarettes come to mind…it was a MASSIVE increase) and has proposed many tax increases.
#9) this is a direct result of actions accomplished prior to his taking office…almost meaningless to me.
#7) to be accurate, there were no tax cuts from the stimulus, there were tax credits issued.
#1,#2,#3,#4) All I can say about these is how to lie with statistics. It’s pretty hard not to show large increases when you are at the bottom of the cliff.
“He is also wrong about not raising taxes. If he had said INCOME taxes he would be accurate, but he has raised taxes on some things already”
And poster’s specific first to mind example is marginal changes to a sin tax (as much or more about behavior modification then taxation) at ~$10B range of a total fed revenue in the $2T range. I’m sure there are all kinds of pluses and minus over the last two years at the $10B range. After all, the Fed gov took in $400-500B less in 2008-2009.
“I asked my CPA about #10 to see what I might be missing as it makes NO sense to me at all”
Yes Governor, this last is either a little cryptic or incorrect in description. What are you saying here?
“#7) to be accurate, there were no tax cuts from the stimulus, there were tax credits issued.”
As with the stock market calculations, I think poster is being a little technically picayune on this.
“#1,#2,#3,#4) All I can say about these is how to lie with statistics. It’s pretty hard not to show large increases when you are at the bottom of the cliff.”
What if, really, we were clinging to a ledge only a quarter way down to the bottom?
Items 1-3 were specifically referring to General Motors…They WERE at the bottom. It’s hard to argue that if the government didn’t step in they would be no more. ANY company that is that close to dissolving can go NO WHERE but UP when the federal gov’t infuses billions into it. Because of that, it is hardly relevant that their sales went up the most percentage-wise. Regarding the chart in #4…in my opinion, nobody in their right mind would tout that chart as being a plus for the administration! Let’s see, they spent trillions of dollars and promised the unemployment rate wouldn’t go above 8%…how’d that work out for them? I can see it now, Obama trying to tell the American people over and over (King’s advice mind you) how good a job he has done because the seasonally adjusted monthly change in private payroll has slowed. Keep in mind, that chart is the monthly change…as long as it is negative it is WORSE than the year before. Even as that chart was showing improvement from the bottom, the unemployment rate was still RISING!!!
And I don’t think it is picayune to say he was off by as much as 40,000 on his little scenario about the Dow. Couple that with his off-the-wall effective tax rate scenario (as well as all my other critiques)and it makes one wonder about the validity of the entire piece.
I find it laughable that Obama didn’t speak of his accomplishments enough…it seems to me that’s all he has done for the last two years! Maybe he hasn’t given many press conferences but he has been on TV more than any other President ever! As to why he doesn’t give more press conferences…maybe its because he can’t use his teleprompter while answering hard questions.
Here is the bottom line, IMHO…the American people know full well what Obama has accomplished and they don’t like it one bit.
Considering GM still had facilities open all over the place, paying salaries, and purchasing goods off the market, I think it is easy to posit a potential lower bottom, as far as the country’s economy goes.
I think #4 can be ‘touted’ for what it says: job loss stabilized. I suspect Christine Romer’s actual model included quantitative spreads versus likelihood of outcome. Wouldn’t doubt actual result was in there somewhere at some model-predicted probability. Bet that information was available at the time. I suspect the administration picked this or that way of presenting that level of sophistication. I’m not a marketer/mass-psychology expert. I have no strong opinions about how to talk to the public on these kinds of things. Of course a raging partisan could snipe at almost anyway they presented it, followed by almost any outcome, if that partisan is willing to mindlessly throw around Palin-like phrases like “how’d that work out for them?”
I’ve seen Obama on and off the teleprompter. He is pretty good either way. I watched the full exchange when he visited the Republican Congressional retreat and they had a back and forth. With little ambiguity he bested a room full of opponents.
Yes you are being picayune and ignoring the primary point when you fiddle a little this way or that with numbers of multi-year Stock Market trends, or split hairs about a ‘tax credit’ not being a ‘tax cut.’
If you wanted to say that Stock Market moves over multi-year period of time is meaningless, go for it… and explain. But skip the 35 versus 44% day-picking. The major characteristics of the trends where as the governor described.
If you want to say that money showing up in somebody’s pocket is a different kind of money because it got there by way of a process labeled ‘tax cut’ versus ‘tax credit’… Take a shot at that. But just saying ‘it’s not a tax cut’ certainly falls far flatter than any flatness in the governor’s presentation.
What ‘the American people’ know ‘full well’ amounts to 300,000,000 different things.
The Republican Party spent the last two years placing all its chips on 1) enough of the American people being small, mean, immature and willing to scapegoat the weak for problems caused by the more powerful, while 2) hoping enough of the minority population that supports their core program (flat to regressive taxes on individuals, essentially zero regulation and tax on business, government expenditures limited to policy and programs that make the already powerful more powerful, and an aggressively militaristic hegemonic foreign policy) have weak enough personal ethics they are willing to stomach this disgraceful (dangerous and immoral in my opinion) pandering to hate, racism and scapegoating.
Looks like the bet paid off handsomely.
Several of the comments raise legitimate points which merit response. First, with regard to the increase in the value of an investment between Barak Obama’s inauguration day and now, my piece mistakenly cites the Dow when the figure was actually based upon the 79% growth in the NASDAQ. The Dow is up about 40% and the S&P is up just over 50% over the same period. To compare apples to apples (or NASDAQs to NASDAQs), the NASDAQ was down 45% during the Bush years rather than the 35% I mentioned.
The second question is in connection with taxes as a percentage of personal income. The sentence should have included the word “income” before taxes and the figure should have been 9.4%. So to be accurate, the sentence should read,”Total federal, state, and local income taxes represented 9.4% of personal income in 2009, the lowest level since 1950.” The BEA data verifies this statement. Another way to look at the same point is total federal receipts (which include more than just income taxes) as a percentage of GDP. Here again, the figure for 2009 (15.1%) is the lowest level since 1950. The average over the past thirty years is about 18%.
I fully realize that this begs the question of deficits which really require a post all to itself. Suffice it to say, there is plenty of blame to go around on this point and I think Obama can credibly argue that given the dire economic situation he walked into, some kind of major stimulus was the only tool he had in the short run to replace the huge reduction in business and personal spending which threatened to plunge the economy into a true depression. And don’t forget, a major part of the stimulus (and contributor to the deficit) was a tax cut.
Thank you Governor King.
Using
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/#usgs302a
and tables of total personal income versus year, I was guessing that is what you meant.
———-
To survive next two years and beyond-
Recommendation for a book to read, outlining big ideas Dems-and-or-Independents should grab onto to break partisan silliness:
http://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Dead-Ideas-Revolutionary-Prosperity/dp/0805091505%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0805091505
Here is my humbly submitted suggestion for a revolutionary big idea that a non-partisan majority might support:
Primary generalized goal – building a renewed respect for the economic superiority and just plain rightness and equity of progressive taxation.
As a specific first step – Eliminate FICA. Replace with a VERY broad national consumption tax plus new semi-large per capita tax credit.
Just a reminder of why I was happy to have Angus King as my governor for eight years.
Just a quick response. The idea that voters punished Democrats due to “the passing of health care legislation in the middle of the night using arcane rules” is a little strange; either the voters have very short memories or hold the Democrats to completely different standard than the Republicans. In 2003, Medicare Part D was passed in the House of Representatives only by breaking the house rules to hold the vote open for an astonishing 3 hours extra (usually, votes are limited to 15 minutes), breaking the law–(Tom deLay first threatened, then offered an outright bribe to Republican congressman Nick Smith of Michigan–by the way, bribery’s illegal), and shutting of the C-SPAN cameras for the first time in history so no one could watch the dirty dealings. If you’re bothered by the health care bill maneuvers–which was just ordinary horse-trading by D.C. standards–you better confirm that you voted a straight Democratic ticket in 2004. And no, just saying “I didn’t like Medicare Part D” isn’t good enough. If you didn’t actually *punish* the Republicans in 2004 the way you punished the Dems, then you have some serious ‘splaining to do.
@Greg: Passing Medicare Part D is hardly the same as forcing Americans to buy health insurance, which if not un-Constitutional, is the next thing to it.
Thank you, Gov. King, for your insights and for sparking thought and comment. May we readers stimulate positive change.
While you have gathered such an audience, I would like to invite the readers to listen to Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig’s presentation to the Cambridge Forum entitled: Change Congress on October 13, 2010. It can be seen/downloaded at http://forum-network.org/lecture/lawrence-lessig-change-congress . I look forward to hearing the readers’ comments.
Note: Governor King _and_ Lawrence Lessig in Portland together this week.
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/550972/2201044dbf/1797502423/3a006cd570/
Thank you for the reply Governor King.
Let’s look at this one paragraph, shall we? Mr. O’Brien wrote:
“I think #4 can be ‘touted’ for what it says: job loss stabilized. I suspect Christine Romer’s actual model included quantitative spreads versus likelihood of outcome. Wouldn’t doubt actual result was in there somewhere at some model-predicted probability. Bet that information was available at the time. I suspect the administration picked this or that way of presenting that level of sophistication. I’m not a marketer/mass-psychology expert. I have no strong opinions about how to talk to the public on these kinds of things. Of course a raging partisan could snipe at almost anyway they presented it, followed by almost any outcome, if that partisan is willing to mindlessly throw around Palin-like phrases like “how’d that work out for them?”
In this paragraph we read “I think”; “I suspest”; “Wouldn’t doubt”; “Bet that”; “I suspect”; “I’m not…” followed by the one time you are sure of yourself when you say: “Of course…” and it is then that you throw in “raging partisan” and of course the ever popular “mindlessly throw around Palin-like phrases…”
Wow. How cliche can you be?
How about we stick to the facts and the whole premise of Gov. King’s op-ed? Okay, let’s dive in!
Mr. O’Brien’s very first paragraph misses the point, again. He writes in part: “I think it is easy to posit a potential lower bottom, as far as the country’s economy goes.” Who cares? It completely misses the point of the op-ed. I’ll say it again, it is simply throwing out a rather meaningless statistic to say GM had the highest increase in sales over the last 12 months. You tell me, what would happen (in percentage sales increase) to ANY company that was near an all-time low in sales that is infused with BILLIONS of government bailout money? Here is the answer…they are going to spike up.
Now let’s move to this comment: ” But skip the 35 versus 44% day-picking.” First of all it wasn’t 35 vs 44, it was 80 vs 35/44. Whatever. The bigger point is, for a President who wants to paint himself as a man of the masses, would it be wise to go around repeatedly telling people in effect that Wall Street and big business are thriving when individuals and small business are hurting? Do any of us really believe any President has a huge impact on the stock market? Too lengthy a subject to go into here, but suffice to say there are many other things that have a huge impact as well. And again, it is lieing with stats. The stock market had TANKED in the fall of 2008…what a surprise that it has gone up since!!! By the way, just for the record, the NASDAQ all-time high is over 5000. We are sitting at 2500 right now. Much worse than either the Dow or the S+P 500.
(By the way, please note how I am attempting to keep our discussions focused on the real issue here which is the premise of the op-ed.)
Finally, let’s go to your last paragraph were you really show your true colors and your far-left talking points. Although there is much to choose from, for the sake of shortening an already lengthy post I would simply like to say that for every one instance of racism you can show me that has come from the republican party (I think what you really mean is the tea party, but I could be wrong), I can show you 10 from the democrat party.
Enough with Mr. O’Brien, I would like to reiterate one final point in disagreement with the op-ed: Gov King states that Obama simply didn’t tell us enough about his accomplishments. I believe that is the one main theme of the op-ed, correct? Well, I wholeheartedly disagree with that premise. I believe Obama has attempted to convince the public of his successes and the soundness of his visions more than any other President in history! The American public (as a whole Mr. O’Brien, not all 300 million individually) simply doesn’t buy what he has been trying so hard to sell. I base that statement on the facts of the election…not just the national election either. Even more startling might be the 600+ state legislatures nationwide that changed away from the dems.
@ John Curtiss: You’re right, Medicare Part D — completely deficit-financed to the tune of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade — is NOTHING like the deficit-neutral Affordable Care Act.
If the GOP had been willing to vote for a plan they suggested in the 1990s (then-Sen John Chaffee’s bill, available here, alongside a rough version of Obama’s bill and the 2009 GOP bill: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Graphics/2010/022310-Bill-comparison.aspx) or one they instituted in Massachusetts, we might have gotten the health care debate over quickly enough, and then the GOP could get onto filibustering other things they used to agree with: TANF, small business tax cuts, etc. And if the individual mandate is un-Constitutional, we haven’t seen it overturned in Massachusetts yet, where it’s been in place for a few years.
I’d add an extra dimension to Mr King’s argument: not only did the Democrats fail to communicate their successes effectively, the also didn’t explain how truly awful the GOP/Bush was for the last 8 years. Most of the deficit is from the wars, Medicare part D, and the tax cuts, NOT the stimulus, TARP or the health care bill.
For crying out loud: Obama made it so safe for the last administration that George Bush felt just good enough to brag about personally authorizing war crimes/torture in his memoir.
Oh, one other point…assuming ”Total federal, state, and local income taxes represented 9.4% of personal income in 2009, the lowest level since 1950.” is correct, then an argument could just as easily be made that this a NEGATIVE as it means fewer and fewer people and now responsible for more and more of the tax burden. As it is now, almost 50% of the U.S. population has ZERO federal income tax burden. This from an article I found on CNN.com: “The consequence of turning the tax code into a tool for social policy is that we now have a record 52 million filers off the income tax rolls. This means 36 percent of all so-called taxpayers actually pay zero in income taxes after taking their credits and deductions. But these figures don’t include some 15 million people who work but don’t earn enough to file a tax return. When these people are added to the non-payers, estimates the Tax Policy Center, the percentage of households who don’t pay income taxes rises to 47 percent.”
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-15/opinion/hodge.non.taxpayers_1_income-tax-tax-policy-center-credits-and-deductions?_s=PM:OPINION
I for one think that is a recipe for disaster, not something to praise.
@Greg: Don’t tell me you really think that Obamacare will be deficit neutral. I just found this headline: “CBO: Obamacare = at least $109 Billion in Deficit Spending Over 10 Years; UPDATE: Former CBO Director: Obamacare Deficit will be $562 Billion over 10 years”. My guess? It would be much worse than that. Fortunately, the Republicans will put a fair amount of energy into de-financing this program or eventually repealing it all together.
Additionally, I never said I was a fan of Medicare Part D…I was simply making the point that it wasn’t mandating individual participation in MPart D, unlike Obamacare.
“Wow. How cliche can you be?”
You lost me. How was what I wrote cliche? You spout snarky Palin-sounding “How’s that working out for them?” Then you go on the attack calling me ‘cliche’ when no ‘cliches’ are present in my discussion. Well Cliche! cliche! cliche! right back at you, sir.
“You tell me, what would happen (in percentage sales increase) to ANY company that was near an all-time low in sales that is infused with BILLIONS of government bailout money? Here is the answer…they are going to spike up.”
Oh my God. Horrors! A major American employer/purchaser with sales spiking up! It’s the end of the WORLD!!!!
“(By the way, please note how I am attempting to keep our discussions focused on the real issue here which is the premise of the op-ed.)”
No. You are claiming there was absolutely no direction for anything – either stock market indexes or GM sales – to go but up. Governor King’s point was there were a million possible worse senarios and those worse senarios did not happen.
“Finally, let’s go to your last paragraph were you really show your true colors and your far-left talking points.”
It is not being “far-left” to despise racism, dangerous pandering to racism and dangerous pandering to related injustices like denying gay people basic respect and scapegoating the weak. It is not even all that noble or brave to despise racism and dangerous pandering. It is being a baseline minimum moral person. The Republican Party does not now meet that minimum standard.
” Although there is much to choose from, for the sake of shortening an already lengthy post I would simply like to say that for every one instance of racism you can show me that has come from the republican party (I think what you really mean is the tea party, but I could be wrong),”
The Republican Party enthusiastically owns the Tea Party. The Tea Party’s racism -is- the Republican Party’s racism.
” that for every one instance of racism you can show me that has come from the republican party I can show you 10 from the democrat party.”
Sorry. Can’t take you seriously anymore after that claim. The signs didn’t say “I demand a 29% highest marginal income tax bracket.” The signs said “I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK.” It wasn’t a Dem congressman yelling “You Lie!” at a black president during a mention of immigration issues during a State of the Union Address. The Dems. _lost_ the south and the Rep. picked the south up from the Southern Strategy. While there was some Dem cowardice (though not by the president) in the face of NYC Muslim community center issue, only the Republican Party included multiple major power figures grabbing the flag of Muslim bashing with both hands and waving vigorously, while the rest of the Republican party remained quiet – or wishy-washy -ided with the bashers etc etc etc.
Want to see the article that gives me nightmares and wakes me at 3:00AM and keeps me awake for the next two hours? It is this article that makes the judgement that, while it will be tough, continued hateful politics can play off the scary-to-whites demographic trends to further polarize white vote just enough, while _just_enough_ affluence in minority populations will lower its polarization small amounts, so in general Republicans hold power.
http://wallstreetpit.com/26321-michael-medved-gets-the-math-wrong-about-white-vote
I see myself a living the hate-fill last two years for the rest of my life, when I read this.
Google “Mt Laurel Decison.” I grew up in the middle of that. From the cradle-babycarriage-tricycle and beyond I experienced the spectrum of nuanced-to-sledge-hammer forms of the political game of frightening white people with brown people. I know what it looks, sounds and feels like. It was my people doing it, so I had an inside view. In 1970’s Mt Laurel NJ, the local white Dems and Reps owned it about equally and created my next 30-40 years of “pox on both houses” thinking and voting. However now In 2010, demographics trends and the first black president has created a situation where the Republicans own this ugliness something on order of 1000x more than the Dems. I can’t accept this level of difference anymore. I’m all about compromise these days. “Whatever leads to a Republican loss” – is now my motto.
That is my motto, yes. But that doesn’t change the fact that, here, _you_ are twisting/ignoring/distorting Governor King’s points…. while I am just discuss them in context.
“As it is now, almost 50% of the U.S. population has ZERO federal income tax burden.”
And even at the level, it is not enough to make total tax burden appropriately progressive. Federal income tax is only 31% of total government revenue. Much of the rest of tax revenue is flat or regressive. Progressive taxation is the right thing to do for practical economic reasons. Progressive taxation is right thing to do for equity/justice reasons. Even Adam Smith and his invisible hand agreed with this idea.
The “rightness” of progressive taxation should be obvious, but our culture has lost sight of this somehow.
Sorry. I overstated it. TOTAL US Income tax is 31% of TOTAL US tax receipts. Federal income tax looks like it is 24% of Total US tax receipts.
“And even at the level, it is not enough to make total tax burden appropriately progressive. Federal income tax is only 31% of total government revenue. Much of the rest of tax revenue is flat or regressive. Progressive taxation is the right thing to do for practical economic reasons. Progressive taxation is right thing to do for equity/justice reasons. Even Adam Smith and his invisible hand agreed with this idea.”
@Ken: I don’t know where you are getting your numbers, but Individual Income Taxes represent 41.6% of total Federal receipts. Corp. Income Taxes, Excise Taxes, Estate and Gift Taxes, Customs Duties, and Misc. are another 18.4% (most of these are highly regressive). And, yes, 40% comes from Social insurance and retirement receipts. These are flat but then those at higher income levels don’t get any additional benefit from them either.
What level of taxation would you think appropriate? Where does it stop and why does it stop at all? Why not just tax the wealthy at 90%? After all, a millionaire can live on $100,000/year. Where would it stop? You don’t think paying 40% is enough when half the people in this country pay NOTHING? And by the way, the top 25% AGI who account for 86% of the Federal Income Tax Revenue includes people making $67,280/year. Does that seem like a wealthy person to you?
Ken ,
My point isn’t that it is the end of the world because a major employer spiked up, it is that if you have a government take-over of a publicly traded company (and it was close to that…just ask the bond holders and preferred stock holders their opinion of what happened), a government that has an endless supply of money, the share price is going to stabilize and go up, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing. Look, you and I obviously disagree on free market capitalism vs socialism…or at least it appears that way, so I won’t argue with you on that anymore.
I believe wholeheartedly that you and i are both extremely sensitive to anything that could be perceived as racist. Having said that, it insults me tremendously to hear you say the Tea party is racist. Yes, the tea party wants to “take back our country”. That in no way means we want to go back to some time in our countries past when racism was rampant. It simply means we want to take back CONTROL of the country from an over-sized out of control Federal government.
Did you read about the black tea partier that was trying to pass out patriotic trinkets when he was beaten up on camera? It was a black SEIU thug that beat him up. How about the guy that had his finger bitten off? It was originally reported to be a tea partier doing the biting…nope, the other way around. How about the two LARGE tea party events on the national mall…no violence or racism whatsoever. Heck, the places were cleaner when they left than when it started. You seem to conveniently forget how rampant the Hitler mustaches on pictures of Bush were. Speaking of Hitler, I can point you to some tremendous articles that argue very well the point that Nazism is far more aligned with the far left than the far right. It is the National Socialist Party afterall. Point to me just one incident of violence with regard to the tea party. I can point out countless examples of violence coming from the left. Would you like to discuss the history of the two parties with regard to racism? Try these two articles out: http://hubpages.com/hub/A-brief-Civil-Rights-history and http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15893. Obviously Ken there are racist people all across the spectrum of society…it is simply incorrect to accept the idea, an idea that is relentlessly promoted by the main stream media in an attempt to marginalize the movement, that the tea party is racist.
Peace, Ken.
“I don’t know where you are getting your numbers,”
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/#usgs302a
That actually says 50% of fed revenue, not your 42%. But I was talking total tax burden from all level of governments.
FICA most certainly is regressive. Social security and Medicare are socialized program just like everything else government does. I believe that governmnent should do the things we assign it using a progressive taxation system. Its not about what the rich versus the poor use.
“What level of taxation would you think appropriate?…”
You then slip back into the mistake of _only_ discussing federal income tax. Sorry, I don’t fall into that trap with people. Let’s just discuss taxation. Let’s talk about progressiveness in taxation, and how to get that progressiveness with the complete taxation system, not just 31% of revenue part.
Your discuss then makes the standard mistake of slipping back into
If anyone wants to see my vision for this country, do yourself a favor and read this article by Mike Pence of Indiana. Tremendous article.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
@Ken: 42%=Individual Federal Income Taxes….50% includes Corporate Income Taxes.
I always find it fascinating that folks like you (progressive tax proponents) only seem to want to speak about taxes and not speak about cutting the bloated Federal budget. Like any business that isn’t running properly (and the Fed. Gov’t cannot be running properly with a $1.5 Trillion deficit), the leaders of that business should be spending AT LEAST as much time talking about major cuts to the budget as they do talking about increasing receipts. In a recession, the balance should weigh heavily in favor of budget cuts. Have you noticed what is happening in Greece, Ireland, Germany and France????
@Tom: It was in my mail and I just read it. I’m on board!