Isn’t anyone listening?

If the White House response to nervous Democrats is any indication, the answer is ‘no.’

TOM BURGUM
Contributing Columnist
burgum@lbknews.com

There is no question that last week was a very bad one for the Obama administration. Massachusetts chose Scott Brown, a Republican, to fill the seat formerly occupied by the late Ted Kennedy, an outcome that meant the Republicans now had enough votes to block the Democrats’ controversial health-care initiative. Talk about historical whimsy.

After Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat, Obama and some of the more liberal pundits attributed the defeat to generalized anger and frustration that clearly was the result of eight years of misgovernment by George Bush. Mr. Obama told ABC News, “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry, and they’re frustrated, not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years but what’s happened over the last eight years.” Damn, more mischief by that rascal George Bush.

As Charles Krauthammer wrote, “Let’s get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that . . . it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.”

Mr. Obama, in a later interview, shifted the focus from George Bush to a lack of communication with the American people. “One thing I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people.”

He has to be kidding. Mr. Obama has been seen on TV more often than Law and Order reruns. According to Mark Knoller of CBS news, Mr. Obama has had 93 prime time news conferences; 411 public speeches and 158 interviews. One Sunday he appeared on all talk shows in the same morning and showed up on David Letterman the next day. A bit later he addressed the U.S. Climate Change Summit, the U.N General Assembly, and the U.N. Security Council, — all in one week.

As Jonah Goldberg observed, “The only way the White House communications shop could cram more Obama down our throats would be if it required, as a part of the health-care bill, that we have Obama-message receivers installed in our fillings.”

Mr. Obama told us this weekend that the vote in Massachusetts was a vote against the banks. That is ridiculous. Brown opposed the proposed bank tax, Coakley supported it. The issues were clear. The new senator from Massachusetts ran on a very specific, very clear agenda. Kill the health-care reform bill. Get serious about terrorism and stop mirandizing terrorists. Pay attention to the deficit by cutting spending, not raising taxes. And, stop with the backroom deals that would have excused labor union members from paying the same Cadillac tax imposed on nonunion workers.

Now the question is: is anyone at the White House listening. If the White House response to nervous Democrats is any indication, the answer is “no.” Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., fears that these midterm elections are going to go the way of the 1994 midterms, when Democrats lost control of the House after a failed health care reform effort. But, Berry told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that the White House does not share his concerns. “They just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”

The President has a point. He is personally popular and people want to like him. His problems stem from rejection of what many consider his too liberal agenda. A Rasmussen poll in December found 66 percent favoring smaller government — fewer services. Only 22 percent favored more services and higher taxes. More people, 49 percent, worry the government will do too much rather than not enough when it comes to dealing with current economic problems. Only 39 percent fear the government will do too little. Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address pays some homage to the more moderate bent of the American public but it will send a mixed message, that is if the advance releases are correct. He intends to propose a three-year freeze in spending that would affect $447 billion in spending over a decade. At the same time he will propose increased spending in what he calls “middle-class” programs. Mr. Obama wants to double the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; increase in federal fund for child care programs by $1.6 billion; and institute a program to cap student loan payments, even forgive payment for people who, in the President’s words, “chose public service.” The programs may purchase votes, they are not job creators.

The freeze falls short of real budget reform as it won’t touch entitlements, won’t touch emergency spending, and will feature aggregate rather than across-the-board cuts, meaning some discretionary programs could see budget increases. Even so, it is too much for many of Mr. Obama’s allies on the left. Rachael Maddow during her program on MSNBC, called the freeze idea “completely insane” and “stupid Hooverism” and then she went on to tell us how she really feels about the President’s proposal.

Some people remember that George H.W. Bush offered something similar in the 1988 campaign. He called it a “flexible freeze.” Michael Dukakis, in his only good line of the election year, dismissed it as “an economic Slurpey.”

Whether the administration has really heard the voices in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts is open to debate. It is too early to tell if the proposed spending freeze is the beginning of an effort to bring the spending under control or if it is only an effort to pander to angry voters.