Obama's Big Bang

Barack Obama wants to start off his presidency with a bang.

From the Financial Times:

US President-elect Barack Obama intends to push a comprehensive programme of social and economic reform beyond an immediate emergency stimulus package, Rahm Emanuel, the next White House chief of staff, indicated on Sunday.

Mr Emanuel brushed aside concerns that an Obama administration would risk taking on too much when it takes office in January. He said Mr Obama saw the financial meltdown as an historic opportunity to deliver the large-scale investments that Democrats had promised for years.

Tackling the meltdown would not entail delays in plans for far-reaching energy, healthcare and education reforms when all three were also in crisis, he said. “These are crises you can no longer afford to postpone [addressing].”

...Sunday’s comments also reinforce the impression that Mr Obama’s transition economic advisory board – which includes leading lights of the Clinton era, such as Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin – is tilting heavily towards a “big bang” approach that would combine a short-term stimulus with large public investments to raise the longer-term US growth rate.

In a radio address to the nation on Saturday, Mr Obama emphasised the urgency both of passing a fiscal stimulus package, which could include a middle-class tax cut, and of moving swiftly ahead on long-term public investments.

“We can’t afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, healthcare, education and tax relief for middle-class families,” said Mr Obama. “We also need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear.”

On Face the Nation yesterday morning, New York Times columnist David Brooks and Politico editor John Harris explained that it would be a mistake for Obama to get into office and issue a slew of executive orders.

Brooks said that Emanuel gave him the impression that Democrats "want to do everything at once. They want, as you called it, the big-bang theory. I think that's a disastrous mistake. You're going to tell me you're going to solve an incredibly difficult economic crisis, at the same time you're going to reorganize 14 percent of the American economy? Health care? I think that would be a gigantic overreach."

Brooks argued that if Obama does not take a slower approach - tackling the economy and health care in stages over several months, building faith in Washington - "in my opinion you're going to freak out the country."

John Harris, editor of Politico, also warned against overreach on the part of the incoming administration.

"I do think there are sort of two theories of presidential power at stake here," he said. "One says you're never more powerful than on January 21st, the day after inauguration, and you spend down that account, and you better get as much as you can, because it's going down.

"The other, as David suggests, there's a slow but steady approach that says a president can, by doing modest things first, getting them done, being effective, build up reservoirs, and so you can actually have more leverage, more power in year two, three and four than you do in year one."

I don't often agree with Brooks, but I do agree with him in this case.

If Obama starts issuing a bunch of executive orders, he'll "freak out the country."

Actually, I think half the country would freak out. The other half would rejoice.

I'm very, very uneasy right now about what Obama and the Democrats will attempt to do.

Obama sent a lot of mixed messages during the campaign. Is the guy somewhat reasonable or is he going to do the bidding of the radical Left?

I think it's important for Obama to earn the trust of the Americans who didn't vote for him. If he wants to rid the country of the red and the blue factions, as he claims he does, then he has to consider the opposing views. He can't just come into office and force his will down the throats of the over 57 million Americans who voted against him and his agenda.

Transforming the country overnight via a Big Leftist Bang is not governing from the center.
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One more point about something Brooks said on Face the Nation--

[John] Harris said that the [Republican] party is now divided into two wings: the "hell, no" wing and a "yes, but" wing. "The 'hell, no' is going to fight [Obama] every step of the way" on ideological grounds.

"The other will say, 'Yes, we agree with a lot of his objectives; we want to do it in a somewhat different way.' It really, I think, goes right to a tactical and philosophical fault line in the Republican Party."

Brooks was not convinced that Sarah Palin could be taken seriously as the GOP's next Ronald Reagan.

"Well, the 'hell, no' group is rallying around her," he said. "And this past week, I don't think, has been particularly flattering to her, the McCain people - and the whole thing has been a complete disaster. They've attacked her for her lack of human capital and for being a diva.

"I'm not sure it's all fair, but one would not say she has spent her life preparing for an intellectual revolution to lead the party out of the wilderness. Let's put it that way."

Brooks declared himself a part of the "yes, but" wing. "You know, this is where the American people are," he said. "And, fundamentally, the conservative movement failed (and I've been in it my entire life) because it hasn't addressed the problems of today, the rise of China and Russia, the rise of inequality, energy, health care. It's great to worry about Reagan. I loved Reagan, but those days are over."

I think Brooks is way off base.

The conservative movement isn't a failure.

Liberal Obama won because he didn't have a conservative opponent. Republicans didn't come out for John McCain. Republican voting declined from 2004.

I don't think that's indicative of the failure of the movement. McCain was the wrong candidate to be its leader.

I'm sick of Brooks' cheerleading for the death of the conservative movement. I don't understand him and his "Those days are over" blathering.

Brooks talks like a loser, not a conservative.