Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 29, 2010 8:51:13 PM
In 2008 Barack Obama was swept into the presidency on a wave of optimism and
his message that promised "hope and change." Well into 2010 it is time for a frank
assessment of what changes have been made, and whether the hope was just hype.
The election year found the nation weary of two wars, on the cusp of an economic
downturn and deeply divided over issues like immigration, energy policy, tactics in
the war on terror and how best to deal with rogue nations seeking nuclear weapons.
Obama promised swift and decisive action in each of these areas, laying out a wide
scope of proposed changes. He would end harsh interrogation and close Guantanamo
Bay, he said. He would restore America's lost credibility with the world and institute
"green energy" reforms. He would end the war in Iraq and win the one in Afghanistan,
and while he would "redistribute wealth," the middle class would not suffer at all. He
also promised that the dream of universal healthcare would become reality. The hope
that he could indeed deliver on these promises was a major factor in his election.
In the cold light of 2010 reality, however, it seems that most of Obama's promises
stand unrealized. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed at the end of
the G. W. Bush administration, cost the nation billions, and the long-building home
mortgage crisis exploded when it became apparent that a combination of federal
policy and institutional greed had encouraged people to take out mortgages that their
real assets and incomes could not support. The wave of staggering job losses that
began under Bush accelerated to tsunami proportions under Obama.
Desperate to stem the economic crash, Obama and the Democratic congress passed,
along mostly partisan lines, a near-trillion dollar stimulus package. As a caveat for public
support, Obama personally promised that if the package was passed, unemployment
would not pass 8%. Instead, the stimulus, adjudged in retrospect as a failure by 73%
of business economists, was passed, laden with "pork" and giveaways as unemployment
climbed past 10%. Administrative time that could have been spent solving problems
was, instead, squandered saving face, touting jobs created in districts that did not
exist, stalking the elusive numbers of "jobs saved" and arguing that had the package
not passed things would have been much worse.
Before the ink was dry on the stimulus, Obama began to push his government run
universal healthcare package at the cost of yet another trillion dollars. Medicare
Advantage was deep-sixed and new taxes such as those on medical equipment (which
certainly do affect the middle class) were tacked on. All during this time, Obama
argued that his program would improve care, cut costs and cover the uninsured without
increasing the enormous fiscal deficit or leading to rationed care. We now know that
with the extras tacked on by congress the program will unquestionably increase the
deficit, that care will become scarcer and the cost of coverage will go up. The bill
was passed over the objections of 55% of Americans. Today 63% say they want it
repealed. Most of the benefits do not kick in for four years, but the tax burden to
pay for them has already begun.
A cornerstone of Obama's energy package was a cap-and-trade bill that would have
placed a limit on carbon emissions and allow companies to trade unusued portions of
their "cap." By Obama's own pre-election admission, if enacted cap-and-trade would
cause energy costs to "skyrocket," hitting the poor, the middle class and small
businesses hardest, costing a floundering economy jobs, increasing gas prices at the
pump and simply forcing those without deep pockets to consume less while the
affluent paid more. Also key to this policy was the rapid development of wind, solar
and other "green" energy to take up the slack. The House of Representatives passed
a cap-and-trade bill that the senate declared "dead on arrival." Now the Senate is
working on its own bill which is not bipartisan and is no better than 50-50 to pass.
Realizing that the green energy sector was lagging, Obama pulled back on his
pledge to prohibit offshore drilling, only to reverse course in the wake of the BP
deepwater drilling catastrophe that is the worst in the nation's history.
Americans are very much divided on the change ushered in by the Obama era
and real hope is a commodity hard to come by in a nation with 10% unemployment,
a record number of home foreclosures and jobless benefits rapidly running out. But
that's not the final chapter. In tomorrow's post we'll look at some other promised
areas of change, and how they're working out. Then in part III we'll do some analysis
about what has worked or not, and why.