After coaxing my lukewarm-Republican-turned-centrist-Democrat husband to watch President Obama's press conference (and Chris Matthews' rehashing of it) rather than the Golf Channel, I was nonetheless startled by his obvious but muted anger.
Asked why, he surprised me, an enthusiastically progressive Democrat, with his indignant reason: people should stop their demoralizing nitpicking and second-guessing of Obama's budget.
Per my favorite Golf Channel fan, we elected Barack Obama for change. We clearly need big, startling, perhaps shocking change to steer our country firmly back on track. And Obama is one ultra-smart guy who has hired lots of ultra-smart staff. We should all unite behind Obama's budget agenda, stop complaining, get out of the way, and let President Obama govern.
After reflection, I realized that my wise husband of two decades is 95% correct.
After all, as President Obama reiterated in his opening remarks, he HAS "put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this (economic) crisis on all fronts," a strategy:
- "to create jobs,
- to help responsible homeowners,
- to restart lending, and
- to grow our economy over the long term."
"...we’re beginning to see signs of progress," said the President. And we are, too, in our community, in public building projects and a slight uptick in home sales. We've also already seen a small but delightful stimulus package-related increase in my engineer husband's take-home pay.
This nation overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama to the White House so that he could implement his plans... plans now fleshed-out in his budget proposal. Said Obama:
"...that's why my budget focuses on health care, energy and education..."Now, none of us know exactly what’s going to happen six or eight or 10 years from now. Here’s what I do know: If we don’t tackle energy, if we don’t improve our education system, if we don’t drive down the costs of health care, if we’re not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won’t grow 2.6 percent; we won’t grow 2.2 percent. We won’t grow."
Obama is correct. We can argue about various ways and means, we can nitpick the details, we can second-guess the fine-print footnotes. But President Obama is absolutely correct about what U.S. macro goals must be to rescue the post-Bush economy from permanent ruin.
95%, not 100%, Correct
I estimated that my husband is 95% correct in his belief that we need to fall in line, and support the budget agenda of this newly-elected U.S. President.
I say 95%, not 100%, because Obama must necessarily demonstrate a democratic willingness to listen and compromise, at least with centrist Congressional Democrats. And judging by his press conference responses, he apparently will compromise on another middle-class tax cut ("we already had that in the recovery") and perhaps on cap-and-trade policy intricacies ("the broader principle is that we've got to move to a new energy era").
Indeed, President Obama visited Capitol Hill today, after which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crowed, "This budget will protect President Obama's priorities — education, energy, health care, middle class tax relief and cut the deficit in half."
Yes, My husband is correct that President Obama, an accurately self-described persistent long-term thinker, has put together a budget that reflects the priorities for which he was elected to the presidency. Obama should be allowed to implement his hopeful, intelligent agenda.
Alas, though, the Washington Post reports this afternoon that:
"House budget leaders today unveiled a $3.45 trillion budget blueprint for fiscal 2010 that slices more than $100 billion from the spending plan President Obama proposed last month. Much of the difference comes from a decision by House leaders to jettison Obama's plan to seek more cash for the Treasury Department's financial-sector bailout."
GOOD! Until Wall Street's best bud, Timothy Geithner, is gone, and every last dime of the AIG bonuses is returned, I say cut the hell out any more cash for bailout of the financial services industry. Cut it to zero for all I care.
Haven't decided yet whether or not to pepper my husband with this prickly political question tonight. I'm leaning toward letting him contentedly enjoy the Golf Channel instead.
After all, I'm still too irritated with Obama's jaded, two-faced approach to this issue involving political donors to absorb a rational answer...
Related Reading
Timothy Geithner Should Be Terminated, Is Harming Obama's Agenda
(Photos taken at President Obama's press conference on March 24, 2009: #1 by Win McNamee/ Getty Images; #2 by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Comments
Timothy Geithner was multiply and heavily advocated by The Left, despite having *repeatedly* failed to properly pay his taxes, or to correct the same until someone else pointed it out.
I hear it’s happened yet again recently. Kathleen Sibelius, who is only up for nomination because her predecessor nominee, Tom Daschle, had an even bigger one.
And NOW we have concern that Treasury is being run wrongly? At the very minimum, couldn’t a leader have been nominated who could do his/her taxes correctly?