The estmable John Judis posted an important piece at TNR today arguing that Obama's inability to get a bigger stimulus bill or push for a bolder program is largely a product of the fact that there is no coherent left in this country pushing him toward those goals. Nut graf:
But I think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama's pocket.
He goes on to discuss the trade-union movement, which is riven by various internal mishegas, and a couple of prominent Washington-based pressure groups, which he describes as being overly polite toward the prez. He then provides the following little history lesson:
When Franklin Roosevelt first came to office, he inspired a great deal of confidence, but much of what he did in the first 100 days was timid and ineffective. He actually cut federal pay, and his bank measures fell short. The National Recovery Administration was devoted to nullifying antitrust laws. Liberals in his administration and in Congress had to pressure him into backing relief for the unemployed.
The economy rebounded largely because of Roosevelt's political skills, but had fallen back in the doldrums a year later. What really made a difference was the Second New Deal of 1935-36 that included massive public works, Social Security, and the Wagner Act. And that Second New Deal was made possible by the growth of a popular left.
In 1934, there was a wave of strikes. Huey Long's Share Our Wealth movement began. In a year, it had organized 27,000 clubs across the country. Francis Townsend organized a movement for old age pensions. As a result, the center of politics shifted dramatically to the left and made it possible for the liberals in Congress and in the administration to pass legislation that under different circumstances Roosevelt would have deemed too radical.
I think this is mostly correct. But if so, it tends to push one toward bleak conclusions, from a liberal perspective, because there just aren't many Huey Longs or Francis Townsends on the horizon (Long, of course, had his good and bad points). What there are are loads of plans, good and specific and detailed, about how to green the economy or cut healthcare costs while expanding coverage or build more commuter rail lines and so on and so on and so on. Plans aren't the problem. The political infrastructure to advance them in a way that pressures the administration from the left is the problem.
Until that problem is addressed, there's only so far left Obama will go. This has always been the case even with the most liberal presidents, as Judis notes. It was the case with FDR. And it was the same with LBJ, who passed the most liberal domestic legislation since FDR. The stories are legion of Johnson saying to this or that liberal senator, "Well, y'all get your liberals in a row and maybe I'll see what I can do. I ain't the president of goddam Massachusetts, you know."
This brings me to a related but important point. I've been reading Paul Krugman banging away about how the stimulus package isn't large enough. Hey, he's the Nobel-winning economist. I'm just a hick from West Virginia. I wouldn't doubt that he's right economically, and believe me, I'd have been just as happy as Krugman to have a $1.3 trillion package.
But...Krugman writes today:
Over all, the effect was to kick the can down the road. And that's not good enough. So far the Obama administration's response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s: a fiscal expansion large enough to avert the worst, but not enough to kick-start recovery; support for the banking system, but a reluctance to force banks to face up to their losses. It's early days yet, but we're falling behind the curve.
Time may prove him right. But what Krugman has never (to my reading) reckoned with, though, is this: Was a larger package politically possible?
I don't know the definitive answer to the question. Some folks say, well, $1.3 trillion would have just been negotiated down to $1.1 trillion, so why didn't they start higher? But it's my belief that a package of, say, $1.3 trillion would never have flown, even among Democrats.
Many moderate Democrats would have judged that as too large. They'd have been getting heat from their constituents and would have been very nervous about supporting it.
Remember, Obama's staff didn't write the bill. It was written by House staffers under the direction of a very liberal member (David Obey, the chairman of the appropriations committee). Why didn't Obey (not pronounced like the verb, but OH-bee) write a $1.3 trillion bill? There must be a reason, and my sense is that the reason is that he and Nancy Pelosi know they would have lost some moderate members of their caucus.
Krugman is a great columnist, but he hasn't really reckoned with this political question. I guess he would argue that it was kept under a trillion in a misguided attempt to placate Republicans in the name of bipartisanship. And there may be some truth to that. But congressional Democrats, remember, are often pretty moderate pols from districts that are a long way geographically and spiritually from Manhattan's Upper West Side. I think $800bn was about as big as this thing was ever going to be.
As I noted when I wrote that liberals should celebrate this bill, I make a distinction between complaint and political pressure. The former can sometimes ignore difficult political realities. The latter is great and necessary, as Judis writes. If there are going to be future stimulus bills, and there probably are, the left needs to play a more oppositional role, but one in which it puts forth constructive and specific proposals and shows that public support for them is potentially broad.
