The NYT on BHO 2

The New York Times is right about one thing. It isn't just a matter of stagecraft. The President has no good options. Nor does the Times itself know of any.

We cringed when he told the "Today" show that he had spent important time figuring out "whose ass to kick" about the spill. Everyone knew that answer on Day 2.

I think this means that the President should kick BP's ass. The problem is, he can't. Ceci Connolly at the Washington Post has this:

Waves of crude oil reached the Alabama shoreline Saturday as the Obama administration announced it has given BP until the end of the weekend to devise a more aggressive strategy for collecting oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

Yeah, and then what? Is Rahm Emanuel going to come up with a f*#$ing better capture technology? Well, at least the President can kick BP's ass financially. No. Not unless he wants to go to war with Britain.

Thousands of Britons are invested in the oil giant through pension funds: Analysts estimate that 1 of every 7 pounds paid in dividends to British pension funds comes from BP. Under pressure from Washington, however, BP appears set to suspend that dividend at least temporarily. Fears are also mounting that the plunge in BP's share price has made the company susceptible to a takeover.

"When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP, it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves," London Mayor Boris Johnson told BBC Radio.

If BP goes belly up, it could destabilize the retirement system in one of the world's more important economies. The President can threaten to kick BP's ass, but realistically he is more likely to end up proposing a bailout bill to Congress.

Well, at least the NYT knows what the President should do about the economy.

It is well within Mr. Obama's power to keep his administration and Congressional Democrats focused on what the economy needs: jobs and stimulus. Voters are anxious about the deficit. But the president needs to tell them the truth — that without more spending the economy could remain weak for a very long time. Unless Mr. Obama says it, no other politician will.

More spending. Great idea. Except that, we are already spending in a way that would shrink the testicles of a drunken sailor. No one knows how to spend more in a way that would be effective. The real threat to the world economy and our own is a loss of confidence in our economy. Our spending right now is doing just that. Michael Barone offers a clue.

Here's something I didn't know, from financial blogger Bruce Krasting (via John Ellis): Social Security tax receipts for the first half of 2010: $346.9 billion; Social Security benefits payments for the same period: $347.3 billion. Before this year, projections have always been that Social Security wouldn't cross that line into negative cash flow for five years or so. Now it's a reality. Congress has been spending Social Security's positive cash flow for years. Now there's no positive cash flow to spend.

To see how the negative trend has accelerated, consider the same figures for the first half of 2009: Social Security tax receipts were $366.0 billion and Social Security benefits payments were $334.3 billion. A positive cash flow of $31.7 billion has disappeared in the course of just 12 months.

At the very moment that our major social entitlement programs were going into the red, we are digging whole under the rest of the budget at a rate of a trillion dollars a year. The Times wants to spend more? From what planet are we going to borrow the money to do that?

The NYT is right that President Obama inherited a mess. It is puerile to blame it on "George W. Bush's ineptness and blind ideology." Nearly a century of unrealistic promises are coming due. I do not know what a President with a solid grasp of history, strong instincts, and enormous reserves of courage would do. I don't know how such a man would get us out of this mess. We have to rely on President Sponge Cake.

Comments

[Stan Gibilisco]

This unfortunate accident could have happened to any company, or even to the government (if we had a socialized oil industry).

President Obama is under pressure from some factions to "kick some ass," and that's why he used that expression, in my opinion. He wanted to show that he cares, that's all.

I do not think that we (as a nation) should "kick BP's ass." However, I think that we should hold them accountable for the costs of this catastrophe.

S**t happens. For BP in this situation, and for their stockholders, it's just too bad.

Let us Americans clean up our s**t, and let the British clean up theirs, and let the Chinese clean up theirs, and let the Greeks and the Spanish and the Hungarians clean up theirs ...

[Stan Gibilisco]

... and to the extent that other entities such as Halliburton and Transocean bear responsibility, let them share in the cleanup cost.