tomder55
Jun 23, 2010, 07:00 AM
While the news about General McChrystal dominated yesterday's news ,the under the radar news was that budget chief Peter Orszag is leaving his job next month.
Orszag represents one of the few remaining deficit hawks in the administration and has been advocating deficit reduction and tax cuts over the uncontrollable Keynsian stimulus spending the Obots prefer to keep the economy from "slipping back into recession "(as if it ever really climbed out of it).
The 2011 budget has to be prepared and Orszag wants nothing to do with it.
Ross Doudat of the Slimes in a Sunday Op-ed explains that part of Orszag's reluctance to participate on this sinking ship is that liberals are beginning to question their own premise.
Maybe in some parallel universe there's a Congress that would be willing to borrow and spend trillions in stimulus dollars, despite record deficits, if that's what liberal economists said the situation required. But not in this one.
Liberals had hoped that Obama's election marked the beginning of a long progressive era — a new New Deal, a greater Great Society. Instead, from the West Coast to Western Europe, the welfare state is in crisis everywhere they look. The future suddenly seems to belong to austerity and retrenchment — and even, perhaps, to conservatism.
In this environment, the rage against Obama for not doing more, now, faster, becomes at least somewhat understandable. It's not that he hasn't done a great deal for liberals during his 18 months in office. It's that liberalism itself may be running out of time.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Agony of the Liberals - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/opinion/21douthat-1.html?hp)
This comes on the heels of the news that Rhambo Emanuel wants out also (although I suspect he needs to lawyer up for the Blago trial fallout,and perhaps the fallout from the White House bribery scandals ).
The word is that he is "tired of the idealism" of the Obots. Emanual had the reputation of a pit bull who was able to push legislation through Congress with a healthy dose of compromise. This did not satisfy the rest of the inner sanctum like Vallerie Jarrett ;one of the ideologues .That is why health care was rammed through despite obvious public distrust of comprehensive change instead of opting for a more moderate reform package. That is why instead of zeroing in on the gulf crisis the President used the opportunity to announce another draconian comprehensive reform.
I think Doudat got it right. The Obots know their time is up ;but they still have a full agenda on their plate. They will act in desperation in the next few months. The speed bumps you feel are the people sacrificed under the bus.
Orszag represents one of the few remaining deficit hawks in the administration and has been advocating deficit reduction and tax cuts over the uncontrollable Keynsian stimulus spending the Obots prefer to keep the economy from "slipping back into recession "(as if it ever really climbed out of it).
The 2011 budget has to be prepared and Orszag wants nothing to do with it.
Ross Doudat of the Slimes in a Sunday Op-ed explains that part of Orszag's reluctance to participate on this sinking ship is that liberals are beginning to question their own premise.
Maybe in some parallel universe there's a Congress that would be willing to borrow and spend trillions in stimulus dollars, despite record deficits, if that's what liberal economists said the situation required. But not in this one.
Liberals had hoped that Obama's election marked the beginning of a long progressive era — a new New Deal, a greater Great Society. Instead, from the West Coast to Western Europe, the welfare state is in crisis everywhere they look. The future suddenly seems to belong to austerity and retrenchment — and even, perhaps, to conservatism.
In this environment, the rage against Obama for not doing more, now, faster, becomes at least somewhat understandable. It's not that he hasn't done a great deal for liberals during his 18 months in office. It's that liberalism itself may be running out of time.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Agony of the Liberals - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/opinion/21douthat-1.html?hp)
This comes on the heels of the news that Rhambo Emanuel wants out also (although I suspect he needs to lawyer up for the Blago trial fallout,and perhaps the fallout from the White House bribery scandals ).
The word is that he is "tired of the idealism" of the Obots. Emanual had the reputation of a pit bull who was able to push legislation through Congress with a healthy dose of compromise. This did not satisfy the rest of the inner sanctum like Vallerie Jarrett ;one of the ideologues .That is why health care was rammed through despite obvious public distrust of comprehensive change instead of opting for a more moderate reform package. That is why instead of zeroing in on the gulf crisis the President used the opportunity to announce another draconian comprehensive reform.
I think Doudat got it right. The Obots know their time is up ;but they still have a full agenda on their plate. They will act in desperation in the next few months. The speed bumps you feel are the people sacrificed under the bus.