The Politics of Pity

              If you have been following the things our President has said in recent months then you have no doubt noticed how he has stepped up his political rhetoric, especially with regards to the wealthy.  Repeatedly we have heard him talk about “millionaires and billionaires” with their “corporate jets” not paying their “fair share” or not putting forth “shared sacrifice”.  At first blush he appears to be striking a compromising, centrist tone as he puts forth a seemingly simple idea:  cut spending while simultaneously increasing revenues.  On a more down to earth level he’s suggesting something akin to cancelling your satellite service and at the same time getting a part time job delivering pizzas.  I call it “burning the debt candle at both ends”.  The only problem is there simply aren’t enough millionaires and billionaires making enough money to achieve any significant reduction in our $1.5 trillion dollar a year deficit.

                You see, the 2006 census found there were 2.2 million households earning more than $250,000.00 a year.  You would have to increase their taxes by $500,000.00 per year just to balance the budget.  Of course that’s impossible since most of that 2.2 million makes $450,000.00 a year or less and already pay about half of that in taxes. 

So why does the President keep promoting this idea?  I’m just a building construction instructor and I can figure out this idea of taxing the “rich” won’t work.  He has a cadre of economic advisors who have no doubt reached the same conclusion I have so why does he keep pushing this idea if the math doesn’t add up?  The plan may not add up to deficit reduction but he and his political advisors are banking it adds up to votes.

President Obama is in full campaign mode for re-election in 2012.  I’m sure he’d like to run on his record except, well, it’s not that good.  In fact, by all the traditional standards we measure a president by his record is absolutely awful.  He promised to close Guantanamo Bay prison and didn’t.  He ran as an anti war candidate then expanded the war in Afghanistan, continues a war in Iraq, and started yet another war in Libya.  He likes to remind us of the huge deficit he “inherited” from President Bush and promised to cut that deficit in half by the end of his first term.  Instead, President Obama has tripled in 3 years a deficit that took Bush 8 years to create.  He also inherited a 5% unemployment rate from Bush that he has doubled.  He also inherited from Bush a coveted AAA bond rating that was recently reduced to AA+.  Yet in spite of all this there is a path to re-election for him:  the politics of pity.

He and his advisors feel strongly that if he can make the case to the American people that he’s been in Washington fighting hard for them that regardless of his lack of positive results they will, in effect, take pity and vote for him.  He’s wanted to stick it to the rich and get them to pay their fair share but they’ve bought off the Republican Party so he can’t.  He wanted to have significant budget cuts as part of the debt ceiling increase but the mean old Tea Party kept John Boehner from agreeing to revenue increases.  He’s even wanted to make slight “adjustments” to Social Security and Medicare but the Democratic Party is keeping him from doing that.  In spite of everything he fights on.  He fights the Republicans, the Tea Party, and even his own party and he does it all for you, the American people.  He has to make you believe he’s fighting for you and that’s why he promotes ideas like taxing the rich.  

It’s the only path he has left to re-election.  I almost pity the man.