Krugman: What Obama Wants

[Derechos]

On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don’t know exactly what was proposed, but news reports before the meeting suggested that Mr. Obama is offering huge spending cuts, possibly including cuts to Social Security and an end to Medicare’s status as a program available in full to all Americans, regardless of income.

Obviously, the details matter a lot, but progressives, and Democrats in general, are understandably very worried. Should they be? In a word, yes.

Now, this might just be theater: Mr. Obama may be pulling an anti-Corleone, making Republicans an offer they can’t accept. The reports say that the Obama plan also involves significant new revenues, a notion that remains anathema to the Republican base. So the goal may be to paint the G.O.P. into a corner, making Republicans look like intransigent extremists — which they are.

But let’s be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1&hp

[northoftheborder]

1. I have to confess that I am - afraid.

[OHdem10]

2. For sometime he has sounded like he drank the Repulican Kool-Aid.

This is why so many are dismayed.

[ladjf]

7. I started worrying the day that he said that Reagan was his hero. nt

[Enrique]

3. on trusting Obama:

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.

[smiley33]

4. More moderate views are expected from a president,

but I fear Obama is heading far right. If he keeps it up, President Bachmann will look like a centrist.

[Kolesar]

8. I fear

you bet

[SharonAnn]

5. He wants to be accepted by the wealthy and powerful. Part of the "in" crowd.

He's enjoying being the power-broker and showing them how "reasonable" he is. And they'll continue using him.

I'm beginning to think you have to have grown up with wealth and privilege in order to see how corrupt many of the wealthy are and how they will steal anything they can from others.

If you never had it, then become moderately successful, you are encouraged to be "part of the solution" by working out "reasonable" solutions to economic issues that are caused by the wealthy.

[NCarolinawoman]

11. I see it the same way.

He has just enough of that private school background and rubbing shoulders with the elite during his formative years, to have developed the strong desire to become one of THEM. Above all--ACCEPTED.

[Skittles]

12. yes he does

and it is one sickening spectacle because they will NEVER accept him

[deacon]

6. As an Obama supporter, this is it. What happens will determine if he ever sees a vote from me again

If any of this junk he is proposing is true- he'll gain independents perhaps, but he'll lose democrats. And me and my household will support another democrat for president in 2012.

[Enthusiast]

9. He will not gain independent votes.

By a huge margin Americans want medicare and social security preserved. He will lose votes everywhere. He simply will not be re-elected.

[senseandsensibility]

10. Startling: Obama has not replaced his economic advisors

according to the article. To me, this is the most significant part of the piece. I knew the other parts, but at a time of economic criis he is not replacing his economic advisors? He is instead getting advice from a political team? During one of the most serious economic downturns in a generation? Really, what is going on?