The Obama Agenda By PAUL KRUGMAN

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.

But will the election also mark a turning point in the actual substance of policy? Can Barack Obama really usher in a new era of progressive policies? Yes, he can.

Right now, many commentators are urging Mr. Obama to think small. Some make the case on political grounds: America, they say, is still a conservative country, and voters will punish Democrats if they move to the left. Others say that the financial and economic crisis leaves no room for action on, say, health care reform.

Let’s hope that Mr. Obama has the good sense to ignore this advice.

About the political argument: Anyone who doubts that we’ve had a major political realignment should look at what’s happened to Congress. After the 2004 election, there were many declarations that we’d entered a long-term, perhaps permanent era of Republican dominance. Since then, Democrats have won back-to-back victories, picking up at least 12 Senate seats and more than 50 House seats. They now have bigger majorities in both houses than the G.O.P. ever achieved in its 12-year reign.

Bear in mind, also, that this year’s presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies — and the progressive philosophy won.

Maybe the best way to highlight the importance of that fact is to contrast this year’s campaign with what happened four years ago. In 2004, President Bush concealed his real agenda. He basically ran as the nation’s defender against gay married terrorists, leaving even his supporters nonplussed when he announced, soon after the election was over, that his first priority was Social Security privatization. That wasn’t what people thought they had been voting for, and the privatization campaign quickly devolved from juggernaut to farce.

This year, however, Mr. Obama ran on a platform of guaranteed health care and tax breaks for the middle class, paid for with higher taxes on the affluent. John McCain denounced his opponent as a socialist and a “redistributor,” but America voted for him anyway. That’s a real mandate.

What about the argument that the economic crisis will make a progressive agenda unaffordable?

Well, there’s no question that fighting the crisis will cost a lot of money. Rescuing the financial system will probably require large outlays beyond the funds already disbursed. And on top of that, we badly need a program of increased government spending to support output and employment. Could next year’s federal budget deficit reach $1 trillion? Yes.

But standard textbook economics says that it’s O.K., in fact appropriate, to run temporary deficits in the face of a depressed economy. Meanwhile, one or two years of red ink, while it would add modestly to future federal interest expenses, shouldn’t stand in the way of a health care plan that, even if quickly enacted into law, probably wouldn’t take effect until 2011.

Beyond that, the response to the economic crisis is, in itself, a chance to advance the progressive agenda.

Now, the Obama administration shouldn’t emulate the Bush administration’s habit of turning anything and everything into an argument for its preferred policies. (Recession? The economy needs help — let’s cut taxes on rich people! Recovery? Tax cuts for rich people work — let’s do some more!)

But it would be fair for the new administration to point out how conservative ideology, the belief that greed is always good, helped create this crisis. What F.D.R. said in his second inaugural address — “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics” — has never rung truer.

And right now happens to be one of those times when the converse is also true, and good morals are good economics. Helping the neediest in a time of crisis, through expanded health and unemployment benefits, is the morally right thing to do; it’s also a far more effective form of economic stimulus than cutting the capital gains tax. Providing aid to beleaguered state and local governments, so that they can sustain essential public services, is important for those who depend on those services; it’s also a way to avoid job losses and limit the depth of the economy’s slump.

So a serious progressive agenda — call it a new New Deal — isn’t just economically possible, it’s exactly what the economy needs.

The bottom line, then, is that Barack Obama shouldn’t listen to the people trying to scare him into being a do-nothing president. He has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side. You might say that the only thing he has to fear is fear itself.

A próxima vítima pode ser o seu salário

É provável que próxima área a ser devastada pela crise econômica nos EUA seja a do emprego, com a pior queda nos salários do país desde a Grande Depressão

DAVID LEONHARDT
DO "NEW YORK TIMES"

É possível imaginar que a crise de crédito talvez possa se amenizar com as medidas já tomadas pelos governos . Mas uma das grandes lições dos últimos 12 meses foi a de não subestimar a severidade dos problemas econômicos. Eles vão bem além do setor de habitação e de Wall Street.
Assim, qual deve ser a próxima área varrida pela crise? É provável que ela venha a girar em torno da pior queda nos salários desde -e você sabia que essa comparação viria- a Grande Depressão dos anos 1930.
A queda atual não será tão catastrófica quanto a ocorrida durante a Depressão, mas também será bem diferente de qualquer coisa que o país tenha enfrentado por um longo período.
A renda do domicílio médio norte-americano, ou seja, o domicílio localizado no ponto médio da distribuição de renda, provavelmente será mais baixa em 2010 do que uma década antes, um indicador espantoso.
Isso não acontecia desde os anos 30. O salário médio hoje já é um pouco inferior ao de 2000, e em 2010 ele poderá ter caído em mais de 5% ante seu pico anterior.
Caso você estude os resultados das pesquisas de opinião pública das últimas décadas, perceberá que nada prevê o clima da opinião pública como o crescimento da renda.
Quando a renda está crescendo em ritmo vigoroso, como aconteceu na metade dos anos 1980 e no final dos 1990, os norte-americanos tendem ao otimismo. Na mais recente pesquisa de opinião pública do "New York Times" e da rede de TV CBS, 89% dos respondentes afirmaram que o país "havia perdido seriamente o rumo", um nível recorde.

Padrão de vida
Assim, seria razoável esperar que a grande derrocada salarial do começo do século 21 vá se fazer sentir pelos próximos anos. A queda do salário influenciará o padrão de vida, o consumo e o crescimento econômico nos Estados Unidos e ajudará a definir a atmosfera política sob a qual o próximo presidente dos EUA terá de trabalhar.
Os acontecimentos das últimas semanas removeram quaisquer dúvidas sérias quanto à economia estar em recessão. Em uma recessão, as empresas reduzem o número de horas trabalhadas por seus funcionários, oferecem aumentos inferiores à inflação e freqüentemente deixam de pagar bonificações. Esses cortes no número de horas trabalhadas e na remuneração representam o principal efeito de uma desaceleração sobre as famílias, porque uma proporção relativamente pequena de trabalhadores perde seus empregos.
Todas as recessões recentes resultaram em corte efetivo de salário da ordem de entre 3% e 7%, para uma família típica. A queda tipicamente acontece ao longo de um período de cerca de três anos e dura mais do que a recessão o faz oficialmente, já que os salários demoram a se recuperar diante da inflação.
As recentes turbulências -a paralisação nos mercados de crédito, a queda nas Bolsas de Valores, a aceleração nas demissões- tornam improvável que essa recessão venha a ser especialmente amena.
"O maior prejuízo acontecerá em 2009", disse Nariman Behravesh, economista chefe da consultoria Global Insight. "E provavelmente não veremos avanços nos salários antes de 2011."
O que tornará a recessão diferente, não importa o quanto seja ou não profunda, é que está se seguindo a uma expansão durante a qual a maioria das famílias não registrou avanço de renda. O domicílio médio teve renda de US$ 50,2 mil no ano passado, ante US$ 50,6 mil em 2000, de acordo com o Censo. Essa é a primeira vez na história que uma expansão econômica não estabeleceu um novo recorde de renda média.
Por que isso aconteceu? Não existe uma causa única.
Os custos médicos subiram rapidamente, o que significa que os pagamentos de planos de saúde consomem maior porção dos salários do que no passado. Parte desse dinheiro é colocada em uso de maneira útil, bancando tratamentos que talvez nem mesmo existissem alguns anos atrás; mas outra parte, aquela que desaparece no redemoinho do ineficiente sistema norte-americano de saúde, é claramente desperdiçada.
E nos últimos dois anos o valor do pacote de benefícios típico do trabalhador médio deixou de subir. Desde 2005, os pacotes de benefícios se reduziram ligeiramente, diz Jared Bernstein, do Instituto de Política Econômica. Assim, os benefícios de saúde não bastam para explicar a recente estagnação salarial.

Concentração no topo
Os fatores mais importantes envolvem provavelmente uma combinação do seguinte: novas tecnologias, comércio internacional, redução dos avanços vinculados a conquistas educacionais, maior número de famílias com mães ou pais solteiros, queda continuada na sindicalização e considerável elevação na desigualdade, o que concentrou os avanços de renda no topo da pirâmide. As opiniões políticas de cada observador provavelmente ditarão as causas às quais ele atribuirá maior pertinência. Mas as pesquisas econômicas ainda não responderam a essas perguntas de maneira definitiva.
Qualquer que seja a causa, os efeitos da queda nos salários serão significativos. Os domicílios já estão começando a cortar seus gastos e o farão ainda mais no ano que vem. Behravesh prevê que os gastos dos consumidores, considerada a inflação, ficarão entre a estagnação e uma queda de 1%, em 2009. Caso ele esteja certo, seria o primeiro ano em que o consumo não cresce desde 1980, exatamente o último período em que o país atravessou recessão profunda.
A queda nos salários tornará mais difícil às pessoas pagar seus empréstimos. Na semana passada, o Bank of America anunciou que seus prejuízos com crédito ao consumidor haviam triplicado no ano passado.
Em geral, os bancos de todo o mundo reconheceram US$ 600 bilhões em prejuízos como resultado da crise financeira. A mais recente análise do FMI (Fundo Monetário Internacional) sugere que ainda restam outros US$ 800 bilhões de prejuízos a reconhecer e que boa proporção deles acontecerá nos Estados Unidos.
É sempre possível, claro, que haja boas notícias econômicas a caminho. A situação também parecia muito difícil na metade dos anos 1990, mas surgiu o boom da internet, e as rendas começaram a crescer em seu ritmo mais acelerado desde a década de 1960.
Mas seria necessário otimismo fanático para prever uma repetição dessa história. Por duas décadas, o consumo vem sendo forte propulsor de crescimento econômico, graças em larga medida a uma longa alta nos mercados, à bolha da habitação e à elevação do endividamento dos consumidores.
A alta nos mercados, a bolha da habitação e a elevação das dívidas acabaram agora, e os salários começam a encolher.
Um dia o novo grande propulsor de crescimento chegará de fato, como sempre acontece. Mas dessa vez terá de superar fortes ventos contrários.

Tradução de PAULO MIGLIACCI

Nos EUA, candidatos oferecem opções claras para enfrentar a crise econômica

Jackie Calmes

Em Washington (EUA)

Com a revelação por parte do senador John McCain, na terça-feira (14), de um pacote de propostas no valor de US$ 52,5 bilhões, agora ambos os candidatos presidenciais apresentaram os seus planos para enfrentar a crise econômica, fazendo com que os eleitores contem com opções claras no que se refere a um dos principais desafios que será enfrentado pelo próximo presidente.

Os novos planos de McCain incluem a redução de impostos sobre lucros com capital e saques de contas de aposentadoria por pessoas com mais de 58 anos, write-offs maiores devido a prejuízos com ações e isenção tributária sobre o pagamento do seguro desemprego.

Essas propostas, que vigorariam durante dois anos, complementam um programa econômico condizente com a cartilha republicana: reduções de impostos voltadas especialmente para indivíduos e empresas que estão no topo da escala de salários e rendimentos, devido à crença de que eles estimularão a economia e criarão empregos que beneficiarão a todos.

"Se eu for eleito presidente, ajudarei a criar empregos para os norte-americanos da forma mais efetiva que um presidente pode fazer isso, com reduções de impostos dirigidas especificamente para a criação de empregos e para a proteção das poupanças que vocês acumularam durante a vida", afirmou John McCain na terça-feira, em Blue Bell, no Estado da Pensilvânia.

O pacote de estímulo de US$ 60 bilhões anunciado pelo senador Barack Obama na segunda-feira, combinado à sua tradicional agenda econômica, reflete a ênfase democrata nas reduções de impostos para a classe média, os trabalhadores de baixa renda e as pequenas empresas, bem como no aumento das despesas com serviços públicos para a criação de empregos.

Ao apresentar a sua abordagem na segunda-feira, Obama previu que no longo prazo criará "cinco milhões de empregos novos e bem pagos", ao investir em indústrias de energia renovável e "em dois milhões de empregos com a reconstrução de nossas estradas, escolas e pontes que estão caindo aos pedaços".

Mesmo com as novas propostas, que vem se somar às centenas de bilhões de dólares que o governo já reservou para o socorro às instituições financeiras e outras corporações em apuros, ambos os candidatos continuam prometendo que como presidentes eles reduzirão os enormes déficits orçamentários anuais, sem comprometer nenhuma das ambiciosas propostas apresentadas antes da crise.

McCain continua afirmando que prolongará as reduções tributárias de Bush e que implementará várias outras, incluindo uma significativa redução dos impostos sobre os salários corporativos. E ele ainda insiste que equilibraria o orçamento até o final do seu primeiro mandato, em 2013, embora poucos analistas (ou nenhum) acreditem que isso seja possível.

Obama promete reduzir os déficits, e ao mesmo tempo mantém as suas promessas anteriores, como a da criação de uma cobertura de saúde quase universal. Como o preço do petróleo vem caindo, ele arquivou uma proposta no sentido de compensar o custo estimado de US$ 65 bilhões da sua proposta de redução de impostos da classe média com a tributação sobre os rendimentos das companhias petrolíferas, o que representa uma lacuna orçamentária ainda maior.

"Antes da crise, nenhum dos dois explicava como estes planos seriam implementados", afirma o economista Robert D. Reischauer, presidente do Instituto Urbano e ex-diretor do Departamento Congressual sobre o Orçamento. "E agora ninguém sabe de fato como eles seriam aplicados, porque toda a idéia de limitação fiscal parece ter sido implodida. Em algum momento, como nação, teremos que perguntar: 'Onde é que conseguiremos dinheiro para tudo isso, e a que preço?'. Esta é a pergunta que ninguém é capaz de responder".

Por ora, os dois partidos assumiram uma posição segundo a qual a ação é mais importante do que a disciplina orçamentária de curto prazo. A política do momento, faltando menos de três semanas para a eleição, quase que exigiu que ambos os candidatos agregassem às suas posturas filosóficas algumas propostas detalhadas, a fim de tentar mitigar os efeitos daquilo que poderia ser uma grave recessão que iria mais além da crise imediata que aflige os mercados financeiros.

E embora tenha havido prolongadas discordâncias entre economistas e políticos quanto à eficácia relativa dos gastos públicos, comparados às reduções permanentes de impostos e aos incentivos tributários de curto prazo para aquecer a economia, os dois candidatos oferecem agora propostas que possivelmente teriam efeitos benéficos de curto prazo para investidores, proprietários de imóveis, aposentados e outros grupos.

Eles têm se pronunciado menos a respeito dos desafios de longo prazo enfrentados pela economia, como o baixo índice de poupança, o problema da população em processo de envelhecimento e os custos cada vez maiores dos dois grandes programas previdenciários, o Social Security e o Medicare.

Além das suas próprias propostas, as abordagens diferentes dos dois candidatos têm ficado evidentes nas suas respostas às ações emergenciais do governo Bush. Obama apoiou publicamente a iniciativa desta semana por parte do Tesouro no sentido de injetar US$ 250 bilhões em grandes bancos, o que fez com que o governo passasse a ser dono de uma grande parcela de empresas privadas. McCain fez silêncio durante dias quanto a essa abordagem enquanto a medida era avaliada. Os conservadores do seu partido, defensores do livre mercado, ficaram escandalizados com o plano, e o assessor econômico de McCain, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, afirmou: "Esta não é a maneira como as coisas devem ser feitas nos Estados Unidos".

Muita gente atribui a tranqüilização dos mercados financeiros nos últimos dois dias ao plano para injeção de capital, e na terça-feira McCain deu o seu apoio relutante. Ele declarou a um repórter na Flórida: "Bom, eu sinto que estamos em meio a uma crise, mas quero que deixemos o setor bancário o mais rapidamente possível".

E ele prosseguiu: "É claro que isso me preocupa. Estas foram medidas sem precedentes, mas estes são também tempos sem precedentes".

Assim como outros democratas, Obama forneceria bilhões de dólares em auxílios aos Estados em dificuldades, que têm menos opções para a arrecadação de verbas, de forma que eles pudessem continuar financiando os serviços públicos e evitassem cortar programas de educação e de saúde - que respondem de longe pelas maiores despesas estaduais. Já McCain, da mesma forma que a maioria dos republicanos, opõe-se a mandar mais dinheiro para Estados e cidades, afirmando que isso os desencorajaria a reduzir os gastos.

Obama propôs diversas ações corretivas que poderiam ser tomadas por uma sessão do Congresso antigo logo após a eleição, antes que o próximo presidente assumisse o cargo. Por exemplo, ele pediu ao Congresso controlado pelos democratas que acelere a aprovação da sua proposta de redução de impostos cobrados da classe média. O valor passaria a ser US$ 500 para indivíduos e US$ 1.000 para casais, e isto seria contabilizado na renda destas pessoas em 2007, de forma que o Internal Revenue Service (a receita federal dos Estados Unidos) pudesse emitir cheques de restituição para os contribuintes antes da posse do novo presidente em 20 de janeiro de 2009.

Já McCain propôs iniciativas que ele diz que implementaria após ser nomeado presidente, embora os seus assessores digam que o atual Congresso poderia aprovar as reduções tributárias na terça-feira. Estas reduções seriam referentes aos anos fiscais de 2008 e 2009, o que significa que, após janeiro, os contribuintes não veriam os benefícios durante meses.

Esse plano de US$ 52,5 bilhões foi um dos pontos mais importantes da declaração feita por McCain na semana passada. Ele disse que, como presidente, ordenaria ao secretário do Tesouro que começasse a adquirir US$ 300 bilhões em hipotecas problemáticas dos financiadores, e que as substituiria por proprietários com hipotecas garantidas pelo governo que refletissem o baixo valor de suas casas. Embora inicialmente McCain tenha dito que os financiadores cobririam os custos, um dia depois a sua campanha afirmou que isso seria feito pelos contribuintes.

Na terça-feira Obama chamou o plano de hipotecas de McCain de uma das "idéias muito ruins" do candidato republicano. Mas o auxílio ao setor de hipotecas também atraiu críticas da direita, incluindo de lideranças republicanas no Congresso, que levantaram dúvidas quanto ao futuro da proposta. Autoridades do governo também criticam o plano de McCain para cobrir o custo com os fundos do pacote de US$ 700 bilhões, já que o dinheiro é destinado a auxiliar instituições financeiras em apuros em todo o país. E os norte-americanos que lutam para pagar as suas hipotecas já se opõem a socorrer outros mutuários que não foram tão prudentes com as suas finanças pessoais.

Mas Holtz-Eakin, em uma teleconferência com jornalistas na terça-feira, afirmou que os benefícios irão bem além de salvar os proprietários que correm o risco de perder as suas casas. "Assim, as casas não ficam vazias e não desvalorizam o bairro em que se encontram", afirmou Holtz-Eakin. "Nós estabilizamos o valor das residências para todo proprietário de imóveis norte-americano que viu o preço de sua residência cair e os impostos sobre a propriedade subir. Nós quebramos este ciclo".

As reduções tributárias beneficiariam principalmente os norte-americanos mais velhos. Elas poderiam gerar benefícios políticos junto a um grupo que representa 40% do eleitorado e cujo apoio McCain vem perdendo. Em uma nova pesquisa feita pelo "New York Times" e pela CBS News, Obama lidera entre eleitores com mais de 63 anos, por 46% contra 41%. Três semanas atrás, McCain liderava por 44% a 35%.

Durante a campanha, ambos os candidatos adotaram posturas populistas, especialmente nas suas receitas para lidar com a crise financeira. McCain já foi considerado suspeito dentro do seu partido por, entre outras coisas, ter se oposto inicialmente às reduções de impostos promovidas pelo presidente Bush.

Mas, de forma geral, os dois candidatos enquadram-se agora nas tradições filosóficas dos seus respectivos partidos.

"Não se sabe se esses planos ajudariam", afirma Leonard Burman, diretor do não partidário Centro de Políticas Fiscais. "Mas os benefícios oriundos do plano de Obama seriam mais distribuídos. As propostas de McCain ajudariam mais aqueles com rendas bem altas - o grupo que menos necessita de assistência".

Na terça-feira Holtz-Eakin afirmou que as últimas idéias de McCain ajudariam "aqueles que foram mais atingidos pela crise financeira" e que a sua plataforma política promoveria a criação de empregos no longo prazo.

"O período de crise nacional e as últimas semanas de uma campanha eleitoral constituem-se em duas forças poderosas que impelem os políticos a mostrar que se preocupam por meio de um amontoado de políticas supostamente novas", afirma C. Eugene Steuerle, vice-presidente da não partidária Fundação Peter G. Peterson, que foi criada para despertar consciência em relação aos problemas econômicos do país. "O simbolismo muitas vezes suplanta a substância daquilo que funciona ou é justo".

A proposta mais cara de McCain, no valor de US$ 36 bilhões, permitiria que as pessoas com mais de 58 anos que retirassem dinheiro das contas IRAs ou planos de aposentadoria 401(k) em 2008 e 2009 pagassem uma taxa de impostos de 10% sobre quantias até US$ 50 mil, em vez dos atuais 35% para os mais afluentes, "a fim de ajudar os idosos que estão contando com as suas reservas para aposentadoria a administrar os seus estilos de vida", afirma Holtz -Eakin.

Também durante dois anos, McCain reduziria para 7,5% o atual imposto sobre lucros de investidores com capital, a um custo estimado em US$ 10 bilhões. Obama criticou a proposta, e disse aos repórteres: "Neste momento ninguém está tendo de fato ganhos com capital".

Quando àqueles que tiveram prejuízos com ações, McCain elevaria de US$ 3.000 para US$ 15 mil a quantia que eles poderiam deduzir em 2008 e 2009. Ambas as propostas beneficiariam desproporcionalmente os contribuintes mais velhos, já que uma quantidade maior deles é composta de investidores.

Mas até mesmo alguns membros do Partido Democrata dizem que Obama também cedeu aos idosos. Desde que fez campanha pela primeira vez em Iowa, o Estado da primeira eleição primária e que tem uma população em processo de envelhecimento, Obama pediu a eliminação de impostos para idosos com renda anual inferior a US$ 50 mil.

Quanto às contas de aposentadoria, ambos os candidatos propuseram acabar com a exigência de que, aos 70,5 anos de idade, os contribuintes tenham que começar a sacar o dinheiro, tendo em vista os reduzidos valores de mercado. Mas onde McCain propôs uma redução de impostos para os poupadores mais velhos que têm permissão para sacar dinheiro, incluindo os idosos ricos, Obama pediu o auxílio aos contribuintes mais jovens que recorrem às suas contas de aposentadoria para sobreviver. Em 2009, ele suprimiria a lei atual que preconiza que contribuintes com menos de 59,5 anos de idade paguem uma taxa de 10% sobre as retiradas dessas contas.

Muitos economistas criticam tais propostas, argumentando que elas reduziriam ainda mais o índice de poupança nos Estados Unidos, que já é o mais baixo do mundo industrializado. E McCain criticou a proposta de Obama como sendo "um convite à fuga de capital, e, portanto, à continuidade da instabilidade no mercado".

Ambos os candidatos suspenderiam temporariamente os impostos de renda sobre o pagamento de seguro desemprego. "Um uso melhor para o dinheiro seria o aumento dos benefícios de seguro desemprego, ou fazer com que eles beneficiassem aqueles que estão desempregados há muito tempo", disse Burman, do Centro de Políticas Fiscais. Obama também adotaria esta última medida, e estenderia os benefícios de 13 para 26 semanas.

A mais cara proposta emergencial de Obama, de cerca de US$ 40 bilhões, concederia aos empresários um crédito fiscal de US$ 3.000 por cada novo emprego acima do quadro atual de empregados da empresa. Mas um economista democrata, que pediu para ficar anônimo ao criticar a proposta de Obama, sugeriu que tal medida teria um impacto limitado: "Acontece que o maior problema para os empregadores não são os custos trabalhistas, e sim o fato de que eles não enxergarem perspectivas suficientemente animadoras para que contratem novos funcionários. Além disso, eles não contam com acesso suficiente ao crédito".

Tradução: UOL

Visite o site do The New York Times

Dear Iraqi Friends By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

To: President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashadani

Dear Sirs, I am writing you on a matter of grave importance. It’s hard for me to express to you how deep the economic crisis in America is today. We are discussing a $1 trillion bailout for our troubled banking system. This is a financial 9/11. As Americans lose their homes and sink into debt, they no longer understand why we are spending $1 billion a day to make Iraqis feel more secure in their homes.

For the past two years, there has been a debate in this country over whether to set a deadline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It seemed as if the resolution of that debate depended on who won the coming election. That is no longer the case. A deadline is coming. American taxpayers who would not let their money be used to subsidize their own companies — Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch — will not have their tax dollars used to subsidize your endless dithering over which Iraqi community dominates Kirkuk.
Don’t misunderstand me. Many Americans and me are relieved by the way you, the Iraqi people and Army have pulled back from your own brink of self-destruction. I originally launched this war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. I was wrong. But it quickly became apparent that Al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq were determined to make America fail in any attempt to build a decent Iraq and tilt the Middle East toward a more democratic track, no matter how many Iraqis had to be killed in the process. This was not the war we came for, but it was the one we found.
Al Qaeda understood that if it could defeat America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, that it would resonate throughout the region and put Al Qaeda and its allies in the ascendant. Conversely, we understood that if we could defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, in collaboration with other Arabs and Muslims, that it would resonate throughout the region and pay dividends. Something very big was at stake here. We have gone a long way toward winning that war.
At the same time, I also came to realize that in helping Iraqis organize elections, we were facilitating the first ever attempt by the people of a modern Arab state to write their own social contract — rather than have one imposed on them by kings, dictators or colonial powers. If Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can forge your own social contract, then some form of a consensual government is possible in the Arab world. If you can’t, it is kings and dictators forever — with all the pathologies that come with that. Something very big is at stake there, too.
It’s not the stakes that have changed. It is the fact that you are now going to have to step up and finish this job. You have presumed an endless American safety net to permit you to endlessly bargain and dicker over who gets what. I’ve been way, way too patient with you. That is over. We bought you time with the surge to reach a formal political settlement and you better use it fast, because it is a rapidly diminishing asset.
You Shiites have got to bring the Sunni tribes and Awakening groups, who fought the war against Al Qaeda of Iraq, into the government and Army. You Kurds have got to find a solution for Kirkuk and accept greater integration into the Iraqi state system, while maintaining your autonomy. You Sunnis in government have got to agree to elections so the newly emergent Sunni tribal and Awakening groups are able to run for office and become “institutionalized” into the Iraqi system.
So pass your election and oil laws, spend some of your oil profits to get Iraqi refugees resettled and institutionalize the recent security gains while you still have a substantial U.S. presence. Read my lips: It will not be there indefinitely — even if McCain wins.
Our ambassador, Ryan Crocker, has told me your problem: Iraqi Shiites are still afraid of the past, Iraqi Sunnis are still afraid of the future and Iraqi Kurds are still afraid of both.
Well, you want to see fear. Look in the eyes of Americans who are seeing their savings wiped out, their companies disappear, their homes foreclosed. We are a different country today. After a decade of the world being afraid of too much American power, it is now going to be treated to a world of too little American power, as we turn inward to get our house back in order.
I still believe a decent outcome in Iraq, if you achieve it, will have long-lasting, positive implications for you and the entire Arab world, although the price has been way too high. I will wait for history for my redemption, but the American people will not. They want nation-building in America now. They will not walk away from Iraq overnight, but they will not stay there in numbers over time. I repeat: Do not misread this moment. God be with you.

George W. Bush.

Cash for Trash By PAUL KRUGMAN

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September 22, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.

There’s justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.

Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.

So let’s try to think this through for ourselves. I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:

1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities — assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.

2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital — too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.

3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.

4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”

The Paulson plan calls for the federal government to buy up $700 billion worth of troubled assets, mainly mortgage-backed securities. How does this resolve the crisis?

Well, it might — might — break the vicious circle of deleveraging, step 4 in my capsule description. Even that isn’t clear: the prices of many assets, not just those the Treasury proposes to buy, are under pressure. And even if the vicious circle is limited, the financial system will still be crippled by inadequate capital.

Or rather, it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at taxpayer expense. Did I mention that I’m not happy with this plan?

The logic of the crisis seems to call for an intervention, not at step 4, but at step 2: the financial system needs more capital. And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.

That’s what happened in the savings and loan crisis: the feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It’s also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)

But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.

I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.

But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant

Paul Krugman It’s the Economy Stupor

By rights, John McCain should be getting hammered on economics.

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After all, Mr. McCain proposes continuing the policies of a president who’s had a truly dismal economic record — job growth under the current administration has been the slowest in 60 years, even slower than job growth under the first President Bush. And the public blames the White House, giving Mr. Bush spectacularly low ratings on his handling of the economy.

Meanwhile, The Times reports that, according to associates, Mr. McCain still “dials up” Phil Gramm, the former senator who resigned as co-chairman of the campaign after calling America a “nation of whiners” and dismissing the country’s economic woes as nothing more than a “mental recession.” And Mr. Gramm is still considered a top pick for Treasury secretary.

So Mr. McCain would seem to offer a target a mile wide: a die-hard supporter of failed economic policies who takes his advice from people completely out of touch with the lives of working Americans.

But while polls continue to show that the public, by a large margin, trusts Democrats more than Republicans to handle the economy, recent polling shows that Barack Obama has at best a small edge over Mr. McCain on the issue — four points in a recent Time magazine poll, and he is one point behind according to Rasmussen Reports, which does automated polling. And Mr. Obama’s failure to achieve a decisive edge on economic policy is central to his failure to open up a big lead in overall polling.

Why isn’t the Obama campaign getting more traction on economic issues?

It’s not the Republican offensive on offshore drilling. It’s true that many Americans have apparently been misled by bogus claims about gas price relief. But as I’ve already pointed out, Democrats in general retain a large edge on economic issues.

Nor is there any valid basis for the complaints, highlighted in Sunday’s Times, that Mr. Obama isn’t offering enough policy specifics. Delve into the Obama campaign Web site and you’ll find plenty of policy detail. And the campaign’s ads reel off lots of specific policy proposals — too many, if you ask me.

No, the problem isn’t lack of specifics — it’s lack of passion. When it comes to the economy, Mr. Obama’s campaign seems oddly lethargic.

I was astonished at the flatness of the big economy speech he gave in St. Petersburg at the beginning of this month — a speech that was billed as the start of a new campaign focus on economic issues. Mr. Obama is a great orator, yet he began that speech with a litany of statistics that were probably meaningless to most listeners.

Worse yet, he seemed to go out of his way to avoid scoring political points. “Back in the 1990s,” he declared, “your incomes grew by $6,000, and over the last several years, they’ve actually fallen by nearly $1,000.” Um, not quite: real median household income didn’t rise $6,000 during “the 1990s,” it did so during the Clinton years, after falling under the first Bush administration. Income hasn’t fallen $1,000 in “recent years,” it’s fallen under George Bush, with all of the decline taking place before 2005.

Obama surrogates have shown a similar inclination to go for the capillaries rather than the jugular. A recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by two Obama advisers offered another blizzard of statistics almost burying the key point — that most Americans would pay lower taxes under the Obama tax plan than under the McCain plan.

All this makes a stark contrast with the campaign of the last Democrat to make it to the White House, who had no trouble conveying passion over matters economic.

In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination in 1992, a year in which economic conditions somewhat resembled those today, Bill Clinton denounced his opponent as someone “caught in the grip of a failed economic theory.” Where Mr. Obama spoke cryptically in St. Petersburg about a “reckless few” who “game the system, as we’ve seen in this housing crisis” — I know what he meant, I think, but how many voters got it? — Mr. Clinton declared that “those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft, and those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded.” That’s the kind of hard-hitting populism that’s been absent from the Obama campaign so far.

Of course, Mr. Obama hasn’t given his own acceptance speech yet. Al Gore found a new populist fervor in August 2000, and surged in the polls. A comparable surge by Mr. Obama would give him a landslide victory this year.

But it’s up to him. If Mr. Obama can’t find the passion on economic matters that has been lacking in his campaign so far, he may yet lose this election.

The Obama Agenda by: Paul Krugman,

Monday 30 June 2008

The New York Times



Paul Krugman compares policies of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

It's feeling a lot like 1992 right now. It's also feeling a lot like 1980. But which parallel is closer? Is Barack Obama going to be a Ronald Reagan of the left, a president who fundamentally changes the country's direction? Or will he be just another Bill Clinton? Current polls - not horse-race polls, which are notoriously uninformative until later in the campaign, but polls gauging the public mood - are strikingly similar to those in both 1980 and 1992, years in which an overwhelming majority of Americans were dissatisfied with the country's direction.

So the odds are that this will be a "change" election - which means that it's very much Mr. Obama's election to lose. But if he wins, how much change will he actually deliver?

Reagan, for better or worse - I'd say for worse, but that's another discussion - brought a lot of change. He ran as an unabashed conservative, with a clear ideological agenda. And he had enormous success in getting that agenda implemented. He had his failures, most notably on Social Security, which he tried to dismantle but ended up strengthening. But America at the end of the Reagan years was not the same country it was when he took office.

Bill Clinton also ran as a candidate of change, but it was much less clear what kind of change he was offering. He portrayed himself as someone who transcended the traditional liberal-conservative divide, proposing "a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement." The economic plan he announced during the campaign was something of a hodgepodge: higher taxes on the rich, lower taxes for the middle class, public investment in things like high-speed rail, health care reform without specifics.

We all know what happened next. The Clinton administration achieved a number of significant successes, from the revitalization of veterans' health care and federal emergency management to the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and health insurance for children. But the big picture is summed up by the title of a new book by the historian Sean Wilentz: "The Age of Reagan: A history, 1974-2008."

So whom does Mr. Obama resemble more? At this point, he's definitely looking Clintonesque.

Like Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama portrays himself as transcending traditional divides. Near the end of last week's "unity" event with Hillary Clinton, he declared that "the choice in this election is not between left or right, it's not between liberal or conservative, it's between the past and the future." Oh-kay.

Mr. Obama's economic plan also looks remarkably like the Clinton 1992 plan: a mixture of higher taxes on the rich, tax breaks for the middle class and public investment (this time with a focus on alternative energy).

Sometimes the Clinton-Obama echoes are almost scary. During his speech accepting the nomination, Mr. Clinton led the audience in a chant of "We can do it!" Remind you of anything?

Just to be clear, we could - and still might - do a lot worse than a rerun of the Clinton years. But Mr. Obama's most fervent supporters expect much more.

Progressive activists, in particular, overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama during the Democratic primary even though his policy positions, particularly on health care, were often to the right of his rivals'. In effect, they convinced themselves that he was a transformational figure behind a centrist facade.

They may have had it backward.

Mr. Obama looks even more centrist now than he did before wrapping up the nomination. Most notably, he has outraged many progressives by supporting a wiretapping bill that, among other things, grants immunity to telecom companies for any illegal acts they may have undertaken at the Bush administration's behest.

The candidate's defenders argue that he's just being pragmatic - that he needs to do whatever it takes to win, and win big, so that he has the power to effect major change. But critics argue that by engaging in the same "triangulation and poll-driven politics" he denounced during the primary, Mr. Obama actually hurts his election prospects, because voters prefer candidates who take firm stands.

In any case, what about after the election? The Reagan-Clinton comparison suggests that a candidate who runs on a clear agenda is more likely to achieve fundamental change than a candidate who runs on the promise of change but isn't too clear about what that change would involve.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Mr. Obama really is a centrist, after all.

One thing is clear: for Democrats, winning this election should be the easy part. Everything is going their way: sky-high gas prices, a weak economy and a deeply unpopular president. The real question is whether they will take advantage of this once-in-a-generation chance to change the country's direction. And that's mainly up to Mr. Obama.

Health Care Horror Stories By Paul Krugman

The New York Times

Friday 11 April 2008

Not long ago, a young Ohio woman named Trina Bachtel, who was having health problems while pregnant, tried to get help at a local clinic.

Unfortunately, she had previously sought care at the same clinic while uninsured and had a large unpaid balance. The clinic wouldn't see her again unless she paid $100 per visit - which she didn't have.

Eventually, she sought care at a hospital 30 miles away. By then, however, it was too late. Both she and the baby died.

You may think that this was an extreme case, but stories like this are common in America.

Back in 2006, The Wall Street Journal told another such story: that of a young woman named Monique White, who failed to get regular care for lupus because she lacked insurance. Then, one night, "as skin lesions spread over her body and her stomach swelled, she couldn't sleep."

The Journal's report goes on: "Mama, please help me! Please take me to the E.R.," she howled, according to her mother, Gail Deal. "O.K., let's go," Mrs. Deal recalls saying. "No, I can't," the daughter replied. "I don't have insurance."

She was rushed to the hospital the next day after suffering a seizure - and the hospital spared no expense on her treatment. But it all came too late; she was dead a few months later.

How can such things happen? "I mean, people have access to health care in America," President Bush once declared. "After all, you just go to an emergency room." Not quite.

First of all, visits to the emergency room are no substitute for regular care, which can identify and treat health problems before they get acute. And more than 40 percent of uninsured adults have no regular source of care.

Second, uninsured Americans often postpone medical care, even when they know they need it, because of expense.

Finally, while it's true that hospitals will treat anyone who arrives in an emergency room with an acute problem - and it's wonderful that they will - it's also true that hospitals bill patients for emergency-room treatment. And fear of those bills often causes uninsured Americans to hesitate before seeking medical help, even in emergencies, as the Monique White story illustrates.

The end result is that the uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured. And sometimes this lack of care kills them. According to a recent estimate by the Urban Institute, the lack of health insurance leads to 27,000 preventable deaths in America each year.

But are they really preventable? Yes. Stories like those of Trina Bachtel and Monique White are common in America, but don't happen in any other rich country - because every other advanced nation has some form of universal health insurance. We should, too.

All of which makes the media circus of a few days ago truly shameful.

Some readers may already have recognized the story of Trina Bachtel. While campaigning in Ohio, Hillary Clinton was told this story, and she took to repeating it, without naming the victim, on the campaign trail. She used it as an illustration of what's wrong with American health care and why we need universal coverage.

Then The Washington Post identified Ms. Bachtel, the hospital where she died claimed that the story was false - and the news media went to town, accusing Mrs. Clinton of making stuff up. Instead of being a story about health care, it became a story about the candidate's supposed problems with the truth.

In fact, Mrs. Clinton was accurately repeating the story as it was told to her - and it turns out that while some of the details were slightly off, the essentials of her story were correct. After all the fuss, The Washington Post eventually conceded that "Bachtel's medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence" of Mrs. Clinton's account.

And even more important, Mrs. Clinton was making a valid point about the state of health care in this country.

In other words, this was a disgraceful episode. It was particularly sad to see a number of Obama supporters (though not the Obama campaign itself) join enthusiastically in the catcalls against Mrs. Clinton's good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system.

Look, I know that many progressives have their hearts set on seeing Barack Obama get the Democratic nomination. But politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It's supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

And if being a progressive means anything, it means believing that we need universal health

When the Magic FadesBy DAVID BROOKS

February 19, 2008

OP-ED COLUMNIST

By DAVID BROOKS

At first it seemed like a few random cases of lassitude among Mary Chapin Carpenter devotees in Berkeley, Cambridge and Chapel Hill. But then psychotherapists began to realize patients across the country were complaining of the same distress. They were experiencing the first hints of what’s bound to be a national phenomenon: Obama Comedown Syndrome.

The afflicted had already been through the phases of Obama-mania — fainting at rallies, weeping over their touch screens while watching Obama videos, spending hours making folk crafts featuring Michelle Obama’s face. These patients had experienced intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic change and personal salvation.

But they found that as the weeks went on, they needed more and purer hope-injections just to preserve the rush. They wound up craving more hope than even the Hope Pope could provide, and they began experiencing brooding moments of suboptimal hopefulness. Anxious posts began to appear on the Yes We Can! Facebook pages. A sense of ennui began to creep through the nation’s Ian McEwan-centered book clubs.

Up until now The Chosen One’s speeches had seemed to them less like stretches of words and more like soul sensations that transcended time and space. But those in the grips of Obama Comedown Syndrome began to wonder if His stuff actually made sense. For example, His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we’ve been here all along?

Patients in the grip of O.C.S. rarely express doubts at first, but in a classic case of transference, many experience slivers of sympathy for Hillary Clinton. They see her campaign morosely traipsing from one depressed industrial area to another — The Sitting Shiva for America Tour. They see that her entire political strategy consists of waiting for primary states as boring as she is.

They feel for her. They feel guilty because the entire commentariat now treats her like Richard Nixon. Are liberal elites rationalizing their own betrayal of her? Is Hillary just another fading First Wife thrown away for the first available Trophy Messiah?

As the syndrome progresses, they begin to ask questions about The Presence himself:

Barack Obama vowed to abide by the public finance campaign-spending rules in the general election if his opponent did. But now he’s waffling on his promise. Why does he need to check with his campaign staff members when deciding whether to keep his word?

Obama says he is practicing a new kind of politics, but why has his PAC sloshed $698,000 to the campaigns of the superdelegates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics? Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign $10,000 the kind of change we can believe in?

If he values independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast the same votes for cheaper.

And should we be worried about Obama’s mountainous self-confidence?

These doubts lead O.C.S. sufferers down the path to the question that is the Unholy of the Unholies for Obama-maniacs: How exactly would all this unity he talks about come to pass?

How is a 47-year-old novice going to unify highly polarized 70-something committee chairs? What will happen if the nation’s 261,000 lobbyists don’t see the light, even after the laying on of hands? Does The Changemaker have the guts to take on the special interests in his own party — the trial lawyers, the teachers’ unions, the AARP?

The Gang of 14 created bipartisan unity on judges, but Obama sat it out. Kennedy and McCain created a bipartisan deal on immigration. Obama opted out of the parts that displeased the unions. Sixty-eight senators supported a bipartisan deal on FISA. Obama voted no. And if he were president now, how would the High Deacon of Unity heal the breach that split the House last week?

The victims of O.C.S. struggle against Obama-myopia, or the inability to see beyond Election Day. But here’s the fascinating thing: They still like him. They know that most of his hope-mongering is vaporous. They know that he knows it’s vaporous.

But the fact that they can share this dream still means something. After the magic fades and reality sets in, they still know something about his soul, and he knows something about theirs. They figure that any new president is going to face gigantic obstacles. At least this candidate seems likely to want to head in the right direction. Obama’s hype comes from exaggerating his powers and his virtues, not faking them.

Those afflicted with O.C.S. are no longer as moved by his perorations. The fever passes. But some invisible connection seems to persist.

A Realist Called Obama By ROGER COHEN

February 18, 2008

OP-ED COLUMNIST

NEW YORK —  Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic wrote a simple sentence recently that cut to the quick of this U.S. election: “What you think of a presidential candidate is in large measure determined by what you think of the world.”

In an eloquent column, he argued that “We are heading into an era of conflict.” From Waziristan to Gaza City the world of the next U.S. president will be one of foreboding. The threats, he suggested, were of a nature a neophyte senator called Barack Obama, who’s long on hope and short on hardness, is ill-prepared to confront.

I share the concern that the feel-good conciliation propelling the Obama bandwagon is light on fierceness. Change is great but constancy can be greater, especially when the threat is mortal. Readiness to talk to everyone, enemy dictators included, does not a foreign policy make.

When Obama says that in a globalized world the security of Americans is tied to the security of all people, he sounds pleasing. But this won’t help when U.S. security imperatives prove distinct, even inimical, to those of others, as one day they will.

I also find Obama’s commitment to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq rash: a free and stable Iraq is now inextricable from long-term U.S. security interests. How that can be squared with flicking the switch at Camp Victory in 2010 is a mystery to me and to most U.S. generals.

And yet, I disagree with Wieseltier. I disagree about the nature of the world the next president will face. Because of this, I believe Obama is the candidate best placed to grasp and exploit a transformative moment in global affairs.

Far from Wieseltier’s era of conflict, I see an era of tremendous global potential for advancement in which the jihadists —  force-multiplying internet invective notwithstanding —  are marginalized.

George W. Bush has shown a talent for burying progress and squandering opportunity (not least with Iran) in a torrent of vituperation. But even the Great Alienator can’t hide the fact we’re hardly in the Dark Ages.

As Bush’s war on terror has unfolded, one third of humanity in Asia has been busy joining and bolstering the world economy. Hundreds of millions of people, from the Mekong Delta to central China, have emerged from poverty. Huge problems remain, but the emergence of India and China does put the caves of Waziristan in perspective.

China holds a lot of U.S. debt, counters U.S. talk of freedom with talk of no-strings-attached “harmony,” and cares nothing for a nation’s politics if it can grab that nation’s riches (Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe).

But China is also tied at the hip to the United States, whose market it needs, and hell-bent on stability for the next half-century. Its cooperation with Washington on North Korea is more significant than its ideological confrontation.

In Africa, strong growth, spreading democracy, and growing regional cooperation have naturally ceded the headlines to doom in Darfur and Harare. But the progress is no less real for that.

Throughout the world, the access technology provides is connecting people in ways that make governments less relevant. Terrorists benefit from such networks. But the linking of a humanity in flux is of deeper historical significance. An era of conciliation is more persuasive to me than an era of conflict.

The fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination is increasingly portrayed as one between romantics and realists.

But a realistic view of Obama would be that he is best placed to seize and shape a new world of such possibilities. He has the youth, the global background, the ability to move people, and the demonstrated talent for reaching across lines of division, even those etched in black and white.

He would, as Andrew Sullivan has written, “rebrand” America. Wieseltier dismisses such rebranding. But even the Papacy was rebranded in our times, by a Pole, and Poles then precipitated the fall of the Soviet empire.

A romantic view of Clinton might be that she has the guts and savvy to free herself of her husband’s coterie of the world’s rich and famous, with its dubious deal-making from Kazakhstan to Colombia, and ensure that a White House with a president and ex-president in it projects U.S. renewal rather than the tawdrier sides of Clintonism.

I’m just not enough of a romantic to believe it.

Obama is the expression of a hybrid world whose promise outweighs its menace. He needs to recall what he once said: “No president should ever hesitate to use force  unilaterally if necessary  to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened.”

If he does, and a tough foreign policy team would help, hope and hardness will in time find a fecund balance confounding even to Iran’s mullahs.

Blog: www.iht.com/passages

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Poverty Is PoisonBy PAUL KRUGMAN

February 18, 2008

“Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

America’s failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to provoke instead is great creativity in making excuses.

Some of these excuses take the form of assertions that America’s poor really aren’t all that poor — a claim that always has me wondering whether those making it watched any TV during Hurricane Katrina, or for that matter have ever looked around them while visiting a major American city.

Mainly, however, excuses for poverty involve the assertion that the United States is a land of opportunity, a place where people can start out poor, work hard and become rich.

But the fact of the matter is that Horatio Alger stories are rare, and stories of people trapped by their parents’ poverty are all too common. According to one recent estimate, American children born to parents in the bottom fourth of the income distribution have almost a 50 percent chance of staying there — and almost a two-thirds chance of remaining stuck if they’re black.

That’s not surprising. Growing up in poverty puts you at a disadvantage at every step.

I’d bracket those new studies on brain development in early childhood with a study from the National Center for Education Statistics, which tracked a group of students who were in eighth grade in 1988. The study found, roughly speaking, that in modern America parental status trumps ability: students who did very well on a standardized test but came from low-status families were slightly less likely to get through college than students who tested poorly but had well-off parents.

None of this is inevitable.

Poverty rates are much lower in most European countries than in the United States, mainly because of government programs that help the poor and unlucky.

And governments that set their minds to it can reduce poverty. In Britain, the Labor government that came into office in 1997 made reducing poverty a priority — and despite some setbacks, its program of income subsidies and other aid has achieved a great deal. Child poverty, in particular, has been cut in half by the measure that corresponds most closely to the U.S. definition.

At the moment it’s hard to imagine anything comparable happening in this country. To their credit — and to the credit of John Edwards, who goaded them into it — both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are proposing new initiatives against poverty. But their proposals are modest in scope and far from central to their campaigns.

I’m not blaming them for that; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor. And for a variety of reasons, health care, not poverty, should be the first priority of a Democratic administration.

But ultimately, let’s hope that the nation turns back to the task it abandoned — that of ending the poverty that still poisons so many American lives.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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The show must go on

Rival Democrats Clutch Their State Prizes, and Look to Collect a Few More
By Jeff Zeleny and Julie Bosman
The New York Times

Wednesday 06 February 2008

A coast-to-coast series of primaries and caucuses Tuesday ended with one definitive conclusion for Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama: The show will go on.

As the Democratic presidential candidates crowed over the states they won from different regions of the country, with Mrs. Clinton claiming a patch of the South and Mr. Obama seizing a swath of the Rocky Mountain West, they began recalibrating for a new phase of the nominating fight. Even as they counted their delegates, they sought to learn lessons and build upon the results as the race returns to a somewhat less-frenzied pace of campaigning.

"After seven years of a president who listens only to the special interests, you're ready for a president who brings your voice, your values and your dreams to your White House," Mrs. Clinton said to cheering supporters in New York. "Tonight, in record numbers, you voted not just to make history, but to remake America."

Mr. Obama, addressing his admirers in Chicago, presented his candidacy as a movement that can win in small states and large states and transcend a racial divide in America.

"What began as a whisper in Springfield has swelled to a chorus of millions calling for change," Mr. Obama said, recalling his announcement one year ago in the Illinois capital. "It's a chorus that cannot be ignored, a chorus that cannot be deterred."

Like other politically inclined Americans, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton were glued to television screens as an epic evening of political theater played out in 15 primaries and 7 caucuses. As the Democratic presidential race moves on, both sides were predicting at least a monthlong delegate battle ahead.

While Mr. Obama was winning a broad assortment of states, particularly those that held caucuses that rely upon grass-roots organization, Mrs. Clinton won Massachusetts and Arizona. In both states, Mr. Obama had secured endorsements from leading Democrats, from Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts and Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona.

With the field now narrowed to two, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton both argued that the contest had evolved into a mathematical quest of winning delegates. Yet both sides also were carefully tracking the states as they were declared for one side or the other.

Hour by hour, the Clinton and Obama campaigns pounced on the results coming in Tuesday evening, offering their particular spin. And they were not shy about calling victories well before television networks did.

With about 20 percent of the ballots counted, the Clinton campaign issued an urgent dispatch: "Massachusetts alert: Upset of the night." Less than an hour later, the state was called in her favor, with the Clinton statement taking care to remind people that Mr. Obama had been endorsed by the state's two senators.

Hundreds of Mrs. Clinton's supporters gathered in Midtown Manhattan, sipping wine from plastic cups and watching television screens tuned to CNN as they awaited her arrival. Early in the evening, the ballroom was quiet and subdued, but as Mrs. Clinton's victories in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey were announced, crowd members grew more boisterous, waving blue "Hillary" signs in the air.

There was a similar scene inside a hotel ballroom in downtown Chicago, where supporters of Mr. Obama tracked the results as they appeared on giant television screens. As his victories in Georgia and Alabama, Delaware and Illinois were announced, the crowd roared with approval.

While Mrs. Clinton spent the early evening at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., conducting radio interviews and having a little down time, Mr. Obama had dinner with family and friends at his home in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago.

As ballots were still being cast on the West Coast and counted nearly everywhere else, the Clinton campaign issued a bulletin each time a state was called in her favor. Her strategists presented her wins in Tennessee and Oklahoma as evidence that she could win in so-called red states in the South.

"For months, the Obama campaign has been spinning that they have a monopoly on red states," a campaign statement said. "Tonight we showed that they don't."

John Edwards's withdrawal from the race last week may have benefited Mrs. Clinton in Oklahoma, where he had campaigned and drawn support, particularly from white, blue-collar voters. After Mr. Edwards abandoned his bid for the nomination last week, his advisers said they expected most of those supporters to turn to Mrs. Clinton.

In a conference call with reporters at 10 p.m., campaign strategists said they felt Mrs. Clinton was making a strong showing, but that the battle would continue through the March 4 contests in Texas and Ohio - and, perhaps, beyond.

"We feel like we've had a good night, but this contest is far from over," said Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton. "The American people are still very much interested in what both candidates have to say."

A few moments later, Mr. Obama's strategists echoed the sentiment.

"We may end up with more delegates," said David Plouffe, the campaign manager for Mr. Obama. "We are going to come out of this in much better shape than we would imagine."

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Jeff Zeleny reported from Chicago, and Julie Bosman from New York.

A Voter’s Guide

CLICAR AQUI
By GAIL COLLINS
Barack Obama says that he and Hillary Clinton are friends forever. Which is actually more than we, the voters, require.