Moderates Hold The Keys: Dems need 60% to win the White House
To win in the Electoral College, a Democratic Presidential candidate needs to dominate among moderate voters. A simple majority isn’t enough— Democrats generally need 60% to declare victory. The only Democrat to nab the White House without hitting that mark was Carter in 1976, but he pulled over 30% of conservatives, a level no Democratic candidate has even approached in the years since.
“Most folks in the parties have made their decision already…and so those independents, a bigger number of them, are now going to be the real key to victory in 2012.”
Campaign rhetoric can obscure as much as enlighten, and so it is with the economic debate of 2012.
The real problem isn’t that the recovery from the deep recession of 2007 to 2009 is too slow (though it is) or that the deficit is too large (though it is) or even that unemployment is too high (though everyone agrees it is).
The real problem is that America’s economy simply isn’t the high-growth, jobs-producing machine it once was. As just the latest indication, the International Monetary Fund on Monday lowered its forecast of U.S. and global growth for the next two years.
This is the predicament that ought to be dominating campaign conversations. It’s a problem that predates the current economic mess, and it will persist long after the recovery—unless both parties in Washington find some way to break the policy gridlock that has become a weight slowing the American economic machine.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that, with a new attitude and a sense of urgency in Washington, this is doable. Most sensible people in Washington know exactly what kinds of compromises on the deficit, taxes, trade and entitlement programs are within reach to change the economic trajectory.
What’s needed is simply for both parties to accept that neither is likely to be in full command of the government after the fall election and perhaps for some time to come, and to move on to the compromises needed to end a policy paralysis that is exacting a real economic price.
It would be nice if this reality were getting more attention in the campaign now; far more important is that it be reflected in the tenor of the conversation after the election.
This imperative is well embodied in a new study, titled “The Bargain,” soon to be released by Third Way, a centrist think tank. It lays out a series of seven big policy bargains the two parties could strike to address economic malaise.
First, though, the paper illuminates the bad economic news that lies at the heart of America’s predicament: The U.S. economy is widely projected to grow at only about a 2.3% or 2.4% annual rate for the next couple of decades, even after it has recovered from the recession. “That is a full point less than the previous six decades of growth,” the paper notes.
A percentage point may not sound like much, but the consequences of prolonged slow growth are profound. In just the period between 2017 and 2022, if the economy were to grow at its long-term average of 3.3% rather than 2.3%, it would produce $1 trillion in higher output, $904 billion in greater personal income, 1.1 million more jobs and an annual deficit $261 billion narrower. Average incomes for Americans, the study notes, would be “several thousand dollars higher.”
So, how does the country win back that extra percentage point of annual growth? Washington can’t provide the entire solution, but it certainly can provide a big part of it. That would require not just one “grand bargain” between the two parties—the kind that Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner tried to negotiate on the federal budget last year—but a whole series of them.
Obviously, getting there requires each party to give some ground. The Third Way paper cites seven areas of potential bargains. Among them:
Obamacare contains an “abortion surcharge and a secrecy clause” that forces “pro-life Americans … to pay for other people’s abortions.” -Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), 03/15/2012
Actually, the health insurance reform legislation maintains the current law of no federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the woman is endangered. A federal judge recently wrote “the express language of the [Affordable Care Act] does not provide for taxpayer funded abortion. That is a fact and it is clear on its face.”
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
The health care law has caused health insurance premiums to increase for families struggling to make ends meet. -Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY), 06/28/2012
Actually, the new health care law lowers administrative costs for employers and employees and increases choice and competition in health insurance. A family of four will save as much as $2,300 on their premiums in 2014 compared to what they would have paid without reform, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Premiums for the same plan will be up to 2 percent lower for small businesses and 3 percent lower for large businesses.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
The president specifically promised the American people that ‘Obamacare’ would not cover those who are here illegally. He misled all of us. -Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), 08/15/2011
Actually, the health care law goes out of its way to prevent benefits from going to illegal immigrants. It continues the current ban on coverage for illegal immigrants in Medicaid and extends the ban for all new benefits. Moreover, illegal immigrants won’t be able to buy coverage with their own money through the new public program called an insurance exchange.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
This [Obamacare] will be the biggest job-killer ever. -Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), 03/26/2012
Actually, In contrast to the “significant job losses” projected by a 2011 GOP report, the law’s impact on jobs is likely to be minimal according to the CBO. The Republican report fails to mention that in many cases workers may be choosing to exit the labor market voluntarily. With new options to qualify for Medicaid or subsidized coverage, the Affordable Care Act allows those working solely for the purpose of keeping their insurance to work less or retire. Although fines imposed by the employer mandate may reduce the number of low-wage jobs, those cuts will be limited and largely offset by potential job increases in health and insurance industries.
In sum, the new law introduces incentives that will push employment numbers in both directions, but the net effect is hardly a doomsday for jobs.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
A sword of Damocles is dangling over the Defense Department. Congress and President Barack Obama hung it up intentionally, in a good-faith effort to hasten deal-making on the budget deficit. But the threat has not had its intended effect of pushing lawmakers toward a grand bargain. So the time has come to ratchet up the pressure.
Late last year, as the debate over lifting the debt ceiling threatened to derail the U.S. economy, Congress created sequestration — more than $500 billion in deep and indiscriminate future defense cuts and another half trillion in domestic cuts all designed to be harmful. The idea was that the specter of these cuts would force Congress to reach a grand bargain, solving the long-term fiscal shortfalls.
But that’s as far as it went. Congressional Republicans have remained loyal to tea party dogma and squarely oppose a balanced deal. But with sequestration looming, that obstructionism is not only irresponsible, it could be dangerous.
Obamacare means that for up to 20 million Americans, they will lose the insurancethey currently have, the insurance that they like and they want to keep. -Mitt Romney, 06/28/2012
Actually, Romney’s campaign has cherry-picked the results of a Congressional Budget Office study. CBO’s official position is that 3 to 5 million people will no longer receive coverage through their employer. Instead, they will receive coverage elsewhere such as an insurance exchange where individuals, not employers, pick the coverage they want. The 20 million figure comes from a CBO analysis designed to show the uncertainty of making predictions using a wide range of possibilities, not its actual prediction.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare will lead to a government takeover of health care. -Mitt Romney, 05/11/2012
Actually, the health care law provides Americans with a choice of private health insurance plans; it does not offer a public option or provide Medicare-for-all as some members of Congress proposed. Instead, it lets individuals choose their own coverage and provides them a menu that compares the price and quality of insurance plans.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Third Way’s Senior Policy Analyst Michelle Diggles talks about voter registration in swing states in this article from Bloomberg. Check it out!
By John McCormick - Jul 9, 2012 8:00 PM ET via Bloomberg.
Independent voters are growing in numbers at the expense of Democrats in battleground states most likely to determine this year’s presidential election, a Bloomberg News analysis shows.
The collective total of independents grew by about 443,000 in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina since the 2008 election, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from state election officials.
During the same time, Democrats saw a net decline of about 480,000 in those six states, while Republicans — boosted in part by a competitive primary earlier this year — added roughly 38,000 voters in them, the analysis shows.
“Democrats hit the high-water mark for registration in 2008, so it’s natural that they are going to see some drop off,” said Michelle Diggles, a senior policy analyst with the Democrat-Leaning Third Way research group in Washington who conducted a similar study earlier this year.
The rise of independent voters has had a major impact on recent election results.
Third Way has and always will support an earned pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants now residing in the United States. But we have come to the conclusion that a blanket path to citizenship is politically impossible—for now and for the foreseeable future. The debate around what to do with this population is often characterized as a choice between deportation and citizenship. But this memo offers a third option that we think reflects moderate values and has the potential to un-stick the debate: holding children blameless by giving them legal status and a path to citizenship, but making adults accountable by offering them a path to legalization but not citizenship.
