“It will get worse before it gets better.” That’s something President Obama and Warren Buffet agree on. I suppose it’s a way of telling the public not to get our hopes up for a speedy recovery. But I don’t know anybody who thought it would be. What I hear everywhere I go is that things are getting worse. I have yet to hear anyone suggest the economy is going to turn around soon, jobs will come back quickly, and that being able to buy a new car is on the radar screen.
But people are hoping President Obama’s ideas work. He’s the best hope ordinary citizens have at the moment, not least because he’s the only leader offering anything other than the same things we’ve had. Leadership is being able to point direction better than most. That is what Obama seems to be doing. Obviously the test will be whether or not it’s the right direction. He will stand or fall on how his management of the economy turns out. But when the only alternative being offered is to keep going in the direction we’ve been going, I’m willing to take the risk of doing something else. Nothing suggests the same direction will get us to where we want to be. Poor Bobby Jindal obviously didn’t get the memo about this. His response to Obama’s address to Congress was like watching a remake of an old movie. The story line was the same, only a different actor.
At the same time, because the president has selected so many of Bill Clinton’s former staff members for his own, he runs the risk of the same kind of scenario – same old economic philosophy trying to solve to new problems. It is not likely to work, so the hope is once again Obama himself. He simply has to follow his own instincts after distilling the various points of view he hears. Otherwise we will have a rerun of the 1990’s. But we know that some of the problems we now have regarding deregulation and giant mergers that have created mammoth and monster corporations started under Clinton's watch. No more of that, please! Besides, if the economic downturn we are suffering is the worst since the Great Depression, as we are being told, we need new answers, not old ones with new titles. That goes for Democrats as well as Republicans. As voters we cannot afford to cut anyone any slack. A new direction requires fresh and creative thinking that will lead to new ideas. In otgher words, we need leaders to tell us something we don’t already know. That would make them worthy of our trust. That was the genius of FDR. Can it be Obama’s? I hope so.TIP:
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Dennis Loo
Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
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