President Obama’s first 100 days in office are likely to be
judged in different ways by different people, but there’s one
measure by which he’s been objectively successful — the speed at
which he has advanced his liberal agenda.
The young president has certainly had his share of stumbles along
the way, including: the bungled nominations of Judd Gregg and
Bill Richardson to be Commerce Secretary; the tax problems of Tim
Geithner and Tom Daschle (the latter costing Obama his original
point man on health care); and the AIG bonus controversy.
But these events were all short-lived and in the meantime, Obama
has kept his mind focused on his larger goal of using government
to fundamentally remake the American economy.
Obama came into office at a moment of economic peril with a
substantial Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress, a
friendly media, and the momentum from a successful presidential
campaign. He has proceeded to enact his proposals at such a
ferocious pace, that Republicans and conservative activists have
had difficulty concentrating their message because of the sheer
volume of initiatives that warrant opposing.
On February 17, less than a month after taking the oath of
office, Obama was able to sign his $787 billion economic stimulus
package. The following week, while Republicans were still
pointing out all of the pork-barrel spending included in the
economic plan, Obama had moved on to making the case for his
$3.55 trillion budget and his vision to transform energy,
education, and health care. Earlier this month the House and
Senate essentially approved his budget blueprint, and are
expected to vote on a revised version today.
Previously stalled legislation that had long been the subject of
years contentious debate, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay
Act and S-CHIP, quickly became law without much fanfare once
Obama took office.
Each day brings another headline of a new Obama intervention – a
$275 billion housing plan, a renewed bank bailout, a decision to
sack the chief executive of a private company, and, just this
Monday, a pledge to have the federal government target how much
of the nation’s gross domestic product is devoted to scientific
research and development spending.
While most new presidents are given leeway to implement at least
some of their campaign proposals, Obama has been able to get more
items passed, sooner, than most. By comparison, George W. Bush
didn’t sign his first tax cut until June 2001 and Ronald Reagan
wasn’t able to sign his signature tax cut plan until August 1981.
In 1993, it took Al Gore’s tie-breaking vote in the Senate, also
in August, to pass Bill Clinton’s economic plan and budget.
There should be little doubt that Obama’s actions will catch up
with him, eventually. It’s easy to remain popular when you’re
handing out goodies if people don’t think they’ll have to pay for
them. But his spending is projected to more
than double our debt to $17.3 trillion over the next decade,
or a staggering 82.4 percent of our economy. The money required
to close that gap cannot come out of thin air — not without
triggering a
massive inflation.
No political prognosticator or economist knows enough to say with
any degree of accuracy when that day of reckoning will come.
Americans may reach a realization in a matter of months, or it
could take several years. The essential question is how much
Obama can get done in the intermediate time period.
The good news for conservatives is that Obama hasn’t yet
succeeded in fundamentally changing America. His economic
measures have set bad precedents, but most are at least
theoretically reversible once the current crisis is over should a
more conservative government take over at some point in the
future.
However, if Obama succeeds in passing health care legislation
later this year, America will be destined to resemble Europe, and
there will be no turning back, no matter how fierce the public
backlash over the inevitable explosion in deficits and
implementation of rationing.
For all of his successes, Reagan couldn’t make a dent in the main
pillars of the welfare state and even consented to a payroll tax
hike to subsidize a failing Social Security system. When
Republicans swept into Congress in 1994, during the short period
in which they actually tried to rein in government, they were
able to pass modest welfare reform, but unable to touch Medicare.
Obama envisions himself as a transformational liberal leader,
whose programs, like FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society, live
on long after he’s gone. He’s well on his way to achieving his
goal, unless Republicans figure out some way to slow him down.
