Great open letter to Obama by Leon Cooperman

[Anonymous]

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
November 28, 2011
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

It is with a great sense of disappointment that I write this. Like many others, I hoped that your election
would bring a salutary change of direction to the country, despite what more than a few feared was an
overly aggressive social agenda. And I cannot credibly blame you for the economic mess that you
inherited, even if the policy response on your watch has been profligate and largely ineffectual. (You did
not, after all, invent TARP.) I understand that when surrounded by cries of "the end of the world as we
know it is nigh", even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a wellintended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
But what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the
rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare".
Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at
the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president
struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your
rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the
downtrodden and those best positioned to help them. It is a gulf that is at once counterproductive and
freighted with dangerous historical precedents. And it is an approach to governing that owes more to
desperate demagoguery than your Administration should feel comfortable with.

Just to be clear, while I have been richly rewarded by a life of hard work (and a great deal of luck), I was
not to-the-manor-born. My father was a plumber who practiced his trade in the South Bronx after he and
my mother emigrated from Poland. I was the first member of my family to earn a college degree. I
benefited from both a good public education system (P.S. 75, Morris High School and Hunter College, all
in the Bronx) and my parents' constant prodding. When I joined Goldman Sachs following graduation from
Columbia University's business school, I had no money in the bank, a negative net worth, a National
Defense Education Act student loan to repay, and a six-month-old child (not to mention his mother, my
wife of now 47 years) to support. I had a successful, near-25-year run at Goldman, which I left 20 years
ago to start a private investment firm. As a result of my good fortune, I have been able to give away to
those less blessed far more than I have spent on myself and my family over a lifetime, and last year I
subscribed to Warren Buffet's Giving Pledge to ensure that my money, properly stewarded, continues to
do some good after I'm gone.

My story is anything but unique. I know many people who are similarly situated, by both humble family
history and hard-won accomplishment, whose greatest joy in life is to use their resources to sustain their
communities. Some have achieved a level of wealth where philanthropy is no longer a by-product of their
work but its primary impetus. This is as it should be. We feel privileged to be in a position to give back,
and we do. My parents would have expected nothing less of me.I am not, by training or disposition, a policy wonk, polemicist or pamphleteer. I confess admiration for
those who, with greater clarity of expression and command of the relevant statistical details, make these
same points with more eloquence and authoritativeness than I can hope to muster. For recent examples,
I would point you to "Hunting the Rich" (Leaders, The Economist, September 24, 2011), "The Divider vs.
the Thinker" (Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2011), "Wall Street Occupiers
Misdirect Anger" (Christine Todd Whitman, Bloomberg, October 31, 2011), and "Beyond Occupy" (Bill
Keller, The New York Times, October 31, 2011) - all, if you haven't read them, making estimable work of
the subject.

But as a taxpaying businessman with a weekly payroll to meet and more than a passing familiarity with
the ways of both Wall Street and Washington, I do feel justified in asking you: is the tone of the current
debate really constructive?

People of differing political persuasions can (and do) reasonably argue about whether, and how high, tax
rates should be hiked for upper-income earners; whether the Bush-era tax cuts should be extended or
permitted to expire, and for whom; whether various deductions and exclusions under the federal tax code
that benefit principally the wealthy and multinational corporations should be curtailed or eliminated;
whether unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut should be extended; whether the burdens of
paying for the nation's bloated entitlement programs are being fairly spread around, and whether those
programs themselves should be reconfigured in light of current and projected budgetary constraints;
whether financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" should be serially bailed out or broken up first, like
an earlier era's trusts, because they pose a systemic risk and their size benefits no one but their owners;
whether the solution to what ails us as a nation is an amalgam of more regulation, wealth redistribution,
and a greater concentration of power in a central government that has proven no more (I'm being
charitable here) adept than the private sector in reining in the excesses that brought us to this pass - the
list goes on and on, and the dialectic is admirably American. Even though, as a high-income taxpayer, I
might be considered one of its targets, I find this reassessment of so many entrenched economic
premises healthy and long overdue. Anyone who could survey today's challenging fiscal landscape, with
an un- and underemployment rate of nearly 20 percent and roughly 40 percent of the country on public
assistance, and not acknowledge an imperative for change is either heartless, brainless, or running for
office on a very parochial agenda. And if I end up paying more taxes as a result, so be it. The alternatives
are all worse.

But what I do find objectionable is the highly politicized idiom in which this debate is being conducted.
Now, I am not naive. I understand that in today's America, this is how the business of governing typically
gets done - a situation that, given the gravity of our problems, is as deplorable as it is seemingly
ineluctable. But as President first and foremost and leader of your party second, you should endeavor to
rise above the partisan fray and raise the level of discourse to one that is both more civil and more
conciliatory, that seeks collaboration over confrontation. That is what "leading by example" means to most
people.

Capitalism is not the source of our problems, as an economy or as a society, and capitalists are not the
scourge that they are too often made out to be. As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying
people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new
industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and
progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving. To frame
the debate as one of rich-and-entitled versus poor-and-dispossessed is to both miss the point and further
inflame an already incendiary environment. It is also a naked, political pander to some of the basest
human emotions - a strategy, as history teaches, that never ends well for anyone but totalitarians and
anarchists.

With due respect, Mr. President, it's time for you to throttle-down the partisan rhetoric and appeal to
people's better instincts, not their worst. Rather than assume that the wealthy are a monolithic, selfish and
unfeeling lot who must be subjugated by the force of the state, set a tone that encourages people of good
will to meet in the middle. When you were a community organizer in Chicago, you learned the art of waging a guerilla campaign against a far superior force. But you've graduated from that milieu and now
help to set the agenda for that superior force. You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing
vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be. You are
likely to be far more effective, and history is likely to treat you far more kindly for it.

Sincerely,

Leon G. Cooperman
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[takoma]

"Be nice Mr. President. Ignore GOP lies and they will go away."

Riiiight!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
November 28, 2011
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

It is with a great sense of disappointment that I write this. Like many others, I hoped that your election
would bring a salutary change of direction to the country, despite what more than a few feared was an
overly aggressive social agenda. And I cannot credibly blame you for the economic mess that you
inherited, even if the policy response on your watch has been profligate and largely ineffectual. (You did
not, after all, invent TARP.) I understand that when surrounded by cries of "the end of the world as we
know it is nigh", even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a wellintended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
But what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the
rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare".
Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at
the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president
struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your
rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the
downtrodden and those best positioned to help them. It is a gulf that is at once counterproductive and
freighted with dangerous historical precedents. And it is an approach to governing that owes more to
desperate demagoguery than your Administration should feel comfortable with.

Just to be clear, while I have been richly rewarded by a life of hard work (and a great deal of luck), I was
not to-the-manor-born. My father was a plumber who practiced his trade in the South Bronx after he and
my mother emigrated from Poland. I was the first member of my family to earn a college degree. I
benefited from both a good public education system (P.S. 75, Morris High School and Hunter College, all
in the Bronx) and my parents' constant prodding. When I joined Goldman Sachs following graduation from
Columbia University's business school, I had no money in the bank, a negative net worth, a National
Defense Education Act student loan to repay, and a six-month-old child (not to mention his mother, my
wife of now 47 years) to support. I had a successful, near-25-year run at Goldman, which I left 20 years
ago to start a private investment firm. As a result of my good fortune, I have been able to give away to
those less blessed far more than I have spent on myself and my family over a lifetime, and last year I
subscribed to Warren Buffet's Giving Pledge to ensure that my money, properly stewarded, continues to
do some good after I'm gone.

It's an eloquently written letter, which skirts the real issues:
-the fact that the political system is horribly corrupted by the influence of now effectively unlimited campaign contributions from large corporations whose interests are NOT synonymous with those of the people in this country
-the fact that those positioned to benefit the downtrodden by using their power to remedy this situation have done nothing but continue to vie for their slice of corporate welfare and socialism for the rich, thereby violating the very principles they advocate when they say that laissez-faire pure capitalism is the world's salvation. Pure capitalism and crony capitalism are distinctly different affairs and if he subscribed to the former (let alone to a regulated form of capitalism) his firm would probably no longer be in business given the events of the last ten years.
-he himself acknowledges that he benefited from a good education that he was able to finance, an option which is increasingly out of reach for significant portions of the population in this country.

The anger and the feeling that class warfare is legitimate did not spring out of thin air Mr. Cooperman. Maybe it is time for you to wake up.

[Anonymous]

Right on, Mr. Cooperman. Obama missed a great opportunity to bring our nation together and instead his rhetoric has ripped us apart.

[takoma]

Sorry about my rather snide reaction of a few minutes ago, but it gets my goat when I see the use of the "class warfare" label to avoid the issue of how much taxes have been cut on the wealthy and how high on the GOP agenda the protection of those cuts sits. Check http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/republicans-being-taught-talk-occupy-wall-street-133707949.html to see the intentional use of linguistic spin to divert attention away from issues where the GOP know they oppose the interests of the vast majority.

I don't know whether Cooperman is intentionally taking part in this strategy, or is one of those taken in by it, but I suppose it does not matter whether he is dishonest or naive.

[Anonymous]

Great letter. Except he does not explain or prove where the "tenor" of this debate comes from. He's just another Republican pointing a finger at the Democrat.

When Obama's tax plan was to affect people making 250K and up, they said it hurt "Joe the Plumber", and small business. So the number went up and up until the remaining people could only be called wealthy by everyone's standards. So they changed the tune and called it class warfare. While I am pleased that so many people are apparently concerned for my welfare as a wealthy person, I think it's a load of crap.

Here it is in a nutshell. We need to pay our bills. No one, not even Republicans, can manage to do it with cuts. Taxes need to go up and it's better that it happens to people like me than working class folks. It's better for the economy, and it's better for the people. I'm not going to miss the money, and none of my wealthy friends are. Really, if you make that much year over year and you miss the money, you are leading a really messed up life.

[Anonymous]

When a white person writes: "while I have been richly rewarded by a life of hard work (and a great deal of luck), I was not to-the-manor-born" you know THEY are about to laucnh into a classist, don't tax us poor millionaires rant.

Agree, just another R pointing the finger.