The REAL Referendum - PAUL KRUGMAN Asks: "Will that election result be honored?"

[kpete]

The Real Referendum
By PAUL KRUGMAN

This election is, as I said, shaping up as a referendum on our social insurance system, and it looks as if Mr. Obama will emerge with a clear mandate for preserving and extending that system. It would be a terrible mistake, both politically and for the nation’s future, for him to let himself be talked into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Published: September 30, 2012 248 Comments


Republicans came into this campaign believing that it would be a referendum on President Obama, and that still-high unemployment would hand them victory on a silver platter. But given the usual caveats — a month can be a long time in politics, it’s not over until the votes are actually counted, and so on — it doesn’t seem to be turning out that way.


Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as “collectivist” (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age. But here’s the question: Will that election result be honored?

I ask that question because we already know what Mr. Obama will face if re-elected: a clamor from Beltway insiders demanding that he immediately return to his failed political strategy of 2011, in which he made a Grand Bargain over the budget deficit his overriding priority. Now is the time, he’ll be told, to fix America’s entitlement problem once and for all. There will be calls — as there were at the time of the Democratic National Convention — for him to officially endorse Simpson-Bowles, the budget proposal issued by the co-chairmen of his deficit commission (although never accepted by the commission as a whole).



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the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/opinion/krugman-the-real-referendum.html?src=twr&_r=0

[rfranklin]

1. If he listens to the insiders it will be the biggest betrayal of the American people in a century...

I hear no talk, on the other hand, of cutting the bloated military budget. It is now the "third rail" of politics.

[mmonk]

2. +1

[gkhouston]

3. If he listens to the insiders, the Republicans will come roaring back in 2014. n/t

[Martin Eden]

19. Maybe the 2nd biggest

IMO the biggest, by far, was GW Bush exploiting the 9/11 tragedy and the grief, anger, patriotism, fear, and support of the American people to implement the PNAC agenda for invading Iraq. He and the Cheney cabal lied through their teeth to take our country into an unnecessary war that drained our treasury, divided our nation, and killed upwards of a million people including thousands of American soldiers who were sacrificed on the alter of greed, ambition, and lies.

By all means let's demand of our president that he represent the interests of the people who elected him, but let's not start equating him with the evil of Cheney/Bush on the basis of what he MIGHT do in his 2nd term.

[robinlynne]

21. In the first year Obama raised it by 25% over Bush!

[reformist2]

4. It all boils down to who controls the House.

If the Repugs keep the house, there is no avoiding a "grand bargain" that involves some cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, imo.

[99Forever]

6. Oh really?

Why is that so?

Please explain this, as it sounds very much like advance excuse making to me.

Thanks.

[reformist2]

8. You think a Repug congress can be rolled? They'll want - and get - something.

This is just reality, imo.

[99Forever]

26. Well then...

... I guess we should just give up, right?

Yessiree...


... those meany Repubs are so all powerful that even when they lose they win.

[dmallind]

9. Really - because Congress controls spending

No bill passes without a majority in the House. Every dime the govt spends - for any reason. They'll vote for anything Obama wants if he wins in 2012? He won in 2008 - that should be an indication of a how a Rep House will work.

[dawg]

27. Yeah. Because there's no such thing as a veto.

And the Republicans would just love to shut down the government in order to force Medicare cuts. That worked so well for them before.

[whathehell]

5. It better be

or their will be a whole LOT of Pissed-Off Baby Boomers in the country.

[occupymybrain]

7. I'm a bit worried.

We are doing a great job of showing Mitt for who he is. Keep it up! The American people don't seem to like Mittens yet he says that he's going to have a effective campaign come Thursday. I only wonder what he will pull. I have a idea OK its more of a fear. I fear that the republicans or affiliates sort of planed the unrest in the middle east. I fear this is their October surprise.

[magical thyme]

20. I think they've called off the October surprise and are reverting to Plan B

I think the planned October surprise was an Israel attack on Iran. Per Krauthammer this past weekend, that attack has been postponed until April/May/June '13 time frame.

I think it was called off either because Mittens was proving to be such a disaster on foreign policy after his FAIL on the murder of Ambassador Stevens or because his 1%er backers are realizing there is something wrong with him that they can't easily control...that even they don't want him near the red button, so to speak.

I expect them to put their money into congress and go for 4 more years of obstruction, up to and including impeachment. I just hope and pray they don't turn to the Kennedy solution.

[porphyrian]

10. . n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. "Simpson-Bowles" aka "The Cat Food Commission"

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. If Republican obstructionism continues, it needs to be front-and-center news 24/7. Traitors.

Politics is the art of compromise and that is what the country and the people fundamentally need and therefore want. The few traitors who have a take-no-prisoners attitude need to be shamed relentlessly. Obstructionism has its place against the tyranny of the majority (whatever majority whenever it becomes tyrannical) but when the core of the Republican party sets out in the first hour of a new administration to obstruct everything, that is blindly ambitious and traitorous.

[Enrique]

13. the problem is that Obama himself has talked about compromising

and has accepted a "need for reform" that makes the mandate a lot less clear than Krugman says. Unfortunately.

[NorthCarolina]

14. BUT he will not disclose precisely what he is prepared to accept

in terms of changes to Social Security and Medicare. Am I the only one that believes the candidates should have such truth telling sessions with the general public? Two candidates, both 100% Wall Street approved, both willing to support "some" form of cuts to these programs, yet neither one willing to discuss their true intentions publicly. Instead we just get..."my opponent is the better debater" BS.

[Turborama]

15. President Obama, please.

Sorry, but this "Mr. Obama" thing that everyone seems to have adopted really irks me.

Otherwise, rec'd.

[dawg]

28. I agree. He stopped being "Mr." when he was sworn-in.

I think some people do this as a form of disrespect and I don't like it. (I do know that everyone who does this isn't being intentionaly disrepectful, but I still don't like it.)

[valerief]

16. Hell, will the actual votes be honored is the first question! Or will it be Scytled away again? nt

It would be nice if Skittles came out of Scytl workers' ears when they lied.

&feature=autoplay&list=PLQYWCsTsS9Xkoz2tsrS4cd16R5JLvsqn5&playnext=2

[on point]

17. Spot on as always! This is the guy should be leading the policy for Obama!

Last edited Mon Oct 1, 2012, 11:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Or at least listened too.

He was correct on predicting the economic fall, on diagnosis on how to fix it and where the real center of the American people

[on point]

18. NO safety net cuts until AFTER tax rates for wealthy are 60% and DOD budget cut 60%

That's my 60-60 plan.

That's the first step to getting our financial house in order.

The third step is obviously single payer to bring down medical expenses by eliminating profit, reducing complexity of management and paperwork, and providing better care management and preventive care.

The deal that Washington (including Obama) wants done, is not what the country needs or wants.

[JDPriestly]

22. Our high medical costs are part of what causes our GDP to be so high.

It is also a part of the way that the 1% and big foreign investors siphon off part of our GDP to build their wealth and control of the world.

End the health care extortion by big pharma and big insurance and our economy would APPEAR to be smaller. We would attract less foreign investment. We would also face less foreign extraction of our wealth and probably be a healthier, safer and better country to live in, but how important are the health, safety and well being of ordinary Americans?

Seems they aren't as important as keeping that GDP fat enough to attract the foreigner investors who suck at our national teat.

[robinlynne]

24. i like your plan.

[woo me with science]

25. No safety net cuts, PERIOD. nt

[raouldukelives]

23. "People unwilling to take responsibilty for their lives."

Sounds like Wall St investors to me. Warming climate, loss of forests, acidification of oceans, extinction of wildlife, massive suffering of human lives and still ever hungry and nobody willing to take responsibility for it.
When the speculation reaches a fever pitch and hundreds of billions are wasted on inflated bonuses and payoffs the ever steady laborer will be ready to again lend a hand and bail them out.
Personal responsibility. Of this, the investor class knows nothing. Towards the country and lands they may claim to love or to the people & animals who inhabit it now and those who will have to live in the shame of their excesses, forever.