The Road Ahead

House Minority Leader John Boehner, in response to President Obama's proposed budget, said, "I think we just have to admit we're broke," and lamented the return of "big government," ignoring the fact that small government led to much of our current predicament. Tell me, John, should we shrink government further, continue to provide tax breaks to the wealthy, and simply abandon the middle and lower classes to economic oblivion? Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, in his response to Mr. Obama's speech to Congress, spoke out against government spending of taxpayer dollars to alleviate the economic crisis, seemingly ignorant of the fact that his state has received $130 billion in taxpayer money to help rebuild after hurricane Katrina. Bobby, did you forget that Karl Rove is gone now, and we have returned to the reality-based world?

It is not the United States that is bankrupt. We have ample assets, in the form of our citizens, their determination, and sound government leadership, to invest in righting the economy and advancing a new progressive agenda.

It is the republican ideology, defined by its hypocrisy, that is bankrupt. Where is the moral obligation to help our fellow citizens in a time of need? Wake up, John and Bobby. These people, some of whom are your own constituents, don't have any bootstraps to pull themselves up by. And help is not going to come miraculously from faith-based institutions either. The only faith-based initiatives going on right now consist of millions of Americans praying that they will make their next mortgage payment and not lose their home, not get sick (because they have no health insurance), and be able to give their children a decent meal.

Our President has set forth a clear vision of the road ahead. Nancy Pelosi described it eloquently: "At long last, a budget that is a statement of our national values." The wheels are turning, and Republicans such as Boehner and Jindal are roadkill on the way to progress.

President Obama's Speech - What to Watch for

All eyes will be on President Obama tonight as he makes his speech to a joint session of Congress. Viewed separately, the steps he has taken so far to restore confidence and stabilize the economy may appear disparate and disjointed, but together they constitute a vision - both inspiring and pragmatic - of what needs to be done - and tonight is his opportunity to clarify that vision and place it in context.

In the short term, institutions that are crucial to the functioning of our economy (consumer and business), such as banks, require support. Allowing a huge industry, such as automobile manufacturing, to collapse in a disorderly fashion would be devastating. Detroit is now on life support, with an orderly bankruptcy or massive restructuring being the likely road ahead.

In the long term, our nation needs to invest in projects critical to our future - infrastructure, energy, education - with a plan that keeps spending in line and aims, over time, to reduce government borrowing and spending as private sector activity resumes and replaces it.

All this will take time. The President must counsel patience and exhort us to give his measures time to work. For too long, in both government and business, our leaders have opted for the short-term view, the quick fix, the budget gimmick, the balance-sheet fudge. It is time to start looking five or ten years ahead and understand the impact that making long-term policy decisions can have, while also understanding that we must be flexible and prepared to adapt to a constantly changing environment.

The President should also put those who oppose him, for political reasons, on notice, that now is not the time for politics. Now is the time for problem-solving. 

All eyes will be on President Obama tonight as he makes his speech, but we as viewers should carefully observe the republican reaction. The American people desperately need to see republicans clapping and standing in solidarity with the democrats as the President delivers his key lines. Opposition politics has no place in a crisis, especially one of this magnitude. The President has tried to "reach across the aisle" and been met with a forearm shiver. Tonight he will lay out his vision and his plan, and those who disagree with him must work to further, not frustrate, their realization and execution.

Judas Gregg

Yesterday Senator Judd Gregg withdrew from consideration for the position of Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration. His "irresolvable conflicts" with President Obama over the stimulus plan and overall economic agenda clearly existed when he accepted the nomination, and his decision to withdraw now is damaging both to the administration's credibility and its efforts to create a bipartisan culture in the capital. One might almost speculate that Gregg had never intended to take the job, and that his post-acceptance withdrawal was a calculated move to attack the President.

Bipartisanship can only work if both sides are willing to come to the table. President Obama has brought republicans into the White House and appointed two of them (Gregg would have been the third) to Cabinet positions. He has solicited their opinions and compromised with them on the stimulus bill. And yet, after 12 years of their failed policies, which contributed greatly to the mess in which we are currently mired, the republicans seem intent on thumbing their noses at the President and changing from the party of destruction to the party of obstruction. 

The time for bartisanship is over. Our President was elected with a mandate, and he must lead. He should be angry with Judas Gregg, who has set his economic agenda back and forced him to seek a replacement. The replacement should be a democrat. Now is the time to marginalize the republicans, even further than they have marginalized themselves, based not on who they are or their religious and cultural beliefs, but on their political agenda and the policies they espouse. Enough is enough.