I asked the what-could-he-have-done question to WaPo‘s Jennifer Rubin in our most recent Ricochet podcast, and she had a surprising answer: “tax reform.” It’s certainly clear now that sweeping bipartisan tax reform, cutting loopholes and lowering marginal rates, is a doable piece of legislation. Maybe Obama could have gotten it done in 2009, as part of an economic “focus,” arguing that it would help create jobs in the medium term if not the short term. He might even have snuck in an overall tax increase while he had a Democratic House and a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority. And maybe, having accomplished that, he wouldn’t have lost that majority. Sure, this is only clear, if at all, in hindsight. But that’s why we have leaders–to recognize political possibilities that only become clear in hindsight.
One argument against Rubin’s speculation is that, precisely because achieving tax reform before the mid-terms would have helped Democrats, Republicans would have made sure it didn’t happen. But presidents, at least successful ones, have ways of making their enemies cooperate, usually through a combination of reward, intimidation, and theft. Obama would have taken the GOP’s own big idea and run with it–you’d think he could have broken off at least a few GOP votes, in a way he couldn’t with Obamacare. Anyway, Rubin argues, he wouldn’t have needed GOP votes under filibuster-avoiding budget rules. (Remember “reconciliation”?)
A better argument is that a big tax reform will happen in the next few years anyway.
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