Signaling another bold move, the Obama administration has decided to let the cat out of the bag. The President gave a very detailed (and mostly off-the-record) interview to the Des Moines Register. Reporters Rick Green and Laura Hollingsworth wasted no time, and asked some very interesting questions. The President actually started out the interview by giving an outline of his agenda for a second term. If you haven’t noticed since the final debate, Mr. Obama is suddenly more than happy to talk about details.
But one of the most fascinating points made by the President came from the question on Washington’s partisan gridlock, and how it could ever be solved. Obama offerred a targeted response, saying that he believes the GOP will be more willing to work during his second term…
Q: Great. Mr. President, we know that John Boehner and the House Republicans have not been easy to work with, and certainly you’ve had some obstacles in the Senate, even though it’s been controlled by the Democrats. At the time, whenever — we talked a lot about, in 2008, hope and change. I’m curious about what you see your role is in terms of changing the tone and the perception that Washington is broken. But particularly, sir, if you were granted a second term, how do you implode this partisan gridlock that has gripped Washington and Congress and basically our entire political structure right now?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Rick, let me answer you short term and long term. In the short term, the good news is that there’s going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much government do we have and how do we pay for it?
So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent — at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit — but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business. (the fiscal cliff)
It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs.
And we can easily meet — “easily” is the wrong word — we can credibly meet the target that the Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and even more in the out-years, and we can stabilize our deficit-to-GDP ratio in a way that is really going to be a good foundation for long-term growth. Now, once we get that done, that takes a huge piece of business off the table.
The second thing I’m confident we’ll get done next year is immigration reform. And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community. And this is a relatively new phenomenon. George Bush and Karl Rove were smart enough to understand the changing nature of America. And so I am fairly confident that they’re going to have a deep interest in getting that done. And I want to get it done because it’s the right thing to do and I’ve cared about this ever since I ran back in 2008.
So assume that you get those two things done in the first year, and we’re implementing Wall Street reform, Obamacare turns out not to have been the scary monster that the other side has painted. Now we’re in a position where we can start on some things that really historically have not been ideological. We can start looking at a serious corporate tax reform agenda that’s revenue-neutral but lowers rates and broadens the base — something that both Republicans and Democrats have expressed an interest in.
I’ve expressed a deep desire and taken executive action to weed out regulations that aren’t contributing to the health and public safety of our people. And we’ve made a commitment to look back and see if there are regulations out there that aren’t working, then let’s get rid of them and see if we can clear out some of the underbrush on that. Again, that’s something that should be non-ideological.
My hope is, is that there’s a recognition that now is a great time to make infrastructure improvements all across the country. And we can pull up some of the money that we know we’re going to be spending over the next decade to put people back to work right now at a time when contractors are dying for work and interest rates are really low.
And, again, that’s something that even John Boehner — John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, they’ve got a bridge linking Cincinnati and Kentucky, and the bridge is so broken down that folks are having to drive an hour and a half of extra commuting just to get across the Ohio River. There’s no reason why we can’t work on things like that and put people back to work.
(Excerpted from DesMoinesRegister.com)
So there we have it… President Obama’s detailed explanation for not only what he hopes to accomplish in a second term, but also how he’s going to get there with a very devisive Congressional environment. We also learned, as he said during the third debate, that he has no intention of allowing sequestration to occur, and that immigration reform is a top priority he looks to accomplish during his very first year. The Obama campaign is coming under fire because they had originally requested this interview be off the record. Why? Because some on the campaign probably worried that it was too candid to say before the Election Day results come in. But for some voters, this is exactly the type of information they need to hear. And they are very glad for this revealing interview.
In the immortal words of Sir Francis Bacon, “Knowledge is Power”. Glad to see that Mr. Obama agrees.