Extras And Necessities

by digby

Obama is in New Hampshire saying again that the deficits are a huge current problem and that the government needs to pull in its belt just like families are doing with their budgets all over the country. The government can't afford to keep buying all these "extras" in times of economic crisis(although he didn't spell out exactly know what those are.) He said something about how the Republicans wanted to buy a boat but refused to fix the boiler. And we don't need to fix the bathroom if its still working either. (Also Paygo is awesome and all problems are caused by people playing politics as usual and a lack of bipartisanship.)

He made a good joke pointing out that the congressional deficit commission, which he endorsed, didn't pass because seven Republicans who had originally sponsored the bill didn't vote for it. The audience laughed uproariously. It was pretty funny, especially if you really do believe that cutting entitlements should be a big priority and that the only way to accomplish that is by circumventing the normal democratic process. Which he apparently does since he later made the point that we need "an honest conversation" about entitlements in order to deal with these deficits. Bipartisanly, of course.

It's all rhetoric so far: commissions, "freezes", bipartisanship, deficits are a huge, huge problem, etc. Obama goes to some lengths to thread the needle by talking about investment vs "extras" and speaks with pride about funding initiatives in the same breath (which sounds a little dissonant to me, although YMMV). But at the end of the day, people are left with the impression that deficits are the most serious threat we face and worse, that democratic politics are not adequate to solve the problem. In other words, Pete Peterson has won.


Update: I should add that his description of the health care plan was great. If everyone understood it that way, it's hard to see how anyone would object to it.


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