As Jed Lewison's front-pager already makes plain, Obama's decision to institute a discretionary spending freeze at just the time when we need to maintain and increase stimulus spending to reduce unemployment is the stupidest, most reactionary thing he could possibly have done. I'll say a bit more about that below.
This is it. If this, and turning tail on the rest of his agenda, is what he calls a progressive agenda -- if this is how he responds to a loss in MA in which the Obama voters he lost, who either stayed home or voted for Brown, said they wanted more change and stronger health care reform and more action to improve the economy and rein in Wall Street from Obama -- well, I for one now give up all hope for the man.
So what do we do now? It is time to forget about great and inspiring men and start thinking about how to build a long-term movement.
The stimulus was too small to prevent a bad recession -- Obama's economists knew this, but they decided the goal was simply to prevent a catastrophe, not prevent a bad recession. Then the bad recession turned out to be even worse than they thought. We've got 10% unemployment and it may get worse. There's a desperate need for increased fiscal stimulus -- increased federal spending -- to create jobs. Obama needs to focus on "jobs jobs jobs". And now is the time he chooses to allay non-existent fears of inflation by shrinking spending in real terms -- a freeze that's not adjusted for inflation, meaning real spending shrinks. And stopping the stimulus too soon, as Jed points out, is exactly the mistake FDR made in 1937 -- after 5 years of successful stimulus, not after 1 year of a middling one.
Furthermore, it's only for symbolic reasons. It's a freeze in discretionary, domestic, non-military spending -- everything but the military, "homeland security", foreign aid, social security, and medicare, that is, which of course includes all government non-entitlement spending that helps the poor and middle class. Since this is only a small portion of federal spending, the NY times articletells us, the savings will be small, less than 3% of the deficit that would otherwise accumulate, "but one administration official said that limiting the much smaller discretionary domestic budget would have symbolic value." An advisor to Congressional democrats says "After Massachusetts and all the polls about independents’ abandoning us for being fiscally irresponsible, we can’t afford to be spending more than Obama." So to address an issue that isn't the main issue concerning the Obama voters he's losing and to allay bond market fears of inflation that in fact don't show up in the bond market, let's kill all the domestic spending programs that are needed for the poor and middle class and their employment. (He'll also propose some programs for the poor and middle class, for this year -- the freeze goes into effect in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 2010).
Clearly it's all over with regard to expecting anything progressive from this administration. Instead, expect an economic disaster, high and persistent unemployment until the man is voted out of office.
So what do we do? There is no substitute for the long road of building a popular movement. "Fighting Democrats", for example. We need to work within the Dem party, because 3rd party efforts are hopeless in this country's system, but Fighting Democrats can be to Democrats what the tea-partiers are to the Republican power. A force working within. But the key to a progressive movement is democratic organization. A social networking structure that allows anyone to speak and allows people to self-organize. A leadership structure that is elected and accountable. The possibility of dues that can be used to pursue directions and support candidates developed democratically, by the group and its accountable leadership. Ultimately you want to build a brand that stands for something, so that people recognize "Fighting Democrats" as a name they can trust, so they will listen to its statements on issues and policies, and the fact that a candidate is endorsed by Fighting Democrats will actually mean something, including a commitment to some basics. You fill it in, in the end it's beyond what we can correctly imagine at the beginning, but without building up something like this we're left grumbling and writing diaries on Daily Kos.
Ever since the 60's the left has been afraid of organization. The "Old left" had a top-down leadership that betrayed them. SDS had a democratic structure but was torn apart by factional fights. Fear of factional fights and autocratic leadership has, I believe, prevented democratic organization ever since. The only things that have worked has been things like Move On and Daily Kos in which some smart and basically trustworthy leaders set something up, all participation is voluntary, and people are somewhat empowered, but there is no ability to build up a systematic, powerful organization. Or the Obama campaign, which built a real movement but was controlled from the top so that, once the campaign was over, people had no power to self-organize or form their own leadership or direction -- they were just supposed to carry out White House directives.
It won't be me spearheading such an organization. I'm 56, have 4 kids to support and a full-time and demanding job. It takes young people with the time, energy, and skills, including skills of setting up a modern social networking site with a political edge, to do it.
Obama is not going to deliver us. That's over. No one is going to deliver us. It's time to start the hard, long-term work of delivering ourselves.