Students Talk Back takes on Obama’s final years

On Wednesday afternoon, the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, held its weekly Students Talk Back discussion, which focused largely on President Barack Obama’s final two years in office.

The event was moderated by Dan Schnur, executive director of the Unruh Institute of Politics and Annie Wanless, a student staff member at the Unruh Institute. It featured guest panelists Jim Bognet, former media consultant to former Gov. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and Robert Shrum, political consultant and Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at the USC Dornsife College.

Bognet is noted for his work as a Republican-campaign strategist who served as a media consultant to Romney during the 2012 election. Shrum is a Democratic political consultant with experience in leading presidential, senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns.

Wanless began the conversation by asking both panelists to identify which issues they perceive to be most significant between Obama and the newly elected Republican Congress.

In Obama’s annual State of the Union address, the president affirmed his plan to be more assertive on a number of policy issues that ranged from tax reform to immigration. During the speech, Obama reiterated his power to utilize executive action and veto bills to continue his policy plans. His certainty to maintain power over the Congress already foreshadows potential conflicts ahead between the legislative and executive branches.

Shrum described Obama’s budget as non-progressive, as it would include a tax rate for capital gains for the highest-earning Americans. The increase would move the current 20 percent rate to 28 percent for individuals in that tax bracket.

“The president’s budget is a non-starter,” Shrum said. “The Republicans are not going to approve any of these tax changes, even some that I think might be very popular with the country.”

Shrum also identified immigration reform as an area in which the biggest clashes will take place in Congress.

Bognet agreed with Shrum and acknowledged that the most contentious issue between the two parties in Congress will be immigration. He also mentioned that the president’s budget plan is a strategic “table-setter” for the 2016 presidential election.

“There will be no new taxes passed, the country cannot clamor for new taxes, so Obama will not be able to go out and put pressure on Congress, [Obama and Congress] have budget fights, there will probably be some vetoes, but I think that will probably be worked out much more easily than immigration,” Bognet said.

Furthermore, Bognet explained that Obama has made a political choice to spend the remainder of his time in office building his legacy through utilizing executive action.

“He is not going to get his legacy from big deals with Congress, he’s going to get his legacy from executive actions in the foreign policy arena,” Bognet said, citing the president’s plan to normalize relations with Cuba as a primary example.

Building off of Bognet’s response, Wanless asked both panelists how Obama’s actions might affect the 2016 election.

Shrum agreed with Bognet’s remark about Obama’s budget plan being somewhat of a “table setter” for 2016.

He also added that he believes Hilary Clinton has a good chance of being elected president because of her focus on providing aid to the middle class.

“If 2016 goes the wrong way; a lot of what [Obama] has done is going to get undone. I think he cares very deeply about 2016,” Shrum said. “I said he was going to rely on executive orders, he is going to rely on them, because he can do some big things with them number one and number two he is really going to try in foreign policy to achieve two or three big things. One is an agreement with Iran; two is to complete this Cuban process.”

Bognet predicted that the president would utilize executive orders and power of the veto to place pressure on Republicans and hurt the chances of the Republican nominee in the 2016 election.

“President Obama would love to see a Democrat elected in 2016, he would love to take credit for that, and I think you have to look at many of the actions he takes through that prism,” Bognet said.

Schnur and Wanless opened up questions for the panelists to students in the audience.

The first question addressed the topic of energy and asked whether or not Shrum and Bognet felt that there was an obligation to help inhabitants of states such as West Virginia and Kentucky, which strongly depend on coal as an energy source.

Both panelists believe that a conscious effort is necessary to bring in new industries and jobs to sustain the economy. They also explained that a plan to safeguard West Virgina and Kentucky’s state economy once coal is no longer their primary source of energy is unforeseeable.

Correction: This article has been updated to note that Jim Bognet was on a team of media consultants for Mitt Romney, not the only one, as the article previously implied. The Daily Trojan regrets this error.