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Obama's Post-Election Mandate by John M. Curtis Copyright
Nov. 11, 2012 Appearing on CBS’ “Face The Nation” with Bob Schieffer, President Barack Obama’s 57-year-old chief strategist David Axelrod told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that Americans voted to raise taxes on income earners above $250,000 a year. Faced with a looming “fiscal cliff” threatening to plunge the economy into a double-dip recession in 2013, Democrats and Republicans have a lot of work to do before the end of the year. Axelrod believes Barack’s decisive victory Nov. 6 gives him the Electoral mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy. Among other things, former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney promised to cut taxes on upper income earners, setting up the current impasse in the House. Sworn commitments by House Republicans to GOP party boss Grover Norquist’s “No Tax Pledge” has made increasing tax revenues next to impossible in Congress. While Boehner shows some willingness to compromise with Obama, House conservatives voted into office on Norquist’s strict pledge, refuse to budge on taxes. Mitt’s VP House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) personified the House’s refusal to raise taxes, including dealing with the pending “fiscal cliff.” Romney and Ryan ran on the platform of slashing government spending before engaging in any talk of raising taxes. Axelrod contends that Obama’s 332-206 Electoral College landslide and 2-million popular-vote margin gives the president a mandate for his policies. House Republicans have followed the lead of conservative radio and TV talk show hosts that the election never happened. Former President George W. Bush’s chief strategist Karl Rove, now a Rupert Murdoch—Fox News and Wall Street Journal—mouthpiece, cried “voter suppression.” Insisting that Obama “suppressed the vote,” Rove makes up his own definition to grab headlines. No one knows more about running negative ads than Rove, spending over $100 million from his own Political Action Committee, bashing Obama with the help of Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Both political parties run negative ads because they work. Rove thinks the Obama campaign “suppressed the vote” running ads appealing to minorities and single women. If the GOP would stop whining about their loss and figure out what issues are relevant to struggling voters, they’d take a step in the right direction. “On this particular issue, it wasn’t close,” said Axelrod, citing polls that showed 60% of voters agree with Obama on increasing taxes on the rich. Despite Barack’s big victory, the president must deal with vociferous House opposition to raising taxes. Most voters feared a Romney and Ryan presidency would translate into extreme austerity. It didn’t take long for Ryan to scare off independents on Medicare and Social Security. Whether he’s a true believe or not on reforming Medicare and Social Security, Ryan’s talk of privatizing the nation’s most popular entitlement programs shot himself and Romney in the foot. Instead of playing obstructionist in the House, Ryan should join with Boehner in showing some respect for the president for winning his second term. For the last two years, the GOP-dominated House threw every roadblock possible in Obama’s path. Boehner’s remark that “Obamacare is now the law of the land” should not be grounds for outrage by conservative House members but a recognition that Barack won reelection. Unlike the House Speaker, conservative upstarts haven’t stopped battling Obama after Nov. 6, On Nov. 6, Barack received a mandate not for specifics issues but, more importantly, for respect as president. Only Obama and Biden were voted in by a national vote. Romney and Ryan’s plan was clearly rejected by voters. Conservatives should join Boehner in the spirit of working with the president and rebuilding a badly damaged GOP. Republican strategists would like to blame Romney’s defeat on specific voter demographics but more realistically, it was a rejection of the platform. Focusing too heavily on banning abortion or gay marriage, the GOP missed the needs of voters to strike a real government partnership. Whether old or young, all voters expect the government to perform valuable functions, not talk of slashing government programs in the name of the Tea Party or Constitution. Changing the GOP platform would have attracted more independent voters. Obama’s mandate involves a majority of voters wanting the president’s program. Voters strongly rejected the GOP approach of slashing government spending and reducing the size and scope of the federal establishment. “It is obvious that we can’t resolve the nation’s problems simply by cutting [spending],” said Axelrod, inviting House conservatives to reconsider their loyalty of GOP Party Boss Grover Norquist over their Constitutional duty of fixing the U.S. economy. With election every two years, Norquist has threatened every House member that if they agree to raise taxes, he’ll make sure they’ll get voted out of office. Even former President George H.W. Bush begged Norquist and the GOP to show more flexibility when it comes to taxes. “Where is that revenue gonna come from?” asked Axelrod, urging the GOP to join the president to raise taxes on the rich. John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma. |
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