Give him a break
President Barack Obama has come in for some criticism during the past month or so, as the nation attempts to recover from a steep economic downturn, for trying to keep his eye on the long term big picture. We think he and his administration are right to stay locked onto that focus, and hope the admittedly enormous array of problems the nation is facing, both foreign and domestic, doesn’t overwhelm their ability to separate the forest for the trees.
The worst economic slump in at least a quarter century — and while it’s the Great Depression that our current malaise is often compared to, so far the recession of the early 1980s is still statistically the sharper one in terms of unemployment and inflation — would tax most administrations when the world was a calm place. But with Pakistan leading the way, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea and the issues they are presenting in different ways, the world is hardly calm. Did we forget about Iraq? Next year at this time, assuming continued outward tranquility, the role of U.S. military forces are scheduled to shift to more of a background mode. That period will be a real test of how well the “surge” and political reconciliation among the Iraqis has really gone. It remains an open question.
Then we have the cranky Russian bear longing to be on the prowl again, eager to reassert its former Cold War power and influence. Meanwhile China is seeking a role in global affairs to match its growing financial clout The Chinese at least want to become pre-eminent players in their own backyard. A crisis in the Straits of Formosa, should one erupt, would pose a massive problem for the U.S., dependent as we are on the Chinese soaking up all that American public debt that is our short term way out of our economic difficulties.
So while all this is going on, President Obama is trying to say that reforming the health care system, insisting on meaningful improvements in the nation’s public education system and pushing forward on a "green” agenda on energy use must be part of the program. He’s right. The economy might rebound for awhile as a result of the massive injection of public money into the financial structure and some key industrial corporations like General Motors that are deemed too big to fail, but if we don’t stop wasting it on an amazingly inefficient healthcare and health insurance system, if too many of our elementary and secondary students are subpar compared with students elsewhere and if we don’t — 35 years later than we could have — finally get serious about energy use and our dependence on foreign oil, the one or two trillion dollars we’re borrowing from future generations will be a one-off fix. We just can’t afford to be stupid about this stuff anymore.
The President, who’s unfortunately got to work through a fantastically complicated set of difficulties with the help of some partisan political hacks like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D—Nevada, deserves some support for trying not to get bogged down in the crises du jour and to look for a fundamental overhaul of what’s dragging the creative entreneurial energy of the nation backwards. Congressional Republicans, increasingly a pathetic one note band on taxes and the stimulus, need to get a life — or maybe a time out — and start offering intelligent alternatives if big picture solutions aren’t part of their way out of the box. They have an important role to play, but right now, they seem stuck in the Potomac mud, irrelevant. They remind us of the Democrats during the Reagan era, when it was the GOP who had the leading guy who resonated with the American public.
Reagan too, had a few big ideas — cut taxes, an appropriate stategy at that time, rebuild the U.S. military, and topple the Russians. He suceeded on all three counts, and that’s why he is remembered as a successful president. In the end, it’s the big picture that counts.