This is one of President Barack Obama’s central arguments for insisting that Congress pass his jobs bill:
“Now, everything in the American Jobs Act — everything in there — is the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by both Democrats and Republicans. Nothing radical in this bill. … every single one of these proposals has been supported by Democrats and Republicans before. And so they should be supporting them now. … that will only happen, though, if they set politics aside for a moment to deal with America’s problems.”
In other words, Obama is arguing that, because Republicans have supported these proposals before, they must therefore be engaging in crass, hypocritical politicking if they don’t support them now. I’ve mentioned before that this is a bad argument, but it bears repeating in its own post.
What’s wrong with Obama’s argument? To begin with, sometimes people change their minds, particularly about complicated things such as economic policy. There’s nothing crass or grossly political about that.
More importantly, though, when someone supports something, their support isn’t necessarily unconditional. For instance, one of Obama’s proposals is a payroll tax cut. Someone who has supported a payroll tax cut in the past, however, isn’t necessarily in favor of any and all payroll tax cuts. They may support payroll tax cuts in certain economic conditions, but not others. Or, they may only support a payroll tax cut if it is combined with certain other proposals.
In other words, just because someone has supported one payroll tax cut in the past doesn’t mean that they support all payroll tax cuts, let alone this particular payroll tax cut suggested by Obama. And the same goes for the rest of Obama’s proposals.
Obama’s reasoning just isn’t valid. Suppose somebody tells me that they’re a fan of the New York Yankees. One day, I offer to take them to a Boston Red Sox game, and they say, “No, thanks, I don’t like the Red Sox.” It would be silly for me to say, “Well, you’ve supported baseball teams in the past! You’re just being a hypocrite!” Not all baseball teams are the same. You might support some, but not others. Likewise with payroll tax cuts, etc.
Perhaps Obama realizes that this reasoning flawed, because it’s clear he won’t apply it to himself. After all, Obama has, in the past, agreed with Republicans that the debt ceiling shouldn’t be raised, that there should be no individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance, and that reconciliation shouldn’t be used to pass health care reform. Of course, he’s since changed his mind and rejected these “bipartisan” positions. Does that mean he’s “given in to the politics of the moment”? Do we get to deride his current position on these issues as being grossly political, the way he caricatures Republicans?
No. It’s not fair to demonize Obama for switching positions on these issues. But that means it’s also not fair for him to try to demonize Republicans for not supporting his jobs bill.