"It is with a great sense of disappointment that I write this," he starts, admitting that he was initially optimistic when Obama was elected. He also acknowledges the "economic mess" Obama inherited while noting his "profligate and largely ineffectual" policies.
"You did not, after all, invent TARP," he adds.
But Cooperman took the administration to task for the rhetoric that has become standard fare:
An example of Obama's class warfare rhetoric was given by CNN in April:
Repeating past calls for ending subsidies for oil companies and restoring higher tax rates for the highest-income Americans, Obama defended what he called his balanced approach to deficit reduction and depicted the Republican stance as favoring the well-to-do.
"I'm rooting for everybody to get rich," he said. "But I believe that we can't ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don't worry about it. We're not going to ask anything of you."
Rep. Allen West (R-FL), expressed his frustration to Greta van Susteren:
I am sick and tired of this class warfare, this Marxist, demagogic rhetoric that is coming from the President of the United States of America. It is not helpful for this country and it’s not going to move the ball forward as far as rectifying the economic situation in our country. And I’m not going to back away from telling what the truth is.
Cooperman continues by giving the President a synopsis of his life, telling how he came from humble beginnings, worked his way through school and climbed the corporate ladder:
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.
He notes that his story is "anything but unique."
"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," he adds.
"But," he writes, "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?"
He observes that people of different political persuasions can agreeably differ on matters of economic policy like tax rates and bailouts, and notes that some change is needed.
"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," he said, adding:
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.
In the next paragraph, he states that "capitalism is not the source of our problems," rebuffing a refrain often heard by Occupy protesters, reminding the President that "capitalists are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be."
Capitalists, he explains, are the ones who 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," he wrote.
Indeed, the debate as it has been framed, is largely to blame for the Occupy protests that have swept the country.
He concludes:
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.
The question now is, will Obama take Cooperman's advice, or will he continue down his path of class warfare and class rhetoric. If history is any teacher, the answer is likely to be the latter.
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