Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the president has in fact put a proposal on the table and has also reached out to Republicans. This was in response to David Gregory's question that the president is just waging a public relations war. Actually, what the president is doing is both, which keeps the pressure on the Republicans to react. Without a doubt, there has been rhetoric coming from both sides that has made it difficult for every one to sit down. However, Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) can not say that the president should stop campaigning as he did during his joint interview with Governor Davel Patrick (D-MA) because the fact of the matter is that Congressional Republicans have not accepted the result of the election and hence the direction on the economic debate. Conservatives rightly argue that the president has to show leadership, but then turn around and say that the election was a status quo election meaning that Republican-led House has an equal seat at the table. Fine, take the seat at the table but then don't complain that the seat is uncomfortable. That's leadership and it has to be coming from all sides.
Also in Secretary LaHood's interview, he made it sound as though the FAA could stand the sequester cuts if he had the ability to move the money around - scalpel vs. hatchet. Governor Jindal stated he liked that idea and that the cuts should stay. The Transportation Secretary also emphatically said that passenger safety would not be compromised with regard to air traffic control despite newspaper headlines stating the contrary. TSA, he noted, is under the Department of Homeland Security, in reference to potentially longer lines at the airport. What's the difference there, could those lines get any longer? Also, as Mr. Inskeep questioned later in the program, "Is pulling back an aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf really the first thing we'll have to do militarily?" What this tells you is that the Administration is politicking too much. So is it government by freakout, as Peggy Noonan said in her Wall Street Journal column? Not exactly because in terms of the defense cuts, many Americans are going to be furloughed. It's a fact so you have to weigh the implications of both - ballooning defense budgets vs. furloughs.
However, later during the roundtable, both Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer
said that the sequestration won't effect long-term economic growth. Ms. Bartiromo thought that the sequester is more of a national security issue than an economic one or the market wouldn't be continuing to trade at record highs. Great, but as NPR's Steve Inskeep commented, we can not keep approaching crisis after crisis, adding them up to get a larger deal because that deal is not going to happen and it's pretty clear that the American people want to move on from this. Secretary LaHood said he was optimistic that Congress would stop the sequester, but it's not likely at least by the March 1st deadline. And with regard to taxes, the president shouldn't give up his position as Mr. Gregory assessed at one point during the roundtable. The reason is what Mr. Inskeep said about his conversations with Republicans about tax loopholes; that many of them are for closing them but can not go to their constituents and say there is going to be a tax hike. That's not leadership, that's bailing... lame. All most Americans when asked want a straight answer. You have to step up and explain it to people because if you can't admit to what you think is right, you're part of the problem. That's on the federal level.
With regard to the states, obviously you see two very different approaches at work exemplified by governors on today. Mr. Jindal was referring to medicaid when he said one size doesn't fit all. Well, he's wrong on Medicaid expansion for his state, but correct that one size doesn't have to apply to taxes. As Governor Patrick noted, Massachusetts doesn't have the natural gas and oil reserves that Louisiana has. Massachusetts doesn't have the tourism that Florida does, where they have no income tax. So maybe for the state of Louisiana, they don't need an income tax as Mr. Jindal wants. What works in one state may not work in another and we have to come to accept that. Notice that we didn't mention corporate taxes as Mr. Jindal also wants to eliminate. We found it interesting that Jim Cramer advocated for a raising of the capital gains tax, something you don't normally hear from the money crowd, but it is true that raising it would garner significant revenue. The income tax rates compared to the capital gains rate has been an out-of-balance equation since President Clinton made his tax deal with Republicans in the '90s. Either way, you have to be clear about the results, when Mr. Gregory went through a comparison of the two states, Mr. Jindal could only answer with a "Look how far Louisiana has come," kind of answer. Yes, but that is not where Massachusetts is. You can not ignore the fact that Mr. Patrick brought to the table, in which 98 percent of the people in Massachusetts have access to healthcare. If any state needs the Medicare expansion, it's Louisiana. In part, Massachusetts' economy is growing 4x faster than Louisiana's is because they have taken healthcare off the table and they haven't decimated their revenue stream.
Lastly, Mr. Jindal demurred when asked by Mr. Gregory if he was setting himself up for a 2016 presidential run, but as the moderator quipped later, it was obvious that Mr. Jindal is headed in that direction. And the Louisiana governor has come a long way in his oratorical skill since his awful State of the Union response performance a few years back. With statements like "private economy instead of government economy (meaning: unregulated free market), I'm for the traditional definition of marriage (meaning: I'm a social conservative)," and "I'm for closing loopholes (meaning: I'm for the middle class)," definitely says he's brushing up. Harold Ford included Governor Jindal in the group of serious names from the Republican side that a mention of a Hillary Clinton run bring out, but we're not so sure.
Roundtable: Former Democratic Congressman Harold Ford; Wall
Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan; Host of NPR’s Morning Edition,
Steve Inskeep; and CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer.
Postscript: Since they mentioned the Oscars, we thought why not jump in with a couple of predictions, just for fun.
Best Picture: Lincoln (The moment is big and the film is big)
Best Director: Steven Spielberg (No one else could make such a film)
Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis (He is now our modern portrait of Lincoln)
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Most talked about performance)
Best Supporting Actor: Robert DeNiro (Over 30 years since his last win)
Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field (The old guard isn't going away just yet)
But what the heck do we know?
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