Packer on the enormity of Obama's budget proposal
Reagan changed America above all by changing the terms of political discourse. Between his message to Congress on Tuesday and the ten-year budget proposal he released yesterday, Obama has shown that he wants to do the same. There are no more defensive apologies for having to bring government to bear on problems that the private sector can’t solve. He is making, or rather restoring, government as the instrument of a vast social and economic change, summed up in the word “equality.” The Times is right to compare this moment to 1932 and 1980. Yes, a multitude of special interests and political powers await the chance to eat his proposals to death. Yes, it will be difficult if not impossible to achieve everything set out in the budget and reduce the deficit by two-thirds over the next four years. Yes, everyone will be disappointed in some way by the health-care plan that comes out of Congress. Yes, there will be mistakes, perhaps grievous ones, made out of overconfidence or inexperience or inattention.
But Obama wants to make history (and Bill Kristol knows it, in the nerves along the back of his neck). If his political ability is equal to his ambition, he has a better-than-even chance to succeed, because events are the wind at his back. The key will be to keep the broad public on his side, to channel the surge of populism so that it swamps his opponents and not his Administration.
It's Obama's "post-partisan" style that looks to be the engine driving the possible achievement of this very liberal piece of legislation. That has to do with Obama's political skills. He makes progressive ideas sound attractive. But he's also filling a void. In the last 24 hoursalone we saw Joe the Plumber advocate killing members of Congress for "saying something bad" about the troops and Jon Bolton joking about the nuclear destruction of the president's home city. These people are fucking nuts. Offering a lucid alternative will go far against opposition like this.
