President Obama 2010 vs President Obama 2011

On April 13, 2011 President Obama gave a fiscal policy speech at GWUniversity (image is from that event).

This paragraph is from the speech,

"...One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates...

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them. Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.

It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.

This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves."

This is what Obama said back in 2010 during conciliatory discussions preceding a vote on the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare).

"...And I raise that not because we shouldn't have a series discussion about it. I raise that because we're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterized, whatever proposals are put out there, as, well, you know, that's -- the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens; that the other party is doing X, Y, Z."

So is President Obama being a hypocrite (lets ignore the issue of whether the April 13 speech is partisan, dishonest or inaccurate)?

Consider this. If President Obama doesn't want to do anything about entitlements, then characterizing the Republican proposals as being irresponsible is the correct strategy as indicated by his January 2010 remarks. Indeed, in the January 2010 remarks (many made in response to questions, including the extract above), nowhere could I find a statement such as "I will refrain from partisan attacks on my opponents" or "I will not demagogue" or any such similar remark. Granted, one could infer the January 2010 remarks seem to imply that but since it is not explicit, it could be a wrong inference.

No hypocrisy.

Transcript of April 13, 2011 speech here.
Transcript of Jan 2010 speech here.

Mikulski Calls on House Republicans to End Hypocrisy

Rarely do I get a hypocrisy accusation on the website of a sitting US Senator. But this title comes from a post on the website of Senator Barbara Mikulski. What is more, Senator uses the word 'hypocrisy' many times in her post and even defines it. Here is a quote from the post,

"...Mr. President, my colleague has talked about one disease in Washington, but I’m going to talk about another disease that seems to be running rampant over in the House Republican caucus and that is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. And the reason I say that is that they say one thing and they mean another. They say one thing and they deceive the American public.

The reason I call it “hypocrisy” is this: What they say they want to do, which is reduce government spending, is not what they are doing. Sure, I’m for a government that’s more frugal. I’m for cuts. But I’m not for their cuts. What they propose is reckless and radical. And when they don’t get their own way, they say, ‘Cut it or shut it.’..."

Of course this has one problem in that there is no actual reference or link to any actual statement of the House Republican caucus. This is a bad enough problem and a common one. Mikulski is paraphrasing the caucus which makes it impossible to check it out accurately. But there is a more amusing problem. She says, the House Republican caucus wants to "which is to reduce government spending, is not what they are doing." But then she says, "I'm not for their cuts. What they propose is reckless and radical...". So apparently, the caucus does want to reduce spending but she doesn't like the way they want to do it (and she isn't specific either which is another problem). Thus, Mikulski has changed her definition of hypocrisy just a few sentences after defining it. This is a remarkable case of a misapplication of the term.

Later on in the post, Mikulski makes a point about a possible shutdown of the government.

"... I did that backing Senator Barbara Boxer’s bill, which passed the Senate, that said if there is a shutdown, members of Congress don’t get paid. Now, what did the House Republicans do? They passed a bill that allows Members of Congress and the President to receive retroactive payment. Now, the Senate bill doesn’t do that. So they would be the only ones in shutdown that can come back and pick up their paycheck. You talk about hypocrisy. That’s called bait-and-switch."

This is a more normal example of a misapplication of the word 'hypocrisy'. Mikulski does not say (never mind cite) where the House Republicans said "Representatives and Senators should not be paid in the event of a government shutdown". She doesn't even hint that she has anything like that to bring forward. She simply disagrees with a bill passed by the House.

Mikulski then has another charge of hypocrisy to bring,

"...They want to take away Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, but they sure are happy picking up their government health care. They love to get federally subsidized health care. They want to take away other people’s pension, but they sure like getting their federal employee pensions. I want to put an end to the hypocrisy..."

As I understand her, the hypocrisy is 'proposing vouchers for medicare while participating in an existing non voucher system for employment based health care. This combines two typical misapplications of the term hypocrisy. Medicare is not the same as employment based health care. It might be that vouchers are good for one and not for the other or that vouchers are good for general retirement purposes and some employment but not for other employment or that vouchers would even be good for Government based employment but that it would take time to develop a proposal. The other comparison is between a proposed system and an existing system. One might propose a higher tax on some product or service but until the proposal is passed, one pays the existing rate.

In my opinion, the entire speech shows sloppy thinking (it is also hard to follow as it changes subjects quickly).

Mikulski post is here.