Now that everyone has had a few days to digest and dissect the election, it might be a good time to reflect on the task ahead. (Due to deadline constrictions, I’m writing this ahead of the November 4th election but I’m predicting and assuming Barack Obama to be our next President.) Hey, any fool can call it after the fact! While I’m sure democrats want to revel in their electoral success and begin redistributing the wealth, there are a few major issues out there which will require the new president’s immediate attention.
One would be what to do about Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Obama and the democrats did a fine job of ignoring any tough questions about these two wars during the campaign but that doesn’t mean they went away. Given a significant part of Obama’s base was the anti-war MoveOn.org crowd, those folks won’t take kindly to any reality checks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After all, is Obama going to preside over a full scale abandonment of Iraq and diminution of the sacrifices made by our soldiers? It’s one thing to have opposed the war and scoffed at the surge as a Senator. It’s quite another to run up the white flag as commander-in-chief when we’re winning. And for all the talk about the real terrorists being in Afghanistan, can Obama simply call off the dogs because a bunch of aging hippies and Hollywood lefties refuse to fight for anything or anyone? If that’s the case let’s make John Murtha Secretary of Defense.
Here at home we face the worst economic collapse since the 1930’s and it’s a long way from over. During the campaign Obama and Biden promised to cut taxes for just about everyone and have the “rich” make up the difference. That has never really worked for long in a free economy because at some point those paying the freight eventually close up shop and hoard their money. Then there was the laughable promise to give people who don’t pay taxes a tax cut. Huh? Where I come from that’s called a welfare check. Socialism hasn’t worked anywhere and it won’t work here.
Adding to the economic crisis is the mortgage debacle. Not only is the government committed to bailing out those financial institutions responsible for this mess but simultaneously rewarding individuals who took out mortgages they knew they couldn’t afford. The only people being penalized are those who lived within their means and paid their bills on time. The risk takers and hustlers are all lining up at the federal trough to cry poverty and renegotiate their mortgages, tempting square shooters to do the same.
Obama will shortly have to decide where to draw the line. For instance, one could argue the irresponsible actions of government regulators, predatory lenders and greedy borrowers crashed this economy costing millions of jobs. Shouldn’t the innocent bystanders of this train wreck be as entitled to mortgage relief as those who gamed the system?
As daunting as these issues are President Obama will be given a very long political honeymoon. The historic nature of his election coupled with the crippling legacy of the Bush years will buy him time to figure it out. The honeymoon will likely last until the 2010 off year elections. If Obama has been unsuccessful after that, look for a very conservative candidate to emerge on the Republican side. And if McCain won, just call me Thomas E. Dewey.
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In regards to the present wars and many of the past ones as well, we mislead ourselves when we limit our conversations to surrender and even to sacrifice. There are two real questions. The first question is why we went to war and how that could have been prevented. The second question is what is to be gained by remaining in the war.
In regards to the economy, the question of ‘redistribution’, at one level, is a question of how much the super rich have vs. the rest of us. Currently the statistics that I have seen are approaching those that existed before the 1929 crash. Looking to history, when those numbers really get out of whack, things like the French Revolution happen. These kinds of imbalances can not be sustained. Therefore ‘redistribution’ is needed.
At a lower level, there is the question of people who have acted responsibly having to bail out people who have not. When we see this, we naturally recoil. But it is more complicated than just a matter of equity and fairness. In much of the current crisis it is like telling the loser who wants to end it all to jump while we fail to notice that we are leg cuffed together.
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