A Bipartisan Approach to Destroying the Economy

No one except the Villagers is listening, Mr. President. But if they're the only ones you care about, then carry on.




Full transcript here.

Steve M. nailed it on Thursday:

The public just wants the economy to get better -- and the public assumes that if the economy isn't going well, it must be because of too much spending and taxes. (That's wrong, but it's the only comprehensible explanation the public ever gets.) Do any of you really think the economy will be much better in the summer and fall of 2012 than it is now? We know it will still suck because all the relief has gone to the fat cats, while the rest of us have to swallow neo-Hooverism (and a "grand bargain" will just accelerate that process) -- but the low-info public will be extremely receptive to Romney's argument that the economy still sucks because of too much spending and taxation (especially given the fact that any "grand bargain" would include tax increases). He'll say we have to start cutting now, in his presidency. And much of the public will buy that.

And if (as Steve Benen says) the point of Obama's qualified support for the Gang of Six is just to put Obama on record as supporting big cuts, that absolutely won't work. No low-information swing voter will give him points for good intentions -- those voters won't remember, and wouldn't care if they did remember. They want results. They want the economy to improve -- and when it doesn't, and they don't hear an explanation of why it's not improving that's liberal and Krugmanesque, and they do hear an explanation from the right that blames excessive taxing and spending, they'll believe the latter.

So, politically, this will gain Obama much, much less than he thinks it will.