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PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore.
President Obama and governor/candidate Romney held their second presidential debate. And
now joining us to give their views on all of this is--first of all, from New York City,
is Glen Ford. Glen is the cofounder and executive editor of Black Agenda Report.
And joining us also, from Kansas City, Missouri, is Bill Black. He's an associate professor
of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and he's the author of
the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining
us.
GLEN FORD: Thank you.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
JAY: So, Bill, first of all, your reaction to the debate.
BLACK: Well, first a confession. I was a high school and a college debater and, you know,
went to nationals and qualified in all those things, so I've seen a lot of the best debaters,
at least of my generation, in the nation. And so it's always painful to watch a debate
by folks like this, because they're really not very good at it. [incompr.] don't do the
political stuff of who won or lost, because that's not my area of expertise, but I can
certainly talk about the missed opportunities by both gentlemen.
JAY: Yeah, go ahead.
BLACK: Continue?
JAY: Yeah, go ahead.
BLACK: Okay. So there--people should look at the New York Times article that's just
running about the incredible surge in inequality, the highest since the Great Depression, in
which 93 percent of the income gains in the first year of the recovery from the Great
Recession went to the top 1 percent, where the 1 percent now have more wealth disparity
than any time in 75 years, and where it is estimated that the top 1 percent have greater
wealth than the bottom 90 percent of the nation. So when President Obama says to Governor Romney,
you only have one plan, really, one stage to it, this is what he should have hit them
with, and say, this is precisely what your policies will make worse.
Second, there's the Washington Post story that goes through this supposed 12 or 13 million
jobs that Romney says he's going to create and claims there are studies. And, of course,
even in the world of politics, this is so unbelievably bogus in this case as to be embarrassing.
And so, you know, in combination, when Governor Romney was asked by the audience member, exactly
what are you going to cut in the way of these tax loopholes for the rich, and refused to
answer the question, Obama says nothing about you were asked a question and you refused.
So that's the leading missed opportunities, I thought, from the standpoint of President
Obama.
JAY: Alright. Glen, what's your reaction to the debate?
FORD: Well, my reaction is that I--it never ceases to amaze me how the age of--not of
Obama, but of the bankers, turned out to be such a boring, very boring time, in which
issues are not addressed because the two candidates are so thoroughly vetted that in fact they
do agree about almost everything. I can find very little light between these two people,
especially in terms of foreign policy.
We have this effort by Romney to make some kind of disagreement in terms of policy in
the Muslim world because of the administration's failure in the days right after the attack
in Benghazi to label it what it was--in fact an attack, political attack on U.S. personnel.
Well, you know, I see that what Romney is doing is trying to say that the president
either is not in control of his foreign policy or is confused or is somehow not being stalwart
and manly enough. And so the difference between the Romney policy and the Obama policy would
be that Romney would be more manly. But in fact there's no difference here.
And, of course, what was actually occuring in Benghazi was that the administration, knowing
full well that the jihadis who were not their jihadis had launched an attack on their ambassador,
but knowing that that was a politically very sensitive subject, since the American people
knew that the United States was funneling weapons to folk that the American people could
not see any difference between--al-Qaeda and those folk--that that would be a big political
question. But you can't have that kind of argument about the blowback that comes from
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the siding with jihadis in Libya. And, of course,
that same policy in Syria, when both of these idiots are intent on not addressing the real
issue.
JAY: Right.
FORD: So I find these exercises extremely frustrating and really something that I would
only do because I'm supposed to.
JAY: 'Cause we booked you for the panel. So you had to watch.
FORD: Yes.
JAY: Bill, what do you make of Glen's argument? I think on foreign policy it's pretty clear
there's not a heck of a lot of difference between these two guys. On domestic policy,
do you think there are significant differences?
BLACK: Well, to start with foreign policy, I was, you know, in [incompr.] Center College
for the vice presidential debate, and Glen's point was made explicitly by Biden. Indeed,
both of Glen's point were made explicitly by Biden. He said, substantively our policies
are identical; the only difference is they want to claim that they're tough, even though
they have identical policies that we have. So I'm all with Glen there.
In terms of differences in terms of domestic policies, there are some pretty dramatic differences,
and the president didn't make terribly clear in many opportunities those differences. So,
for example, when Romney begins his ode to Pell Grants, which are the grants for university
education, the president doesn't come back and say, wait a minute, your own site, website,
says that you want to cut Pell Grants. What are you talking about, expanding Pell Grants?
You know. When the Ledbetter legislation comes up, nothing is said by the president about,
you know, this is passed over the almost complete opposition of the right, including Romney's
vice president.
There's no discussion of what it means in terms of judicial appointments, which is one
of the biggest things, right, where you have a whole bunch of top people vote at the Supreme
Court level and the appellate courts. Right now, we cannot get through virtually any important
regulation through the D.C. circuit, 'cause there's a majority of ultra right wing justices
who have brought back, in essence, substantive due process, which means they
decide whether they think a law is a good law or a bad law and they strike it down.
And the only reason--.
JAY: You're talking about financial regulation.
BLACK: Not just financial regulation, although--.
JAY: You're talking about financial regulation, or other regulations as well?
BLACK: Potentially all regulations. Right now they've ginned up a doctrine to go after
the Securities and Exchange Commission in particular, but there is an effort by conservative
Democrats working with Republicans to extend--to pass a new law extending precisely this kind
of review to all regulation, including by independent regulatory agencies. And if that
happens, then effectively the D.C. circuit, controlled by this ultra-right majority, is
going to be the de facto Supreme Court. And there would already be a Democratic majority
but for the fact that the Republicans have filibustered and prevented all three of the
vacancies in the D.C. circuit from being filled. So that plays out--I mean, that's simply the
most dramatic in that particular area.
JAY: And is there indication--and is there evidence that if there was a Democratic majority,
they would act any differently?
BLACK: Yeah, there is. I mean, that is supposed to be one of the big priorities. But, of course,
what we're going to have to see is: are the Senate Democrats actually going to force the
Republicans to filibuster for 100 days, right, and say, no, there will be no, you know, judges
appointed that are not conservative wackos, even though you have a majority of the Senate
Democrat? If they're going to do that, force them to do that.
JAY: And, Glen, what is your take? I mean, are there some significant differences in
terms of domestic policy? And I guess you can break that up into economic and then more
social issues, but start with economic.
FORD: Well, it depends on what you call significant. I mean, we've always complimented the Obama
administration in terms of the Pell Grants and to disallowing the banks to just stand
there without risking any money and as middle men and make money on Pell Grants. That was
a commonsensical thing.
BLACK: Policy Romney wants to bring back.
FORD: And that would be terrible, terrible in terms of how important Pell Grants are.
I don't think that those are the central, core issues. I think Pell Grants [incompr.]
suffer once we head into the austerity frenzy anyway. And the differences become even smaller
and smaller.
But when you have these two guys who essentially agree about 90 percent of the stuff and also
are trying to impress the same audience, and it's not you and it's not me, then you get
this curious situation in which perfectly reasonable questions never get asked. For
example, as they argue about how much Mitt Romney might cut from various taxes and how
much, supposedly, Obama will sink the country into debt, nobody talks about what stake the
people on the other end of these--of austerity have in whether rich people get a small increase
in taxes, a modest one, as Obama says, or not. What do we care if our programs are cut,
are eliminated or drastically reduced, whether on the other side of the ledger, as if there
are other sides of ledgers in those situations, some rich guy has to pay a token amount of
money more? How does the person who loses their service benefit by some very rich person
paying a little bit more in taxes? Why is it acceptable to that poor person, that person
in need, to lose something that they desperately need just because a rich person might pay
some more taxes? And if you look at it that way, then what really is the difference between
Obama's take on austerity--I will cut if you will also charge modestly more to certain
very high income earners--when the consequence to the people who are cut are not mitigated
by the fact that someone else pays more?
JAY: Bill, what do you think of Glen's point?
BLACK: Well, I've written things that I think Glen would agree with strongly, that austerity
is a tremendous danger.
By the way, Romney has admitted--in fact, his phrase is: austerity by definition would
throw us into recession or depression, so of course I'm not going to do that. Right?
So you can then choose to believe or not believe.
But what I've written is, if Obama wins reelection, progressives' great battle is going to be
the twofold battle of preventing Obama from reaching some grand deal with the Republicans
to adopt austerity, and secondly, to begin the destruction of Social Security, Medicare,
and Medicaid. I think, politically, just as only a conservative Republican like Nixon
could go to what was then called red China, only a Democrat can begin the process of killing
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And given many statements that Obama has made,
his close connections with the Clinton administration and all these rumors that he is going to put
in an even more conservative Treasury secretary dedicated--you know, whose life has largely
been dedicated to austerity and fighting social security (this is Bowles), I really fear what
will happen on that series of issues.
JAY: Okay. Go ahead.
FORD: That's absolutely clear. He's had Social Security in his sights from the very beginning.
He announced it two weeks before his own inauguration, that Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid
were all going to be on the table for chopping. And that was at the moment of his peak political
popularity, before he had an enemy in the world, since he wasn't even president yet.
So, yes, he's always done that. And last year he had almost--it appeared that he had his
grand bargain with the Republicans. The figure, in terms of the number, seemed to be one that
they shared--$4 trillion. And the only dispute was, it appeared, whether there would be some
kind of very modest tax increase for the rich, which the Republicans balked at, even though
it appeared that the consequences to the poor would be just as horrific, whether the rich
were penalized somewhat or not.
JAY: Okay. Just a final question to Glen, and then I'll give the same question to Bill.
So if you're in a swing state and your vote could matter between a Romney, Obama--and
of course there will be other candidates from other parties, like the Green Party--but if
you're in a swing state, what do you do, Glen?
FORD: [incompr.] already voted. And I don't know if New Jersey is a swing state. I don't
believe it is. But I certainly didn't vote for Obama and I didn't vote for Romney. I
voted for the Green Party, because at least they have a skeleton of an infrastructure
and one might hope that it becomes a real party someday.
JAY: And you would have voted that way--if you'd been in a swing state, you would have
voted that way?
FORD: I'm--we're not going to vote for the more effective evil anywhere--
JAY: Okay. Bill, same question.
FORD: --under any circumstances.
JAY: Bill, same question to you.
BLACK: Well, I am in a swing state. Yeah, I'm in a swing state, certainly on the Senate
side, and I certainly believe, because of the social issues and, actually, at least
Obama's tired of getting us in new wars, I end up being a clear supporter of that. I
would issue the caution, in Ireland, the Green Party became one of the grave problems in
adopting austerity. [crosstalk] Green is no [incompr.]
JAY: But quite a different Green Party than this one, no?
BLACK: Not necessarily. At root they had many of the same beliefs, and they're vulnerable
to these arguments that anybody reasonable must admit that the deficit is immoral, as
the president--I mean, he used the word if before it, but I don't think many people heard
the if.
JAY: Okay. Glen, maybe you want to respond to that.
BLACK: So he seemed to embrace Romney's view.
FORD: Well, in terms of the Greens, I don't think the Greens even within the party are
united enough to be for anybody to be afraid that they would present any problem with austerity
or not.
JAY: Okay.
FORD: It's an evolving kind of situation.
JAY: Alright, gentlemen. Thank you both very much. And thank you--.
FORD: Thank you.
BLACK: Thank you.
JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.