Obama’s Address to Congress Tonight: Bush 2002 Redux

Obama will address Congress tonight about his budget proposal and his intention to reduce the deficit. This is nothing more than hackneyed political theater. But this time it is not a Republican puppet at the Speaker’s chair; it is a Democratic marionette named Barack Obama. Obama will espouse the same rhetoric that Bush espoused in 2002 when the latter attempted to blame Bill Clinton for the economic problems Bush created. Same strings, same script, different puppet: I guess this is change in which we can believe.

Here is Obama in 2009 according to his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

MR. GIBBS: Well, Jennifer, I think everyone has seen the President convene today a summit on fiscal responsibility here at the White House. And reports over the weekend about a budget — that will be outlined in greater detail on Thursday — that shows a deficit that was inherited before the stimulus of nearly $1.3 trillion that the President believes and the economic team believe that we can cut in at least half at the end of four years, the end of his first term. I think the American people are rightly concerned about the path of this economy, but also concerned that for many years we’ve had a borrow-to-spend attitude. And what the President hopes to get our country back on is a program that helps us save and invest.

The President outlined in his radio address a budget that is sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting — which is a change — that will, as I said, invest in what we need, cut in what we don’t, and restore fiscal responsibility….

Now listen to Bush in 2002:

Bush says he inherited recession
Bush, Cheney take advantage of revised GDP data to say economy a mess when they took office.
August 7, 2002: 6:04 PM EDT
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money Staff Writer

“When I took office, our economy was beginning a recession,” Bush said in a speech at a Mississippi high school. “Then our economy was hit by terrorists. Then our economy was hit by corporate scandals. But I’m certain of this: We won’t let fear undermine our economy and we’re not going to let fraud undermine it either.”

Obama inherited a crisis; Bush inherited a crisis: same script, different puppets. Think Progress, the organization disseminating White House talking points, calls it “Inheriting Recklessness.”

INHERITING RECKLESSNESS: “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” Vice President Cheney said in 2002 when pushing for a fresh round of tax cuts. With this attitude in hand, Bush passed on a budgetary nightmare to his successor. Bush came into office with an advantage few presidents have enjoyed — a $230 billion surplus. But due to a $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001, a $1.5 trillion tax cut in 2003, and a massive defense buildup through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Bush quickly blew through that surplus. The next president will “inherit a fiscal meltdown,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) warned in February 2008, as the Bush administration projected a budget deficit of $400 billion. After the financial crisis emerged last fall and the ensuing bailouts, Bush’s budget deficit ballooned to over $1 trillion. As Center for American Progress Vice President for Economic Policy Michael Ettlinger explained, budget deficits swelled under Bush because his supply-side tax policies slashed revenues while failing to deliver strong economic performance.

Learn these quotes, for you will hear them again and again on the television, and they will be cited all over the blogosphere. To not be Bush is to be Bush: just repeat what he did in 2002 with the hope that no one remembers in 2009. This is change in which we can believe.

And then there is this trope of honesty. Bush was “honest” in 2002: he said he would not allow “fear or fraud” to undermine the economy. And we all know the end result of Bush’s “honesty.” Now Obama says his administration will ensure “honesty” in accounting. He and his apologists also use terms such as “openness” and “transparency.” Here is Think Progress again:

SIMPLE HONESTY: Obama has already made a departure from the Bush budget legacy by instilling new openness and transparency. Last week, the New York Times reported that Obama will reject “four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller.” In 2005, the Washington Post editorial board called Bush’s budget proposal a “farce” for using accounting tricks. Obama’s changes include accounting for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (Bush relied on “emergency supplemental” war spending), assuming the Alternative Minimum Tax will be indexed for inflation, accounting for the full costs of Medicare reimbursements, and anticipating inevitable expenditures for natural disaster relief. The result of Obama’s openness is a budget that is $2.7 trillion “deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear.” As The Wonk Room explained, “that debt was always there. It was just being hidden.” “For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception — a series of accounting tricks to hide the extent of our spending,” Obama remarked yesterday.

When all else fails, claim you are honest and dismiss everyone else as corrupt.

It gets better. Not only does Obama emulate Bush in 2002; he also apes his distant relative Cheney. Listen to Cheney in 2002.

It was also easier for Bush and Cheney to point to the two quarters of growth so far in 2002 and claim that the tax cuts and economic stimulus packages they pushed in 2001 had helped the economy recover.

“Rebate checks, a rate reduction on tax day and a stimulus package helped turn three quarters of decline into two quarters of growth,” Cheney said in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California.

Similar to Cheney, Obama claims it is his stimulus that will rescue the economy. I guess every man has his own “stimulating package.” And I guess some men, especially Cheney, Obama and Bush, believe in permanent campaigning.

Bush before the 2002 midterm elections exhorted Congress to make the tax cuts permanent, and he cited new GDP numbers in order to blame Clinton and the Democrats before votes were cast that autumn.

Bush, meanwhile, also called on Congress to make the tax cuts — which expire 10 years from now — permanent. “For the sake of our economic vitality, allowing people to plan, for the sake of small businesses across the country, we need to make tax reduction permanent,” Bush said.

This is how he and his party pressured Democrats to subscribe to his agenda while winning Senate and House seats throughout the country, especially in the South. Obama will use the televised spectacle of his address to Congress for the same purposes. But this time it will not be a tax cut he is advocating; it is a restrained budget with his particular priorities and a housing bill. He will also proleptically attempt to credit the stimulus package Democrats just passed for an economy his administration will interpret as successful in one or two quarters. Here he is emulating Cheney, and here he is attempting to pressure Republicans to vote for his agenda.

There is no change with Obama; there is only more of the same: same script, same strings, different puppets, different year. Obama is the new Bush. Indeed, both screen press questions, and both Presidents are only capable of uttering what they read on a teleprompter. Both, in my opinion, are vacuous marionettes who are controlled by those who wield power in their respective parties.

We needed a Clinton to clean the mess of a Bush, not another Bush who is related, however distantly, to a Cheney. In other words, we need a real Democrat in office.