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Tweet Posted on Dec 20, 2012 Wade Rockett (CC BY-ND 2.0)

“Now that Obama appears poised to push substantial parts of Social Security and Medicare over the ‘fiscal cliff’—in exchange for a paltry, largely symbolic, increase in the top marginal income-tax rate—we might ask whether liberals will once again rise to Obama’s defense, no matter how indefensible his actions,” writes John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s Magazine.

MacArthur recites the usual litany of Obama’s offenses—the insults from members of his inner circle (White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called liberals “retarded”), the deaths of Middle Eastern women and children by drone strikes, and his repeated willingness to auction off what could be and what remains of America’s social programs—all of which falls short of Obama’s modest reputation as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side.

MacArthur argues that Obama’s followers see only what they want to see: a well-meaning, white-guilt assuaging, African-American liberal who may—not will, but may, in the crucial conditional tense, as Robert Borosage put it in a recent Nation article—be pushed to sell the American welfare state to overstuffed corporations.

Liberal pundits have the habit of speaking about Obama’s worst potential future offenses as if there is some reason to doubt he will commit them. The future is debatable, but the president’s capitulations in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, which included immediately abandoning the push for a single-payer health care system, stand as strong evidence that Obama’s first concern is appearing to the American public and future generations as a leader who tried his best to honor the liberal tradition that elected him.

The president’s not a fighter, MacArthur points out, and he’s a poor liberal politician:

As Robert Caro’s latest installment of his Lyndon Johnson biography relates, a very regular, organization Democrat like Lyndon Johnson can makes good things happen if he puts his mind to it. When in the wake of the Kennedy assassination “wise” advisers told the new president to go slow on civil-rights reform — “that a President shouldn’t spend his time and power on lost causes, no matter how worthy those causes might be” — Johnson replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

John R. MacArthur at The Stream at Harper’s Magazine:

Obviously, Obama isn’t anything like what liberals have fantasized; his alliance with the reactionary, pro-corporate Daley machine should have made this obvious from the start. And some on the left appear to know it, even as they beg their hero to behave more like the “progressive” they imagined him to be. The current issue of The Nation recycles Borosage’s oddly innocent tone with a cover story titled “How to Save the Democratic Party” in which L. R. Runner correctly states the obvious: “Progressives and principled liberals need to face an essential truth: the Democratic Party, as now constituted, is no longer an agency for realizing their ideals.”

But then Runner lets Obama and certain important Democrats off the hook: “The problem is not President Obama or any other individual leader, but the Democratic Party itself.” What does this mean? That Obama has no capacity to act? That the corrupt and malevolent Max Baucus (D.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, doesn’t influence tax and trade policy and didn’t write “Obamacare” to favor insurance companies? That New York senator Charles Schumer (D.) doesn’t represent Wall Street’s interests on Capitol Hill? These days liberals seem to flee confrontation with anyone who calls himself a Democrat. Thus we see virtually no primary challenges from the left, no threats to bolt the party, hardly any public protests, and no boycotts of the Democratic Party’s fundraising apparatus.

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TAGS: barack obama democratic party fiscal cliff harpers magazine john r macarthur lyndon b johnson medicare progressive robert borosage robert caro social security the nation



Related Entries Cliffhanger: Obama’s Unnecessary and Unwise Concessions Fiscal Cliff? Let’s Call Their Bluff Piers Morgan Goes Off on Pro-Gun Guest, Norquist Breaks Anti-Tax Pledge, and More Fiscal Cliffs and Fiscal Realities

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Make TAPS the Gift That Keeps On Giving

Worth reading is U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s op-ed piece in the Juneau Empire, marking the 35th birthday of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline System, or TAPS.

The Alaska Republican knows something about oil. She represents a huge energy state and would likely head the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee if the GOP emerges from this fall’s elections with a majority. She depicts TAPS as more than a conduit for crude from Alaska’s North Slope. It’s an economic pipeline as well – for the state and the rest of the country. Key facts:

TAPS is 800 miles long, running from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Valdez on the Gulf of Alaska.Since oil first started flowing in 1977, the pipeline has delivered more than 16.6 billion barrels.As Murkowski notes, three out of every 10 jobs in Alaska can be traced to TAPS.The pipeline has generated more than $171 billion in revenues to the state treasury. North Slope oil production allowed the state to terminate its income tax in 1980.

Murkowski writes:

“Oil wealth has paid for improving our roads, water and sewer systems, building parks, renewing our cities, and improving life in our most remote villages. The riches that Alaskans have extracted from under the North Slope have also funded our schools, and helped bring our health care system into the 21st century.”

The pipeline’s birthday is an excellent time to think about its future. Murkowski writes that at its zenith, TAPS carried 2 million barrels of oil per day. Now the daily flow is only about a quarter of that. Alaska has slipped behind North Dakota to No. 3 on the list of top oil-producing states (behind Texas). Here’s a chart from Gov. Sean Parnell’s office showing North Slope production decline, which has decreased TAPS’ flow: 

There are risks with reduced pipeline flow. According to the governor’s office, at lower flow levels it takes longer for oil to go through the pipeline, and at lower temperatures ice forms inside that can cause damage. Murkowski:

“Without new oil production, throughput in the pipeline could fall enough to threaten its future viability. Shutting down the pipeline would mean closing up shop on the North Slope. Alaska’s oil — like its massive natural gas reserves today — would be stranded with no way to market, leaving the state scrambling to replace the 85 percent of its annual revenue that today comes from oil.”

There’s a relatively simple solution: Produce more domestic crude oil to send through TAPS. The oil is there – offshore in the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea (where Shell hopes to sink exploratory wells this summer) and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Murkowski writes is the “largest single prospective onshore source for conventional oil in North America.” Some estimate ANWR could produce 1 million barrels of oil per day, which by itself would solve the under-capacity situation with TAPS while significantly boosting our country’s oil output. 

The problem is policy. ANWR continues to be held off limits by Washington, and development of Alaska’s offshore areas has been slow in coming – again, chiefly because the federal government has been slow granting approvals. Murkowski:

“The federally owned lands and waters to the east, west and north of Prudhoe Bay hold tremendous resources, but access has been slowed by an administration more interested in designating new wilderness than shoring up Alaska’s economy.”

We need policies that create sustained and predictable access to oil and natural gas on federal lands – in ANWR and elsewhere (see map below). Access = energy development, which will mean job creation, economic growth and a more secure energy future. And a great birthday present for TAPS.

View the original article here