Obama's Misplaced Priorities

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 6, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

            Hosting an “urgent” health care conference at the White House, President Barack Obama invited some of the nation’s leading authorities to try to forge a way forward.  While there’s nothing wrong with trying to fix the nation’s health care problems, U.S. fiancial markets continue to melt down.  Barack’s focus on health care, global warming and alternative energy pale in comparison to addressing the nation’s financial crisis and national security threats.  Wall Street hasn’t reacted favorably to what many see as a liberal spending binge, jumping the gun on costly new programs when there’s no fix for today’s economic mess.  Exploding federal budget deficits signal to Wall Street that there’s hell to pay for misplaced priorities.  With General Motors on the verge of bankruptcy and Citibank and Bank of America facing insolvency, spending money unwisely spells more trouble.

            Wall Street looks for White House leadership, commissioned with the awesome task of fixing the nation’s economy.  Spending untold billions on health care, global warming and alternative energy will only make a bad situation worse.  When President Bush took office in 2001, he had no clue the nation would face the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.  Immediate consequences launched an economic meltdown of historic proportions sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting from 12,500 to about 7,500 July 2003.  Instead of helping a fragile economy, Bush chose to go to war in Iraq March 20, 2003, costing the nation nearly $1 trillion and sacrificing over 4,200 U.S. troops.  Columbia University’s Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz believes the war contributed to today’s economic mess.  Barack must urgently prioritize before it’s too late.

            Published reports about how the White House—including Barack—have singled out private citizen, conservative nationally syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, speaks volumes about misplaced priorities.  Why his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs or any other White House staffer spend one nanosecond on Rush Limbaugh is anyone’s guess.  All efforts should be directed toward reassuring Wall Street and financial markets that the White House has its total focus on fixing the nation’s broken economy.  Barack told a joint session of Congress and national audience Feb. 24 that all must sacrifice to fix the economy including the White House.  So far, no one has seen any sign that he’s willing to put on hold any spending priorities that are not feasible during this time of financial crisis.  Good leadership requires tuning in to his critics.

            Attacking Rush Limbaugh and ignoring the GOP minority in Congress betrays Barack’s promise of bipartisanship.  When three brave Republican senators joined Democrats to support his $787 billion economic recovery plan, it didn’t give the White House license to ignore the opposition.  Barack’s $3.55 trillion budget threw lawmakers for a loop, unable to fathom massive government spending during a make-or-break fiscal crisis.  Obama needs to seriously reconsider his spending plans in light of the nation’s economic mess.  He can’t blame today’s economic crisis on the troubled health care system, global warming or the lack of renewable energy.  Obama knows that banks risky investments in “derivatives” based on subprime mortgages caused the economic disaster.  Today’s health care problems, global warming or lack of alternative fuels didn’t wreck the economy.

            Looming large on the horizon are foreign policy threats, especially Iran’s feverish  pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Just around the corner, Israel will seat a new government behind conservative 59-year-old Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu., an Israeli-born but U.S. educated conservative, with degrees from MIT in architecture and management from the Sloan School.  He’s a brilliant, tough-minded politician, considered one of the most charismatic leaders in Israeli history.  He views Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as another Hitler and believes Tehran’s nuclear program is an existential threat to the Jewish State.  While visiting Israel this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got an up-close-and-personal look at the changing complexion of Israeli politics expected under Netanyahu.  She knows that Netanyahu won’t wait passively while the U.S. and U.N. play cat-and-mouse with Tehran.

            Looking at the big picture, Barack must call off the dogs when it comes to Rush Limbaugh and strike a more conciliatory tone.  Whether or not Rush is the spiritual force behind the GOP, the White House must make a wholehearted attempt to get along with Republicans.  Pushing too hard for multibillion dollar programs before financial markets are stabilized will meet stiff resistance from the GOP.  Whatever concessions were made over his new economic recovery program, Republicans will fight Barack tooth-and-nail over well-meaning profligate spending that explodes the already intolerable budget deficit.  Obama needs to slow down, heed GOP worries about excessive spending and refocus his energy on fixing the economy.  If he has any shot at pushing his health care, global warming and alternative fuels agenda, he needs to satisfy Wall Street and stabilize financial markets.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analysing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2012 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.