President Obama has a lot of problems, some of which he inherited and some of which he has created for himself. Almost everyday, I find myself feeling sorry for him. As the saying goes, he always seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
During his campaign for President, Obama promised he would bring a new era of bipartisanship to Washington, D.C. I always had doubts about his sincerity, and I had even more doubts about his ability to fulfill his promise even if he sincerely wanted to do so. It is now clear that bipartisanship is not in the picture. Obama had the misfortune of inheriting Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader. Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid are two of the most highly partisan politicians in the country. Obama cannot get anything though Congress without dealing with them. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work with these two reprobates.
Obama came into office with a Congress controlled by Democrats. Accordingly, it was assumed he would be able to accomplish anything he wanted. Liberal Democrats were wetting their pants with excitement. The most liberal member of the U.S. Senate had been elected President of the United States, and Democrats had gained control of both Houses of Congress. The excitement intensified when the Democrats obtained a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the election of a comedian from Minnesota. At long last, the liberal Democrats, which include the vast majority of all Democrats, assumed they would be able to accomplish their agenda of transforming the country into a socialist state. There is only one problem. The Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives by recruiting moderate Democrats to run for Congress in moderate to conservative districts. The strategy worked, but the first goal of these moderate Democrats is to be re-elected, which means they are reluctant to support legislation that is not popular in the districts they represent. Obama likes to blame Republicans for obstructing his agenda, but he could accomplish anything he wanted without Republican support if he could only get all of the members of his own party on the same page. I feel sorry for Obama because of the unrelenting pressure he must feel from the competing interests within the Democratic Party.
Obama inherited a recession, a staggering federal debt, and an annual budget deficit of approximately $455 billion. The current federal indebtedness is approximately $11.8 trillion. Obama’s plans for ending the recession involve increasing this year’s federal deficit to approximately $1.6 trillion and increasing the federal deficit over the next decade by an additional $9 trillion. If anything, these projections will probably end up being too low. David Walker, the former head of the Government Accountability Office and the current President and Chief Executive Officer of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal last week as saying this year’s federal deficit comes to “$3.4 million a minute, $200 million an hour, $5 billion a day.” Eventually, someone will have to pay for all of this debt. Obama, however, continues to promise he will not raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize Obama has painted himself into a corner. There is no way he can fulfill his promises without breaking his promises. All politicians, of course, eventually tend to paint themselves into the same corner. Nevertheless, I feel sorry for Obama because he cannot get out of the corner into which he has painted himself without breaching his promises.
Obama inherited two wars—the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. He opposed the war in Iraq from the outset, he opposed President Bush’s strategy for winning the war, and he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq on an accelerated basis if elected President. When Obama assumed the Presidency in January, it appeared the war in Iraq had been won. President Bush’s strategy had worked. Unfortunately, violence is returning to Iraq as the United States turns more responsibility for security over to the Iraqi forces. I feel sorry for Obama because he is in a “no win” situation with regard to the war in Iraq. If all ends well in Iraq, President Bush will and should get the credit. If Iraq returns to violence and becomes a strong ally of Iran, which is likely, Obama will get the blame even if the same thing would have happened under a Republican Administration.
As for the war in Afghanistan, Obama has a huge problem. When running for President, Obama characterized the war in Afghanistan as the “good war” and a war that needed to be fought. He did this in order to convince the public he and his party, despite their well-earned reputation, are not weak on national security. Since assuming the office of President, Obama has continued to support the war in Afghanistan and has referred to it as a “war of necessity.” The problem, of course, is the war in Afghanistan is not going well, and liberals and conservatives alike are beginning to question the wisdom of investing more money and more American lives in a country where violence seems to be a way of life. Again, I feel sorry for Obama because he is in another “no win” situation. If he continues to support the war in Afghanistan with more money and troops, we are likely to be involved in Afghanistan for a very long period of time, and the American voters do not have the patience for long and costly wars, especially when the justification for a war becomes muddier with the passage of time. On the other hand, if Obama withdraws from Afghanistan and leaves the country in a mess, he will have to admit defeat in a war he supported and characterized as a “war of necessity” even after becoming President.
One of Obama’s top priorities is to reform the nation’s health care system. Here again, Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place. The liberals who supported Obama and helped him get elected will settle for nothing less than a nationalized health care system. Most members of the public, however, do not want the government to be making their health care decisions. So far, Obama has done a miserable job of selling health care reform. He let the liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives put the first reform package on the table, and he then tried to defend the indefensible before he even knew what he was defending. Obama has tried to convince the public he can reduce the cost of health care, expand access to health care, and improve the quality of care, all without increasing the government’s already staggering budget deficit. He wants us to believe he can cut some $500 billion out of the Medicare budget without rationing health care or denying health care benefits to the elderly. Even though the average citizen has a poor understanding of economics, most people are smart enough to understand that Obama’s goals are incompatible.
I feel sorry for Obama because one of his top priorities—health care reform—is in jeopardy. Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for The Washington Post, concludes Obama has lost the trust of the American people because of his illogical arguments for health care reform. Krauthammer wrote, “… Obama undertook a summer campaign to enlighten the masses by addressing substantive objections to his reforms. Things got still worse. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president—trust. You can’t say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits—and not inspire incredulity and mistrust. When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.”
Obama is planning a major speech this week in an effort to regain the momentum for health care reform. I don’t know what he will be saying, but it is clear he will anger either the liberal members of his party or the moderate to conservative Democrats whose support he needs in order to pass some form of health care legislation. Obama cannot afford to come up empty handed on the subject of health care reform. Having made a major issue out of the need for health care reform, Obama needs to sign health care legislation into law so he can declare victory regardless of the substance of the legislation.
Another reason I feel sorry for Obama is he is responsible for managing a huge federal bureaucracy even though he has no prior management experience. The truth is that the federal government is so large and so out-of-control that even someone who had successfully managed one of the world’s largest companies would have trouble controlling it. No President in recent memory, if ever, has successfully managed and controlled the federal bureaucracy. Obama clearly cannot and will not be able to do so.
Finally, I feel sorry for Obama because I feel sorry for anyone who has a Messianic complex, which Obama clearly does. Obama is not a humble man. He is self-righteous, arrogant, and egotistical. I believe Obama thinks he is God’s gift to mankind. The inevitable lumps Obama will take during the remainder of his Presidency will be very difficult for a man who thinks he can do no wrong.
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