Are Republicans keeping the economy from recovering faster? Chris asks Paul Krugman of The New York Times and New York Magazine’s John Heilemann.

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by Michael Smerconish

Permit me a final word tonight about accountability.

Today was to have been the date by which the Super Committee put forth a plan to cut the debt. They failed to reach an accord, triggering an automatic $1.2 trillion in cuts beginning in 2013.

This was the third attempt at averting a national crisis. Simpson-Bowles was the first. After about a year of invested time, that bi-partisan Commission comprised of 18 members could not get the requisite 14 votes to force congressional action on their recommendations.

One year ago next month, the commission co-chairs released their draft recommendations. No stone was left unturned - no special interest left unscarred.

Their recommendations were described as a list of the third-rail issues of American politics. Federal workers were to be cut. The cost of participating in veterans and military health care increased. The age of Social Security eligibility raised. And the defense department cut. Simpson-Bowles would also have reformed the tax code in ways often contemplated in Washington, but never accomplished. Many longstanding tax credits and deductions would have been eliminated.

After the failure of Simpson Bowles, President Obama and Speaker Boehner attempted to work out a grand bargain. It was reported at the time that the two sides forged common ground on a two-stage strategy for raising the debt limit and cutting more than $4 trillion out of the federal budget through 2021.

Reportedly, that plan would have included unprecedented cuts in agency spending, including at the Pentagon, and significant changes to Medicare and Social Security, the biggest drivers of future borrowing - a major concession for Obama and other Democrats but those negotiations collapsed last July and quickly denigrated into finger pointing.

As a result, efforts to increase the debt ceiling were thrown into chaos. And it was the subsequent debt ceiling negotiations that gave rise to the super committee, which is how we've come full circle, back to where we are now, with lots of time having run off the clock and not much to show for it.

So, what do the three efforts at addressing the national debt have in common - besides failure? And by the way, I could say four efforts if I include the bipartisan Senate "Gang of Six." None has resulted in a definitive congressional vote.

After over nineteen months of work on arguably the most important issue of the day, voters next November currently lack a scorecard. We cannot assess our individual members’ behavior in office on the most important issue facing the nation.

Sure, we can paint with broad strokes. We can generalize based on the parties. And we can look at press releases and public comments by individual members.

But that's not enough. We're owed more. We deserve to know how what each member of the House and Senate is prepared to do about the debt, not just what sound bites they offer.

There is a reason we call you legislators. Please start voting so we the voters are informed when we go to the polls next November. 

I was in East Berlin the week the Wall came down.  I interviewed a number of East German working people about the reasons for their despair with the Communist system.

It was telling. What they complained about was the way the system betrayed them.  The people who believed in the Socialist system - who considered themselves good communists - did their jobs as best they could and expected to be treated with economic respect - with fairness.

They were betrayed.  The people who did well in East Berlin were the hustlers - the people who got to deal with foreigners - the taxi drivers - the people who could get tips. They were getting paid in West German currency which was worth a lot. 

The factory managers and school principals, meanwhile, were getting paid in East German currency - East Marks - which were worthless on the world market.  They couldn't travel anywhere but Hungary and Poland - the two countries that would accept their cheap Communist currency.

Anytime they wanted to go on vacation they would get bumped by any West German hitchhiker who came along with western currency - money that was worth something.

The system humiliated the East Germans, adding economic insult to economic injury day in and day out. The people who worked hard and played by the rules were getting screwed while the people who lived off foreign currency were the only ones getting a break.  All the time, the good communists were watching the West Germans living like - West Germans.

What killed Communism was how it betrayed the good people who did their jobs, the East German equivalent of our middle class.

What happens in this country when the middle class see the system here working against it?  What happens when the people who make things see the wealth of the country going to the very top - to those who seem to make money off having money?

Today we learned from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that the top one percent has doubled its share of the take.

Something tells me they are not going to roar up and say "enough is enough" like the East Germans twenty-two years ago, but they're definitely beginning to rumble.

The worker bees who believe in free markets are beginning to wonder if the level playing field just got a little too slanted.

Freedom of Assembly. It's right there in the Constitution; in fact, right there in the first amendment.  It's part of the Bill of Rights.

And there we have it now, people assembling on the streets of downtown Manhattan - right in the shadow of Wall Street - to say they don't like the way things are going in this country.

"Joe the Plumber" says he doesn't like the government doing anything about the huge differences in income in this country. He doesn't want the government "redistributing" income.

But what about the government distributes income in the tax code?  People who work for a dollar pay up to 35 percent.  People who make money off their money pay 15 percent. That's mighty powerful distributer of income wouldn't you say? 

And that's where we're at in this country thanks to a policy that rewards making money one way - off of having money - in preference to making money by showing up for work and doing a job that needs doing.

We will see if Occupy Wall Street brings about real change or if it withers when the weather turns frigid.  We will see if the growing number of people out there matures the movement into one that makes real, discernable statements.

Here's the bar: if the crowds end up mattering to the voter, if they affect whether a Congressman or Senator does something, then we'll know it was all worth it. Here are some demands: equality of taxes; everybody pays the same progressive tax rates no matter how they get their income; two, the federal government lives up the employment act of 1946 which required the federal government to "promote maximum employment, production and purchasing power" in this country.

Let's be honest.  If nothing gets done, then the Wall Street occupiers will be no better than some of the people occupying seats in Congress.  The difference is we haven't had to pay them.

What to do?  What to do to save this economy of ours from another downturn - that new recession that seems to be creeping our way? What would you do? 

I'm not asking about ways to reduce the deficit or diminish the overall national debt - nor do I want political flourishes, deft gestures that give joy to the right - or the left.

No, I'm asking about what we, the people, can do that will avert another recession, that will act on the economy in a way that cuts the unemployment rate, puts money in the pockets of consumers, and gets this country moving again, gets business investing in products that have a market out there of American people who are able, willing and stirred to spend money.

What would you do? Today a columnist for The New York Times offers us an answer. It's a prescription for meeting the great malady of the American economy - unemployment - or, if you want to put it more brutally - the "oversupply of labor" in this country.

Call it what you want.  The simple fact is, there are more people looking for work here than there are people looking to put them to work. Nobody has to be told that.  It's the condition we're living in.

Part of the proposal suggested in the Times today is to create five million jobs a year with a five-to-seven year infrastructure program at a cost of $1.2 trillion in government and private sector spending, but mostly government.

This drives us right to the point of decision.  Doesn't it? You can support such a proposition - which goes well beyond anything President Obama is pushing.  Or you can oppose it, saying the government ought to be cutting spending.

I think the president ought to make it clear where he stands.  That's even if he doesn't have the votes right now to get it passed. If he thinks this bigger program is called for, he ought to say so. People ought to know where their leader wants them to be led.

Don't you think?  Don't we have a decent claim on knowing that our president agrees with the need to do something this vital, this big - even if he can't get the votes for it?

Nothing would dramatize the ideal of a second Obama administration than him simply laying out where he would like to take the country in meeting its imminent economic challenges.

Five million new jobs a year?  Or continued deflation, continued decline in investment, consumption and overall economic activity. Get the country moving again - or stay the course, a course that's headed right now for the second recession of this presidency.

Radical.  Normally, we don't like that word.  Normally, we like our politics somewhere near the center - somewhere between progressive and conservative.  You get beyond that and people consider you troubling, at best, dangerous, at worst.

Radical positions.  Radical solutions.  Radical politics.  Normally, as I said, not the stuff most people are comfortable with.But there comes a time when the positions, solutions and politics of normal times don't seem to be working, or to be more exact: aren't working!

We have a 9-plus percent jobless rate.  People are not getting hired, not being put to work the way they need to.  The normal forces are not solving their problems.  Corporations are not hiring; they're investing overseas or finding automated ways to get work done.  

We've got a housing situation today that isn't getting fixed. Older people are unable to sell homes they don't need.  Young people are having a very rough time getting mortgages and finding a house they can afford.  Here again, the normal forces of supply and demand are not getting houses priced to sell, which mean priced to be bought.

Not everyone is getting hurt by all this, certainly not equally.  The oil companies have made huge profits.  So have many in the financial community.

And millions have been hurt.  They're hurting more each month as the hunt for work grows into years, as the corporations - who we're told by one Republican presidential nominee are "really just people like us" - continue to find ways to make profits without offering people in this country real full-time jobs.

So people with brains, and a sense of history, begin to think about solutions to our problems, that arise beyond the normal list of progressive or conservative tools we've used to fix problems.

So we have to listen to the arguments being made down there on Wall Street.  Radical solutions are sometimes the right solutions.  Think of American independence.  Thomas Paine was right. We had to cut off our ties with England pure and simple. Think of abolition.  The only right way to deal with American slavery was to ban it outright - not negotiate with the slavers.

How long, exactly, should we continue with policies that leave so many out of work, without the dignity and vitality of a job to go to?  How long do we let our economy shrink right there in front of us?

We may, as a society, have to take direct action to put people to work. If the corporations aren't coming to our rescue, why "isn't" the government?         

President Obama wants to cut taxes. Business opposes him.

Think this is odd?  Why would people oppose a cut in the taxes they have to pay for each worker they have on the payroll?  Why wouldn't an American business person want a tax break so he could hire more workers and save money doing it?  Wouldn't it make good business sense to back a president - regardless of his politics or political party - if what he was doing helped your business, helped your stockholders, and helped you?

Well, politics, as the saying goes, makes strange bedfellows. This isn't the first time business has backed the Republicans in a political fight even when it runs against good business.

The same thing happened back in 1963.  Jack Kennedy wanted to cut taxes in order to stimulate the economy and reduce the jobless rate.  Business opposed him.  Fact is, a poll taken the year earlier showed 88 percent of business opposed him.

Yes, today you hear a lot of Republican candidates raving about Kennedy's tax cut proposal, saying how he had it exactly right.  Back when he was president, business people were out there opposing his push for a tax cut. 

So President Obama, you're in good company. History shows that, despite all business good sense, sometimes people let their politics get in the way of their own success. 

President Obama is out there offering them a tax break - that if it were being offered up by a Republican president the big corporations would be leaping and gobbling this happy meal like the porpoises at Sea World.

Let me finish tonight with this: The President of the United States now faces a critical moment of crisis. Today the stock market dropped like a runaway elevator.  The head of the International Monetary Fund said the world economy is entering "a dangerous phase."  She said that nations need credible plans to get their debt under control.

So there you have the bind that the president and this country are in. Demand is dropping for goods and services. The head of the IMF is calling for governments to drop demand further by cutting their spending plans.

There's the rub: how do you stop the drop in demand, the drop that is heading us into a recession, and at the same time drop the government's own demand for goods and services by cutting spending?

So we have to choose.  And we need the president to choose.  The time has come to stop trying to have it both ways. If the best policy of the United States right now is to cut our debt, the president should lead the way - pushing for hikes in taxes, cuts in spending. 

If the goal is to cut the deficits, he should be leading the charge on both fronts. He should be the leader in this country's fight to close deficits and cut the burden of debt. But if the danger is recession, an across-the-board drop in spending on the part of consumer, business, and government, then he has to be leading the charge to stop it. 

He needs to be finding, pushing, and demanding more government spending. He needs to resuscitate the American economy with a jolt of adrenaline before it falls completely dormant. Right now, the country is not sure which way he is leading us.

Ask yourself, the question. Is he out there calling for tax hikes on the wealthy and spending cuts in Social Security and Medicare to go along with them?  Yes.  We heard him doing that this week.

Or is he out there pushing to pump up government spending to get the economy hopping again?  Is he pushing to get money moving through the pipes, getting it into people's pockets so they'll start buying again?   Yes, he's out there on that bridge today pushing for just that.

So which is it?  Full speed ahead or "man the pumps!?”  I think we need a certain trumpet.  I think the stock market is saying that. I know I'm thinking it.  

Let me finish tonight with this. Campaigns for president are long. We all know that. But, this one's going to be longer.

President Obama began his 2012 campaign yesterday in the Rose Garden. He made the issue simple. Do the American people believe that people who make a ton of money should get off with a lower tax rate than people who make just enough to get by?

That's a fair question, isn't it? It's not whether people have a right to get rich in this country. That's a fact. It's not whether people who get rich should have to pay more of their income in taxes than other people. The progressive tax system is meant to make sure they do. 

It's whether some people - those who make most of their money off of money should pay a lesser rate, a smaller share of their income than people who show up nine to five or eight to six or seven to seven or whatever your workday.

That's the Buffett Rule. That's the Obama rule. Nobody gets a special deal because they've got a deal under the tax code. You make a lot, you pay at least - at minimum - the share of your income that the man or woman busting hump does - the worker bee that comes home still sweating and exhausted.

Is this class warfare? Is this socialism? Is this "whatever" the latest dirty word the right has got on its red-hot branding iron? I don't think so. Do you? And so the games begin. From here on out the battle line is drawn. Yes, it's going to be about jobs. Yes, it's going to end up being about whether Obama can get that unemployment number down. Yes, it's about the economy. It always is.

But it's also now going to be about "how" we deal with the economy. How we pay for those jobs we have to create. How we get the debt under control. How we end the American habit of borrowing to pay for the cost of our government and society. 

Obama now has a position. So does the other side. Obama says he will veto any debt deal this November that cuts programs for regular people - Social Security and Medicare - that does not guarantee a tax code that requires the rich to pay at least the same share of their income as regular people. He has forced the other side to make the case against him. My hunch is that will take a very good argument indeed.