MEMO TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: How to Win On Foreign Policy in 2012

To: President Barack Obama
From: Jim Arkedis, Director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s National Security Project
RE: How to Win on Foreign Policy in 2012

Mr. President:

I hope and trust that you had better things to do than watch the GOP’s last two debates on foreign policy. I took care of that for you, and reread the transcripts just because I am a masochist.

It’s clear the Republican field is offering nothing new on foreign policy this election cycle, and that creates a real political opening. This memo serves as a guideline for how you can use the issue to your advantage on the campaign trail in 2012. In a nutshell, the public must see you as a stronger leader: Your numbers are hurting there right now, and you should trumpet your national security record to help them rebound. The trick is that if voters view you as a strong leader generally speaking, it will create a spill-over effect, bolstering their confidence in your leadership on domestic issues (read: the economy).

No matter who ends up as the Republican nominee for president, they’re not going to beat you on foreign policy substance. Most of the GOP candidates offer vague criticism that you’ve handled Iran badly, but can do no better than propose “crippling sanctions” as a solution, which are somehow better than the comprehensive ones you’ve enacted.

On areas where they actually differ with you, there still isn’t that much daylight: Michelle Bachmann tried to ding you for sending thirty, rather than forty, thousand troops to Afghanistan, and Rick Perry thinks that any withdrawal timeline from that country is a bad idea (even though Mitt Romney, in the second debate, basically agrees with your timeline for withdrawal). But you know that those are hardly winning arguments with the American public, 53 percent of whom would prefer to wash our collective hands of the whole mess. The GOP field (minus perennial laggard Rick Santorum) might get closer to broad (but confused) public sentiment to slash foreign aid, but on policy alone, this is probably their only opportunity to score political points.

The main conservative line of attack is stale, but potentially effective: They’re going to out-muscle you. I was absolutely shocked that no one critiqued you on “leading from behind” in the debate, but that phrase is sure to appear–on repeat–in ads before next November. But heck, you’ve even got Jon Huntsman — the guy you appointed to be our emissary to China — saying you “can’t lead”! It could erode the public’s confidence in your leadership abilities.

For now, the GOP seemed mostly content to insinuate this alleged weakness: Mitt Romney claimed that your re-election guarantees Iran will get a nuclear bomb; both he and Newt refuse to negotiate with terrorists (you do, in case you weren’t sure); and Herman Cain doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, which is why he’d use it. Most bizarre was Bachmann’s assertion in the first debate that America has lost the War On Terrorism under your watch. I wonder how Usama Bin Laden feels about that.

You’re no slouch when it comes to politicking, and you know that this election will be won and lost on each candidate’s ability to make a case for economic growth. It’s understandable that you might want to minimize foreign policy on the stump this year.

That’s a mistake, because your ability to make an economic case should be buoyed by your solid record on foreign and security policy. This might not be intuitive, so hear me out:

You killed Bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, helped oust Mohamar Qaddafi, have ended the Iraq war, and protected the country from a massive domestic attack. Voters have noticed: a November Gallup poll has your general foreign policy approval rating up five percent over disapproval, an astounding 63 percent support you on terrorism, and the numbers are good on handling Iraq and even Afghanistan.

More importantly, if you sell your foreign policy achievements in the right way, it will paint you as a strong leader. That’s critical: Americans want their president to project an image of strength, and you’re hurting there right now. Between May (when Usama Bin Laden was killed) and August, the percentage of Americans who viewed you as a strong leader slipped from 55 to 44 percent. Here’s the kicker: If you’re seen as a credible, effective Commander-in-Chief, voters are more likely to believe that your leadership can pull them out of the economic slump.

I realize that you’re not the type of guy who wants to pound the podium and out-flex your opponent. That’s okay. However, you still have to keep in mind that foreign policy is an emotional issue for voters, and that you have to connect with their gut subconscious before you can lead them elsewhere. Below, I offer four ways you can use foreign policy to increase your leadership credentials in 2012.

1. Explain your vision and your values. Having a good track record isn’t worth a damn if you don’t connect with voters. They’ve got to feel you on these issues. Even assuming the GOP nominee is the shape-shifting Mitt Romney, he’ll sell a consistent, militaristic vision of American exceptionalism that might resonate with America’s gut.

Don’t cede that ground, just tell your own version. You might not make a major foreign policy campaign address, but your stump speech absolutely must include your vision of America’s leading place in the world in the 21st century. It doesn’t have to be “rah-rah”. It does have to be convey some emotion using two frames: “strong and smart.”

Explain that you know that the threats facing America have changed since the end of the Cold War, and we must rise to meet the challenge. That requires strong American leadership, complemented by strong alliances and backed the world’s strongest military.

But it also requires a laser-focus on the long term: American strength in the 21st century means being smart, too. Safety at home is enhanced by spreading American values abroad, and that requires more robust diplomacy to expand economic and political opportunity for all. That’s a great way to connect on the economy, too: Economic strength is what drives American power, and that means we need to out-innovate, out-produce, and out-think our challenges.

2. Tell a us a story (often). Specifically, tell us the story of how you decided to send SEAL Team Six to kill Bin Laden. Voters remember stories, not policies. So give them the best you got, because it will reinforce your image as a substantive Commander-in-Chief. You could recount the version you gave CBS’ 60 Minutes in May. It doesn’t have to be overly dramatic: just calmly recount the facts and remember that details are good. The story sells itself, and shows America that you made a bold, gutsy, strong decision. Most importantly, the country, not your administration, was successful.

3. Use military veterans as surrogates: Your campaign should have the most robust veterans surrogate network in the history of American politics. In an age when Congressional approval languishes in the single digits (and yours are in the 40s), guess who the public believes? The military. A September 2011 poll reinforces a standing trend: 92 percent of Americans are confident in the military and hence, its veterans.

Remember the Swiftboat Veterans who sunk John Kerry’s campaign? They tipped the balance because they were credible messengers. This year, you’ve got to get out ahead of the game. A few days ago, I received a campaign-sponsored email from Rob Diamond, who runs “Veterans and Military Families for Obama” (full disclosure: Rob is a friend). You need to give him every resource he asks for because he needs to pack cable news, campaign rallies, and small-town newspapers in military-heavy swing-states like Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Colorado with veterans supporting you as the Commander-in-Chief they were proud to serve.

4. Attack Republicans as reckless. You have to make the public’s decision on national security a binary choice. If you’re to be a strong leader and a tough, competent Commander-in-Chief, you need to define (presumptively) Mitt Romney is reckless and out-of-touch. A poll from back in 2008 found this to be an effective attack against Republicans on foreign policy, and I sense that it would continue to work in 2012.

Why? Well, Romney’s rhetoric isn’t that different from George W. Bush’s. In an October speech at the Citadel, Romney promised to reverse proposed defense cuts, resurrect the neocon missile-defense shield, and build six more navy ships per year, even though America’s wars are coming to a close and the country faces a massive debt issue. Does that sound smart, efficient and strong in the 21st century, or does it echo the reckless George Bush, a playground bully who fights but doesn’t think and remains stuck in the Cold War?

Mr. President, it’s going to be a tough election. But used correctly, you can turn a solid record on matters of foreign policy and national security into a real asset this year, and just maybe tip the balance in a few key states. And how’s this for a bonus? The GOP isn’t expecting that you’d dare try.

If you’ve read this far, you might follow me on Twitter @JimArkedis

Photo credit here.

That we are now reduced to fallback House and Senate plans reflects the failure of the nation’s political leadership to rise to the occasion and forge a common approach to solving the debt crisis. The road not taken was the “grand bargain” every serious budget analyst knows is substantively and politically the only way to control the debt: trade more tax revenues for cuts in the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending.

While it’s easy to assume a posture of Olympian detachment and blame both sides for this failure of nerve, it’s wrong. The grand bargain died because House Republicans killed it. As President Obama said last night, it was scuttled by the “ideological rigidity” of Tea Party extremists who are trying to dictate national fiscal policy from the House.

Recall that once it was clear that he couldn’t get a “clean” bill raising the debt limit, President Obama decided to go big. That is, he pushed for a big debt reduction package of about $4 trillion, which would stabilize and eventually shrink the debt. That idea appealed to Boehner – at first. But when House GOP freshmen made it clear they would not vote to raise revenues, insisting that our massive deficits be closed through spending cuts alone, Boehner walked away from talks with the President. Not once, but twice.

As liberals ruefully noted, the House GOP’s zero-concessions approach contrasted sharply with Obama’s pliability. First he agreed to trillions of dollars of domestic spending cuts. Then he offered to put entitlements on the table, causing conniptions among the “progressives” who oppose long-overdue reforms in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The president endorsed a package that was 3-1 spending cuts over tax revenues. Rather than accept it and declare victory, conservatives demanded unconditional surrender.

So now the spotlight shifts to the Boehner and Reid plans. Both fall well short of what the country needs.  Boehner calls for a two-step process: First, Congress would cap discretionary spending and raise the debt ceiling by $1 trillion. Then a bicameral joint committee would be charged with finding another $1.8 trillion in savings. If Congress approves the second tranche, it would lift the debt ceiling by the same amount.

The Reid bill also would cut discretionary spending by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade, and leave revenues untouched. But as critics have rightly pointed out, that includes savings from military spending as the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down that have been accounted for already. Nonetheless, Obama last night endorsed Reid’s approach, which has the virtue of extending the debt ceiling until after the next presidential election.

Neither bill, of course, offers a permanent solution to the debt crisis. It’s not even clear that each could pass its respective House of Congress. It’s not hard to imagine Tea Party types balking because the bill doesn’t cut deeply enough, or because they’d rather force the country into default as a way of defunding federal programs. Some Senate liberals are chafing over Reid’s approach, which does not ask the rich to pay higher taxes or even close tax loopholes, thereby putting the entire burden of debt reduction on domestic spending.

In the end, as everyone expects, some kind of package will be cobbled together to avoid a prolonged default. But that means the whole sorry spectacle, replete with dogmatic posturing and politically evasive behavior will drag on into next year.

Photo Credit: Robert Reed Daly

Progressive elite disgruntlement with the administration of Barack Obama has been aired so many times during the last year that it is sometimes difficult to remember how deep and wide it has become. Like lights blinking off in house after house late at night, the number of liberal opinion-leaders willing to offer robust support for Obama’s policies and political strategy and tactics has steadily dwindled to the point where it appears as an occasional dull glimmer on the cable news shows and in the op-ed pages and the blogosphere. But up until now, signs of any rank-and-file liberal Democratic “base” revolt against Obama have been few and far between. Perhaps that’s why a poll from CNN last week publicized as showing that liberals were the main source of his latest drop in approval ratings got more attention than a random survey normally captures.

There has certainly been a persistent and growing gap between elite and non-elite progressive attitudes towards the 44th president and his administration. Liberal elite defections from the Obama camp started early and have spread steadily.

Read the full article here.

It may not work, but it’s hard to see a better alternative. The United States can’t “win” this war in any conventional sense. We can’t defeat the Taliban, which unfortunately has an ethnic and popular base in Pashtun regions. We can’t afford nation-building in Afghanistan right now, even if we knew how to do it. We can’t make the central government fundamentally less corrupt and more effective in delivering basic services. The best we can do is to build and train Afghan security forces, bolster local resistance to the Taliban and degrade the insurgents’ military strength.

This course at least gives Afghans a fighting chance to keep the Taliban at bay without foreign help, and may reinforce efforts to find a political resolution to the conflict. Otherwise, the United States faces an unpalatable choice between getting out quickly and hoping for the best, or an endless military engagement to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a haven for Islamist militancy and terror plots.

The political media interpreted Obama’s decision to withdraw 10,000 troops as a bid to split the difference between a public that seems increasingly disenchanted with the war and U.S. military leaders, who believe we are making progress against the insurgency. In fact, the president’s purpose was to buy time for the U.S. military to continue its campaign to weaken the Taliban. Here’s the headline we should have seen: “Obama promises three more years of war.”

The president plans to draw down an additional 20,000 troops by next summer, but that will leave over 60,000 U.S. troops in the fight until 2014. He argued that his surge of 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan has succeeded in dislodging the Taliban from broad swaths of the south. Meanwhile, drone attacks have taken a heavy toll on al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan, and of course U.S. forces finally caught up with Osama bin Laden. It wasn’t quite a “mission accomplished” moment, but Obama clearly believes these tactical gains justify a more deliberate withdrawal than many in his own party – and a growing band of restive Republicans – would like.

In a sense, Obama is applying the Iraq template to Afghanistan. His pledge during the campaign to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by 2012 helped cool anti-war passions at home and give Gen. David Petraeus’s surge a chance to work. Likewise, by setting a date certain for an end to U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Obama buys time to build on the U.S. military’s hard-won successes.

The big difference, though, is that Iraq’s Sunnis turned against al Qaeda. The Taliban is an indigenous insurgency, not an imported conspiracy like al Qaeda. And the longer U.S. forces stay in Afghanistan, the more they risk triggering a broader and more nationalistic revolt against the latest foreign invader.

Obama is betting that we have a brief window of opportunity to wear down the still unpopular Taliban before that sort of transformation can take place, and before war-weary Americans give up on the Afghan mission. It’s not a bet that inspires confidence, but for now it’s the least-bad option.

Photo Credit: Dan Love

Here’s a message that President Obama would do well to tell to the American people tonight:

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

The last time I addressed you on Afghanistan in 2009 from West Point, it was to announce a new direction in that campaign. I appreciate that you might be getting tired of these kinds of speeches. Though our deployment in Iraq is winding down, America remains involved in two major war zones and a mission to protect Libya’s civilians.

I get it. We’ve been at war for nearly ten years, and we’re tired of it. Particularly in this time of economic difficulty, many are rightly asking tough questions: What are we doing there? Is America’s mission still keeping us safe as we spend billions of dollars every month? Can we come home now that we’ve killed Osama Bin Laden?

Back in December 2009, I argued that the state of our mission in Afghanistan was not well. We had the wrong strategy and not enough bodies on the ground to execute a strategy that fit the realities of the situation. That is why I announced a surge of 30,000 troops, bringing the American-lead coalition’s total deployment to approximately 132,000. I also promised during that speech that in July 2011–next month–our troops would start to come home. I am here tonight to make good on that promise.

Importantly, these forces were given a new mission in 2009: first and foremost, they were to protect Afghan civilians from the Taliban, which was designed to give the Afghan people the time and space to rebuild their country. This strategy has been successful in places, but less so in others.

At the time of the surge, the Taliban were on the verge of reasserting control over key areas of the country. I can report that we have undoubtedly reversed the Taliban’s momentum. We’ve made real security gains across significant parts of the country: the north and west regions are more stable, while volatility in the south and east. We’ve invested time, money, and effort into Khandahar, an important city of 800,000 in the southeast and traditional base of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. We’ve experienced marked security gains in Khandahar but, as in other areas of the country, we’re keenly aware that those gains remain fragile and reversible.

Furthermore, much of Afghanistan’s government is still a difficult partner. Corruption remains rampant, with officials, businesses and warlords are pocketing too many American taxpayer dollars that they shouldn’t. President Hamid Karzai continues to issue unhelpful statements, and proves time and time again that he’s hardly his country’s answer to George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. We understand that he’s playing to his domestic political audience most of the time, but the fact is that Americans have sacrificed too much in blood and treasure for the good of Afghanistan to be used as a punching bag by an ungrateful host.

Meanwhile, we continue to train Afghanistan’s security forces in hopes that they’ll assume many of America’s military duties. Afghan forces are increasing in size and competence but only in fits and starts. They’re frankly not quite ready yet.

Having taken all this into account, it is time to adjust our posture in Afghanistan again, and I’m not just talking about troop numbers. No doubt that headlines across the country will focus tomorrow on the number of withdrawing soldiers I’m about to announce. It’s crucial that we discuss not only how many will be left — an important factor that effects military families across the country — but what those that remain Afghanistan will do.

We know that the war in Afghanistan ends with a political solution. The United States leaves Afghanistan for good when its governing partners renounce violence towards the United States and each other, and agree to rule Afghanistan for its own sake. Throughout this process, I am keenly aware that it’s in America’s national security interest that Afghanistan never again become the base of operations for an attack against our country. As president, I will not hesitate to return large-scale forces to the region if I feel our security is threatened.

While searching for this political solution, we must also acknowledge that it’s highly unlikely that we will ever fully eradicate the Taliban or the remnants of al Qaeda. That is why this war ends with an agreement amongst Afghanistan’s tribes, ethnic groups, government, and yes, some weakened Taliban, to peaceably rule the country.

Based on the gains we’ve achieved in the last 18 months, I’m confident that we are putting ourselves, and Afghanistan’s government, in a strong position against the Taliban’s leadership. We’ve hit them hard, and they are reeling. Yes, we’ve killed Bin Laden, but that’s not the end of the road: we will continue to keep the American boot on the throats of al Qaeda and the Taliban through night raids and missile strikes.

Furthermore, we will continue to protect Afghanistan’s citizens in major cities and towns, like Khandahar and Kabul, by maintaining our current strategy in those places. We can sustain required manpower levels in those cities by withdrawing forces from areas that are reasonably safe. And we will redouble our training efforts and turn over patrols to competent Afghan security forces as fast as we can.

We will press for more aid money, sustainable development and government reform within Afghanistan’s governments. We are Afghanistan’s partner, but only so long as America’s money is spent more wisely than it has been.

I believe we can accomplish this mission by withdrawing 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012. I reserve the right, as Commander-in-Chief, to reevaluate this decision if the United States’ major national security interests are threatened by a degradation of security conditions in Afghanistan.

This war has lasted too long and cost too much. With this new plan, I firmly believe we are doing right by America’s hardworking military, their families, our citizens, and our national interests.

Thank you.

Photo Credit: Isafmedia

In his 2009 Cairo speech, for example, the president rightly called for a “new beginning” in U.S.-Arab relations. He doubled down late last week, with a speech designed to cement America on the side of the little guy across the region. But without wasta, no matter how well-intended or thought out, President Obama’s vision for the region will flounder.

Capitalizing on the socially networked revolutions and protests, the Millenial generation is the best place to start building wasta. Famously community-oriented, cussedly apolitical, yet relentlessly idealistic, the Millenials understand the importance of inter-connectedness. Eschewing romantic crusades for the nitty-gritty of service, this generation builds a better world one project at a time. To help transform the region, the president should summon his inner Kennedy. Mobilizing the Millenials, Obama could create a new Peace Corps to meet the Arab world’s challenges: The Sharaka (together). The Sharaka would not only deliver developmental aid across the Middle East, it would help mend America’s tattered image, assist in the region’s democratization, and earn Obama some wasta.

I have come to appreciate the need for a Sharaka-like organization from direct experience. Over the past two summers, I have led Millenials on service-learning trips to Madaba, Jordan. Located 20 miles south of Amman, Madaba is famous for its archeological ruins and mosaics. Settled by Christian Bedouins, Madaba now boasts a Muslim majority, largely comprised of Palestinians. Situated in the heart of the city is our home base, the Latin Patriarchate School for Girls. Utilizing the connections our State Department lacks, my school, Gannon University, gained entrée to the region through that most time-worn wasta of the Levant: the Catholic Church.

A Catholic school in a religiously mixed city is hardly representative of the Arab world. Madaba and the Latin Patriarchate School for Girls, however, are the exceptions that prove the rule. Even here, in a relatively affluent and tolerant city, the Arab Spring’s echoes are felt. In a scene reminiscent of Tahir Square, last week scores of Madabans marched peacefully to call for the mayor’s resignation. Moreover, Christian and Muslim, alike, Madabans call for democracy, freedom, and meaningful reform.

After teaching English in the Catholic schools, my students and I spend the afternoon at the Sharaka Center for Democracy. Intended as a community hub to inculcate democratic practices, Sharaka connects us to Madaba’s Muslim community. Eager to learn English, children and professionals flock to Sharaka to learn a world language and engage with Americans.

In serving thousands of hours over the past two summers, my students not only have earned the wasta our State Department lacks, they have been changed. Unlike their peers, who harbor deep anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments, these Millenials are friends with hundreds of Muslim and Christian Arabs. They understand Arabs needs a partner, not a hegemon. Presidential speeches matter and American leadership remain crucial, but the path to influence, in the Arab world, begins with befriending our Arab brothers and sisters.

The Arab revolt is history’s unanticipated gift to President Obama. It enables him to move beyond a desultory flirtation with “realism” and to realign U.S. policy toward the Middle East with liberal values that do turn out, after all, to be as attractive to Arabs as they are to Americans.

It’s true that Obama comes late to the region’s dance of democracy. It’s also true that Washington’s embrace of the popular uprisings hasn’t been utterly consistent. But such cavils pale beside the important fact that, however hesitantly and belatedly, Obama is abrogating America’s Faustian bargain with Arab tyrants.

In the short-term, this break with the sterile politics of “stability” could confront U.S. policy makers with complications and some nasty, unintended consequences. Over the long haul, however, reinforcing homegrown demands for economic opportunity, free expression and political pluralism is the best antidote to the region’s endemic misgovernance and convulsive political violence.

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1. The Obvious: America stands by people the world over who seek freedom of expression and exercise of their democratic rights.

2. Frankness: Decades of American administrations have struck Faustian bargains with despots throughout the Middle East. The quid pro quo has been American financial support — militarily and otherwise — in exchange for regional stability.

3. An Admission: This policy has run counter to America’s best ideals, and in the end, it has failed. Autocracies are inherently unstable governing systems, and oppressed peoples will sooner or later rise up to win their freedoms as is manifest in the extraordinary events of this year.

4. A Light Touch: America still has many allies across a region where democracy is not the norm. But make no mistake: While America values its relationships with our allies, we remain committed to creating democratic openings in their societies. Our allies need only to look at the events of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to realize that continuing along the same path is a fool’s errand.

5. A Plan of Action: America knows that the region’s people will judge us by our actions, not our words. While some our diplomatic efforts with allies may occur behind closed doors, we will visibly support the advancement of democracy by putting aside a larger pot of money to build civil societies in countries where they lacking.  The National Endowment of Democracy should funnel much of this money to NGOs, political parties, and free media platforms so it is not tainted by its source.

Obama started with a history lesson. As the Tea Party harks back to 19^th century conceptions of limited government, he reminded Americans that the nation’s progress since then has been built upon a pragmatic synthesis of free enterprise and progressive governance. The extent of public activism required to create optimal conditions for shared prosperity is always a legitimate matter of debate, but the basic need for it shouldn’t be.

By insisting that deficit reduction leave room for strategic public investments in scientific research, modern infrastructure and education, Obama underscored a vital distinction that was being lost in the scramble to cut government spending: Reducing budget deficits is integral to reviving America’s economic dynamism. For most Americans, the priority is to get our economy moving again, not shrink government.

Obama also pushed back hard against Rep. Paul Ryan’s delusional budget, which asserts that the America’s path back to fiscal responsibility entails 100 percent spending cuts and 0 percent tax increases. In endorsing (finally!) his own fiscal commission’s plan, the president has set up a clear choice between the GOP’s fanatical devotion to shielding the rich from higher taxes and a bipartisan approach that exempts no one from sacrifice.

The president’s confident rejection of GOP tax dogma left House GOP Whip Eric Cantor sputtering. He was reduced to repeating the ridiculous Republican mantra that asking the wealthy to pay higher taxes is tantamount to killing America’s small businesses. Please Eric, bring it on: this is a debate progressives can win.

But Obama can’t just win debates. He needs to preside over passage of a comprehensive deficit-reduction package that, in a divided government, can only be achieved on a bipartisan basis. If he wants moderate Republicans to play on raising revenues – and a few intrepid souls like Sens. Tom Coburn and Saxby Chambliss have begun to do – he is going to have to convince Democrats to play on entitlement reform.

Here his speech fell short. Clearly mindful of President Clinton’s success in rallying the pubic behind his plans to protect Medicare and Medicaid during the 1995-96 budget battle, Obama categorically ruled out structural changes in how government finances those programs. That could prove to be a mistake.

It’s one thing for Democrats to reject the size of Ryan’s proposed cuts in the big public health care programs. But for both substantive and tactical reasons, they shouldn’t reject out of hand innovative devises to constrain entitlement costs.

It’s 2011, not 1996, and the baby boom retirement is underway, not over the horizon. This demographic surge, combined with health care costs that have been rising for decades faster than the economy has grown, are the real drivers of America’s debt crisis. To put a governor on the engine of federal health care spending, Ryan has proposed moving Medicare to a premium support model, and turning Medicaid into a federal block grant.

In his speech, Obama endorsed an alternative: strengthening provisions in his health reform bill to slow the unsustainable rate of health care cost growth. These provisions would encourage health providers to shift from fee-for-service to fixed fees for bundled services or capitated payments, which reward the value rather than volume of care delivered. These and other Obamacare provisions, including the independent commission set up to explore efficiencies in Medicare, are all good ideas. But even if they work, it will take a very long time for them to reach the scale necessary to break the back of medical inflation.

In the meantime, we need to protect public budgets from surging health care costs that threaten to soak up every dollar of revenue raised by 2040. If premium support and block grants are ruled out – even though some prominent liberals and Democrats have long supported one or the other — progressives need to come up with an alternative.

The political “grand bargain” Obama must strike couldn’t be clearer. It’s embedded in the fiscal commission plan: GOP support for raising revenues in return for Democratic support for constraining public health care and retirement costs. As the political action now shifts to the Senate, Obama needs to challenge his own party too.

Yesterday, the Progressive Policy Institute joined forces with the Moment of Truth Project to host an event to discuss what comprehensive tax reform should look like, and what it will take to get it passed. (Moment of Truth was formed by Fiscal Commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Sen. Alan Simpson to build momentum behind the commission’s deficit reduction plan.)

Yesterday’s event, at Johns Hopkins University, helped build the momentum for reform. There was wide consensus that tax reform will need to be bipartisan and comprehensive, and will need to scale back most of the $1.1 trillion in tax expenditures. Tax expenditures are at the heart of the “modified zero plan,” which would eliminate or scale them back, and use the savings to cut individual and corporate tax rates, as well as budget deficits.

Coinciding with the event, PPI released a policy memo on the modified zero plan, written by PPI Senior Fellow Paul Weinstein  and Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Budget, and both formerly of the Commission. Both were on hand.

Yesterday’s forum event featured three Senators who have been leading the charge for reform – Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.) – and one CEO and Fiscal Commission member, Dave Cote (CEO of Honeywell). They provided the big picture framing, so I’ll summarize the highlights of their remarks first, and then delve into the two panels of experts second.

Sen. Bennet kicked off the event with stories from the town halls he’d been spending the last two years doing: “In every single meeting, debt and deficit came up,” he said. “There’s a deep skepticism that if we can’t figure out how to pay our bills, it suggests a lack of confidence in our government and our elected leaders, and it’s fairly well-placed.”

Bennet offered three criteria for what a deficit reduction plan would have to accomplish to pass muster with voters. First, it would need to be comprehensive. “People know we can’t fix this overnight, but they want it to be comprehensive.”; Second, sacrifice has to be shared: “They want to know that we’re in this together, and everybody has a share of the burden.”; Third, it has to be bipartisan.

Coats laid out a similar series of principles for the legislation that he has introduced with Senator Wyden. First, he said, echoing Bennet, it has to be bipartisan. Second, it has to be revenue neutral. Third it has to be simple (“Right now we’ve got 71,000 plus pages of tax code, 10,000 plus special preferences and deductions. It’s a nightmare.) Fourth, it has to help out the middle class, and help families to save money for college, and help charitable organizations. And fifth and finally, “this has to be based on a principle of growth…the bottom line is it has to lead to jobs.”

Wyden looked at the problem through the lens of tax simplification, noting that as April 15 approaches, “Americans are going through the 6 billion hours they spend each year filling out tax forms — 690,000 years is what you have in an annual effort going through the water torture of figuring out if line 9 is modifying line 7.”

Wyden also stressed that any tax reform also needed to encourage investment in what he called “red-white-and-blue jobs” – that is, solid American jobs, preferably in manufacturing.  Wyden called his bill fundamentally a jobs bill.

Cote, CEO of Honeywell, echoed similar themes in his remarks. “We need a global competitiveness agenda for the U.S.” he began. “Our corporate tax system is globally uncompetitive. We have the highest tax rate in the world, and we’re the only major country with a territorial system that encourages companies to keep their cash overseas. And we give back $1.2 trillion in what is euphemistically named ‘tax expenditures,’ but just another form of spending that’s done through the tax code.”

Echoing the urgency of the Senators, Cote posed the looming crisis this way: “The debt problem can get resolved one of two ways. We can do it now and do it thoughtfully, or the bond market can force us t do it, like Greece and Portugal.”

Moving to the policy substance, the first panel featured Paul Weinstein, PPI Senior Fellow, Diane Rogers of the Concord Coalition, Alan Viard of the American Enterprise Institute, and Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center as moderator

Weinstein gave the quick version and backstory of the “modified zero plan,” which is the subject of a new PPI memo Weinstein co-authored. As the name might suggest, it began as the “zero plan,” which was the name the deficit commission gave the plan that reduced all tax expenditures to zero, saving $1.1 trillion in deductions, credits, and deferrals. The “modified zero plan” put back in only a few consensus tax expenditures, like the EITC, a mortgage deduction, a charitable contribution deduction.

“The rates are lower, it simplifies the tax code to fewer incentives and helps reduce tax avoidance and mistakes,” explained Weinstein. “Obviously the revenue increases get bigger and bigger over time. We estimate $800 billion over ten years.”

Rogers responded favorably to the plan. “I like the approach. There’s something for everyone to love,” she said. “Liberals should like it because it’s progressive and better than having to cut direct spending. Conservatives should like it because it’s an economically efficient way to raise revenues, and it doesn’t raise the size of government. It reduces the size of government.”

Viard gave it two cheers. He called it “Well-specified and thoughtful. This is one of the best approaches you can have with an income-based tax system that includes a separate corporate income tax.” Viard’s stated preference was for a value-added tax (VAT), though the subsequent discussion highlighted how difficult the politics of transitioning to a VAT would be. (Rogers put it this way: “we should work within the existing system first.”)

As the discussion shifted into the politics of policy, there was general agreement that tax reform terminology is confusing to the general public, and any discussion of tax expenditures is going to lead to thousands of interest groups begging to keep their favorites. And again, there was agreement that it needs to be comprehensive. “Tax reform can’t be done unless it’s in the context of deficit reduction,” said Weinstein. “You need to look at the whole apple.”

The second panel featured Leonard Burman of Syracuse University, Marc Goldwein, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Joseph Minarik of the Committee for Economic Development and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic as moderator.

Goldwein began by reiterating the consensus: “The current income tax code is a mess. There is a consensus to broaden the base, and reduce the rates, and don’t keep tax expenditures that aren’t worth their cost.”

But how to do that? Burman argued that ending tax expenditures would require not referring to them anymore as tax expenditures. “We need to change the fiscal language. I sometimes call them IRS pork,” he said. “Part of the problem is mischaracterizing tax expenditures. Some people think that by putting new tax expenditures in the code you’re making government smaller, but what you’re doing is just spending more money and making taxes higher to achieve a given level of revenue.”

Minarik, a grizzled veteran of tax fights, highlighted the fact that the inside-the-halls negotiating in Congress is very different from the “outside” formulating that goes on at events like this, and reminded everyone that the simpler the solution, the easier it will be to pass. In that respect, he said, a fifth-best solution that’s simple and straightforward is better than a second-best solution that can lead to more complicated politics.