Obama's Brand of Pragmatism

I never expected Barack Obama to be the type of president who would sit on his hands once elected into office. Still, I didn't quite expect him to be as active as he has been. Compared to the G.W. Bush and W.J. Clinton administrations, the pace the Obama administration has set thus far has been downright frenetic. To be fair, I think most administrations tend to be more active in their first year, but I think it's safe to say that Obama has been trying quite hard to follow up on the issues he campaigned on and to deliver at least some of the change he spoke so much about last year. That's honestly commendable -- he is doing the job the voters sent him in to do -- but at the same time I have to admit I've been surprised to find out that Obama is pragmatic in a different way than I had anticipated.

Here's what I expected to happen after last year's election. Following the transition of power, I felt the president would focus squarely on the most pressing issue of the day which was and still is the economy. I expected other projects -- especially expensive projects -- to be pushed to the background while the government tackled the crisis at hand. To an extent, that did happen as the president crusaded for a large stimulus package which Congress passed despite some Republican opposition. Strangely, though, after the stimulus was passed, the government turned its attention to other things. In my view, this was premature...you can't build a house on an unsteady foundation. With the markets still in chaos, massive numbers of people out of work, and foreclosures rising, I'm not sure the country is really ready to absorb the costs of cap and trade and health care reform. President Obama seems to take a very long-term view of things; he has seemed to me to have anticipated the end of the recession from the very start of his administration. Even the stimulus package was full of long-term investments in things like education and green energy. Politics, however, is often a short-term game. Obama's poll numbers have been going down of late as it has became apparent that the economy isn't going to improve quickly. The extent to which any government can really turn around an economy is limited, especially in a quasi-free market economy, but I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off had Obama followed a different course and played the role of cheerleader more, reassuring the American public, businesses, and investors that everything was going to be better soon and giving them concrete reasons to be optimistic. Instead, the new initiatives Obama has supported have actually scared a lot of people -- there's a great deal of concern about the government's ability to pay for health care reform, about new taxes, and about rising utility costs in response to cap and trade. Of course the opposition would always foment fear no matter when these drastic changes were proposed, but I think the fear effect has been magnified due to the timing. So Obama hasn't quite been as pragmatic as I expected with regards to the economy.

On the other hand, the president has shown another type of pragmatism which has helped make him an effective leader so far. Obama by nature is a negotiator, someone who wants to hear different points of view and who is open to at least listening to others' ideas. He might not necessarily be a politician who can bridge the gap between the two major parties, but he has shown a lot of ability to work with Congress. In his eagerness to collaborate with legislators, though, Obama has also shown a willingness to abandon some positions he embraced during his campaign. For instance, he hasn't been been strongly advocating against making health insurance compulsory for all Americans or against taxing health benefits, both things Congress is considering. His motives may be pure -- he really wants health care reform as soon as possible and so is willing to compromise in order to get things done quickly -- but he's also abandoned a lot of voters who expected him to stand up for the vision for health care he laid out during the campaign. Not keeping your word isn't exactly admirable in my book. If Obama didn't really believe health insurance shouldn't be forced on anyone, he should never have differentiated his position from Hillary Clinton's (an open supporter of compulsory insurance). If Obama didn't think taxing health benefits was unacceptable, he shouldn't have differentiated his position from John McCain's. Probably the majority of voters just want health care reform and don't care about these details -- they'll judge Obama on his effectiveness at getting things done. Ultimately, it IS up to Congress to do the legislating anyway. Still, I expected Obama to use his influence to shape the process and debate more. In the end, he does have to sign the actual piece of legislature that reaches his desk; it doesn't appear that Congress has any concern that he won't sign whatever they deliver, however. I'll certainly take any specific positions Obama endorses during the next election with a giant grain of salt -- clearly, Democratic members of Congress' views are far more important when it comes to actually implementing change.