Obama Blunders in Debt Ceiling, Budget Talks

Most Americans are bored silly by the latest D.C. faux brinksmanship, this time over budgetary squabbles as prelude to raising the U.S. debt ceiling. Rightfully so!

Sadly, Americans of both parties fully anticipate that the 112th Congress will continue to fritter time and resources away on partisan sniping, media-savvy pontificating, and fruitless negotiations, all while producing negligible-to-no results. That, of course, is why public approval ratings for Congress hover below 20% this summer.

But it's downright discouraging to see President Obama aggressively immersing himself into this obviously no-win partisan drama: Americans desperately care about jobs and foreclosure rates, and crave progress on both urgently personal issues.

(And please tell me... why in the world would the President, with a 47% approval rating, want to be closely associated and constantly pictured bickering in the trenches with the deeply dysfunctional Congress? Does Obama secretly long to be a one-termer?)

Instead, at this morning's news conference, the President wasted the better part of an hour breathlessly haranguing no one in particular about "entitlements" while effusively praising Republican House Speaker Boehner ("He's a good man who wants to do right by his country.") Huh?

While working Americans reel from ever-worsening economic pressures, President Obama openly pushed today for cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while pledging "no tax increases," even for millionaires and billionaires who are enjoying the lowest U.S. tax rates for 30 years.

While times cry out for a visionary leader, President Obama today looked more like a harried middle-management corporate employee, seething over internal company politics. And losing...

Obama looked like a smallish quarterback, flinging himself again and again (and again) at the opposing defensive line, hoping this time to move the football those last three yards. And losing... while never once searching "outside the box" for a more imaginative play. Or political policy.

It's quite apparent that President Obama savors the delicious thrust-and-parry of debate with the insider political class. He seems to feel he's accomplishing something important by putting in long hours and devoting his energies to managing (and self-reporting his managing) the political process.

But common sense screams otherwise.

Sanctioning cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid during this time of unbearably high unemployment and falling home values is a one-way ticket to a one-term presidency for Mr. Obama. And it's a worst-case economic nightmare for families making less than, say, $60,000 annually, regardless of party affiliation.

President Obama is removing all reason for people who supported him in 2008 to vote for him in 2012. And in his efforts to bow-and-scrape to Republicans, he's forsaking all that it means to be a Democrat.

The smart practical and political solution for the President to take is obvious and simple:

• 1. Invoke Section 4c of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which unambiguously states that "the validity of the public debt of the United states... shall not be questioned."

  A plethora of distinguished legal scholars believes that this passage renders invalid the very concept of a U.S. debt limit, anyway. Americans understand that: we incur bills, we must pay them. Limits are nice budgetary ideas... but if you ran up bills, the responsible person pays them. Period.

• 2. If Republicans huff and puff over your causing their bitter political shenanigans to be irrelevant, well, bravo for you! That action would demonstrate wisdom and political courage on your part, Mr. President. And it would demonstrate that your priorities mesh with those of everyday Americans.

• 3. Move boldly on to job creation by immediately pushing for a gigantic (and highly visible) new two-part public works project to repair our crumbling infrastructure nationwide, and to authorize a brand-new corps of a million teachers to aid flailing public schools.

  Then, Mr. President, publicly shame and embarrass Republicans into supporting that which the American people need. That, Mr. President, is your job, and why we all voted for you in 2008.

Mr. President, nothing was ever jump-started with cutbacks and new, severe limitations. I heartily concur with Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman who wrote in his New York Times column What Obama Wants:

"Watching Mr. Obama and listening to his recent statements, it's hard not to get the impression that he is now turning for advice to people who really believe that the deficit, not unemployment, is the top issue facing America right now, and who also believe that the great bulk of deficit reduction should come from spending cuts.

"It's worth noting that even Republicans weren't suggesting cuts to Social Security; this is something Mr. Obama and those he listens to apparently want for its own sake...

"Mr. Obama's people will no doubt argue that their fellow party members should trust him, that whatever deal emerges was the best he could get. But it's hard to see why a president who has gone out of his way to echo Republican rhetoric and endorse false conservative views deserves that kind of trust."

President Obama, whatever happened to "Hope" and "Change You Can Believe In"? "Hope" is not found in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. "Change You Can Believe In" is not found in yet another president who wants to cut Social Security in order to preserve tax cuts for super-wealthy Americans.

Do the right, the sane, the sensible thing, Mr. President, and get on to what really matters.

And please, stop obsessing about the nuanced calculus of small-ball political processes, and acting like that's courageous, principled leadership. It's not. At best, it's boring and causes American to tune you out. At worst, it's an utter waste of time, yours and ours.

As the American people grasp, D.C. politics are broken. The job we elected you to do is to bring a new era of Hope and Change to national politics by inspiring the better angels in us all, and by finding new ways to forge consensus.

It's now or never, Mr. President. We still have faith that you will do the right the thing by American people, that you still have the strength of your convictions to inspire Hope and Change, but our faith is fading...

(First photo taken on July 11, 2011: Alex Wong/Getty Images. Second photo taken on July 7, 2011: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)