The Administration That Wasn’t There

Barack Obama has been very good at one thing: winning elections. If he has ever been good at anything else, it has gone unreported. He certainly isn't good at hoops. From Dana Milbank at the WaPo:

At the annual White House Easter Egg Roll this week, President Obama decided to shoot some hoops with the kids. He wound up going 2 for 22.

I think I could beat that. Okay, we don't elect a President to shoot hoops but we do elect him to do something. Whatever that is, it isn't making a buffoon of himself with ridiculous gestures.

Federal workers face unpaid furloughs because of the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. That's a serious economic hardship for many middle-class families, and whether or not Obama intended for it to happen, it's a direct result of a bill he signed into law.

And so the White House announced that Obama, "to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants," would return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury. The gesture, matched by several Cabinet members, was meant to be roughly the same percentage by which domestic agencies are being cut. But the amount — $20,000 of his $400,000 salary — is so little for a man made wealthy by his political fame that it comes across as patronizing.

Obama and his wife reported income of $8 million in his first three years in office, largely from royalties on his memoirs, which were best-sellers because of his political fame.

Milbank's piece has the title: "Obama's feeble salary 'sacrifice'". Richard Cohen beat him to the punch with "Obama's insulting salary stunt." Is there no one in the President's inner circle who spoke up to say "this is going to get us crapped on by our best friends in the press"?

Okay, Milbank and Cohen are not the Administration's best friends in the New York Times sense of "friends". They are not inclined to hide every fault and excuse every failing. They are the kind of friends who tell you that you had better get your act together. Another friend of that kind is Joe Klein.

Let me try to understand this: the key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care superstores — called exchanges. The Administration has had three years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.

This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it's not the Administration's fault. It's the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning?

The failure of the Obama Administration to implement the provisions of ObamaCare on time is no backfiring stunt. It is a dereliction of duty. ObamaCare is pretty much the one legislative achievement that the President can brag about. You might have thought he would at least see that its implementation was well managed. Well, he didn't manage it.

Klein repeats his misgivings in a second column. He refers us to another failure of the Administration to implement ObamaCare's provisions. From Steven Brill:

Here's a compelling story for any reporter who wants to shine light on a failure of basic competence – or maybe it's backbone – by the Obama administration on an issue that affects millions of middle class and poor Americans and that was supposed to be the president's number one priority.

In the article about healthcare prices that I wrote last month for TIME, I reported that supposedly non-profit hospitals not only charge ridiculously inflated prices (from a price list called the chargemaster) to people who are uninsured or underinsured, but they also routinely sue and demand that those full prices be paid. It's a prime reason medical bills are the cause of more than 60% of personal bankruptcies and even more demolished credit ratings across the country.

ObamaCare included language that addressed this problem, but it required the Administration to create a set or rules to govern the case. Don't hold your breath. Whether from a lack of competence or backbone (not mutually exclusive), no progress has been made. So Klein puts it this way:

I am really growing concerned about the sloppiness of this Administration. Bill Clinton, by contrast, was a governor. He cared about the "how" of government—how the Arkansas Department of Motor Vehicles dealt with its customers, for example…

Barack Obama is not a "how" President. Oh, he pays lip service to government reform. His people can tell you the number of unnecessary regulations they've eliminated. It barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done—there is no creative destruction in government, regulations pile up on top of each other like silt, generation after generation. And while the Democrats are feeling pretty smug these days, given the overwhelming silliness of the Republicans, the President may be paving the way for a conservative revival—if Obamacare turns out to be as nasty a mess as, say, the Veterans Administration.

No, Barack Obama is not a "how" President. He is very good at telling large audiences whatever they want to hear. When it comes to governing, he is the Man Who Wasn't There. Even when it comes to his signature piece of legislation, when all is said and done a powerful lot was said and very little was done.

Of course it isn't just ObamaCare. The Administration fought the sequester battle, telling us that it was some kind of grave doom hanging over us, while all the while failing to produce its own budget on time.

Klein has it right. Bill Clinton was governor before he was President. When Barack Obama took office, he had no experience at running any organization. When he leaves office, much the same will be true.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

Do you think that continual Republican obstruction might have a bit to do with this? Lots of high level positions aren't filled because of Republican attempts to do what the Nazis did--purposely make government look incompetent so that they could take over. The Republican assault on democracy, freedom and commonsense government is the cause of most of our problems. Get rid of Republican obstruction, and you solve all the problems.

The budget nonsense is a great meme, but stupid. The House budget is a joke that no one wit any sense thinks is anywhere near what we need. The entire budget process has been a joke since 2001, when the Republicans did away with pay go, put drug benefits and two wars off-budget and tank the economy because of a failure to pay attention to Wall Street criminality.

[Lynn]

Obama came into office with only one talent, and that was oratorical ability (not truthful oratory, but words that sounded good). Also he was a Black, which attracted 95% of the Black vote plus a good share of the white vote who wanted to prove they weren't racist. But he was lacking any executive experience, any leadership qualities (unless community organizer qualified), any ability or willingness to build coalitions and work in a bipartisan manner. And now we see the results of electing this type of person one of the most important positions in the world. Don't blame GOP for Obama's lack of qualifications and the ramifications of such. And also Obama has no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law; he has stated just such, which is treasonous on its face. But he gets away with it. Pathetic.

[Donald Pay]

I've noticed this meme as the latest corporate journalism/right wing media meme of the week. Search Google and you get a lot of recent echo chamber articles/pieces on this. Shoulda figured KB would be doing this.

Republicans are complaining because government isn't doing its job? Interesting. They also complain when government does its job. Republicans are just scurvy whiners. Give them a subject and wait one second for their high-pitched whine.

Republicans continually obstruct, refusing to confirm high-level people who have to implement any changes that the American people want. It's not surprising to me that nothing can get done, given Republican obstruction.

[Ken Blanchard]

Sure, Donald. I get it. When the President establishes a jobs council and then doesn't bother to meet with it, Republicans must have formed a line in front of the door! When he failed to produce a budget on time, they must have poured hot chocolate into his lap top. The NYT's complains that Republicans are responsible for the fact that 85 judicial posts are vacant, never mind that the President has failed to nominate persons for about sixty of those positions. But is it really the Republican's fault that he can't get a budget ready in time? Is it really the fault of John Boehner that no Democrats have voted for his last two budgets?

[danny]

I'm confident I have see this exact same form of declaration somewhere else, it needs to be more popular with all the public.