US Politics Analysis: Can America Overcome "Deficit Fear" to Deal with Unemployment?

Senator Patty MurrayFor the last two years, debate over the deficit has dominated political discourse in Washington, driven by a Republican majority in the House. Along the way voters’ main concern --- policies that create jobs --- has been sidelined as Democrats have concentrated on defending the entitlement programs, primarily Medicare and Social Security, that Republicans have targeted for reform.

However, that may be about to change. Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic Chair of the Budget Committee, is not as respectful of the need to build coalitions as her predecessor. Murray is a conviction politician, and she feels her middle-class constituency is being betrayed by a callous GOP caucus more interested in abstract arguments about deficit reduction than the human costs of a damaged welfare system.

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Canada (and Beyond) Special: The Significance of Today's Protest in Montreal

The generally good-natured manner of the Quebec protests should not mask this is a fundamental conflict, between generations and ideas of social justice, reaching beyond Canada to modern democracies around the world. What is taking place in Montreal is an early and unofficial referendum on the global economic model of an elite that facilitated debt, government and personal, threatening to plunge the world into another Great Depression.

What the protesters in Montreal are rebelling against is the idea that spending cuts and austerity measures are required to rebuild the same economic system that caused the crisis in the first place. And some of the reaction to the reasonable desire among many students to take up the responsibilities of an adult citizen, without the de-humanising debt burden to get an education, is worrisome.

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US Feature: Six Months to Go --- Why a "Re-Recession" Might Put Obama Back in Office

Social chaos and breakdown in Europe, caused by an adherence to the Fantasy Island politics of austerity by European governments, and a corresponding slip into another US recession: this could be the catalyst Obama needs to convince Independents that his pro-growth economic policies, and not the austerity politics of Mitt Romney, are the best hope for a brighter economic future for America.

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US Politics Analysis: Obama and the Democrats Launch Their Populist Campaign

Right now, there is an even chance President Obama could become another Jimmy Carter-style loser, or another Bill Clinton-like resurgent winner, but there is little doubt he will be going before the electorate without the aid of any positive policy achievements in his final year, and, if the IMF is correct, with the country in another recession. No wonder he is taking the fight to Republicans.

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US Politics Analysis: The Republicans' Damaging Myth of Lower Taxes = More Employment

Last week, President Obama finally showed some of the leadership over the issue that his critics have demanded. But his new engagement with the debt limit talks, and his desire for a long-term deal, have run headlong into the brick wall of the Republican insistence that spending cuts are the only acceptable means for cutting America's deficits. Even though virtually every moderate media observer is demanding some revenue increases as part of any meaningful deal and even though there is reason to doubt tax increases would be as harmful to the economy as conservatives maintain, Republicans seem prepared to hold this position to the point of breakdown.

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US Politics Special: Will the Democrats Fight Back over Jobs?

The Democratic response to the twin problems of the stagnant economy and the successful Republican onslaught on "irresponsible" government spending has been to play defense. Little has emerged from Congress, and nothing from the Obama Administration, to suggest that the Democrats have vision of how to stimulate not only the economy, but also a liberal base feeling battered by the conservative resurgence.

But there were signs last week that Democrats are beginning to emerge from the bunker mentality re-engaging Republicans with the case that more should be done to invigorate the labor market through government investment.

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After the Arizona Shootings: Can the Approach of "No Labels" Succeed? (Haddigan)

Unfortunately, No Labels does not seem to have stirred the imagination or won the backing of Americans. It is still early days, and recent events may catapult them to prominence among citizens tired with the controversy over "violent rhetoric" and/or the motives of the alleged Arizona gunman, Jared Lee Loughner; however, their prospects for the 2012 elections do not look good. Currently, only 13,000 visitors to their site have signed the declaration to “join your neighbours who are asking their leaders to put the labels aside and do what's best for America", and there is no sign of acceleration.

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US Politics Analysis: The Progressives Attack Obama

US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

The President has lost the support of his most committed and enthusiastic activists. And they are not about to sit idly by while Obama cruises to the Democrat nomination for President in 2012. I think it was Shakespeare who once wrote that “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. 

It will be interesting to see over the next few months whether Hillary Clinton tries to remake herself surreptitiously as the new voice of progressivism.

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