Obama Gets a “C” on His First Presidential Achievement

The American Congress’ Senate and House have passed Obama’s economic stimulus plan. This is Obama’s first official achievement since his inauguration. With this being the case, shouldn’t we grade him for his achievement? I believe that it should receive a “C” at the most.

A “C” is a passing score, yet it is a very bad grade. I give it this grade because the bill has, after all, been passed. According to conventional opinion, this was a legislative victory for the president (his first). You cannot say he failed, but in order for Obama to get this legislation passed, he may have paid a large price.

In order to evaluate a politician on the success or failure of this kind of matter, an important standard it look at is whether the outcome of the final expenditures have accumulated or been depleted. When Obama was elected president by an overwhelming majority, his reputation and popularity were both very high. He also possessed a similar political advantage. But while trying to pass this piece of legislation he exhausted all political advantage, and his actual ability to obtain these things is limited.

What am I saying? I'm saying that Obama’s popularity depended on providing hope for everyone. Obama is regarded as a young, new politician, able to cross political parties to avoid party dissatisfaction. Many state Republican Party members have shown support for him, and a number of moderate Republicans and a number of Independents both support him. His public support is widespread, which gave Obama a good opportunity to carry out his new policies. It is too bad he wasted such an excellent advantage.

Facing the unprecedented economic stimulus bill, he did not preside over the drafting, but actually let the Democratic Party members in the House of Representatives control the drafting process. This is just the beginning of Obama losing his presidential credit.

First, the House of Representatives does not have his authority and popularity. The House of Representatives is lower in the opinion poll than even Bush, making it difficult to earn the trust of the people. Second, the House of Representatives is a divided political institution. 435 congressmen respectively represent their small electoral districts; all of them are fighting for their own voters’ benefits. Since they’ve been told that the government must spend more than 800 billion U.S. dollars in order to stimulate the economy, naturally they all want to have the money represent their own vested interests as much as possible.

Obama’s popular election was originally taken as fate. He should have bravely used that "fate," under own his personal supervision, to integrate the two parties' opinions and draft a clean bill. This so-called “clean bill” would forbid any special interest group opinions and spend money in key places. After all, this is fundamentally the most expensive bill in American history, and its effects are unknown, so why wouldn’t he be cautious? Moreover, during his campaign he made a clear promise: to take the federal budget, look through it page by page, and cut all wasteful spending of the taxpayers' money.

The result? He let the Democrats in the House of Representatives take over, and the final bill proposed some 3 million U.S. dollars in golf cart funding, 1.65 billion dollars for federal government building maintenance, and so on. The Democratic tradition of wasteful spending has reappeared once again. Obama promised to bring about change in Washington, but so far there hasn't been any sign of that.

The Republican Party, even without a leader, suddenly found a consensus and stood up in opposition to the bill. During the House of Representatives vote, there was not one vote in support from a Republican Party member. When it arrived in the Senate, there were three moderate Republicans who were willing to consider it, but only on condition that the proposed bill be cut substantially. This resulted in the bill being much smaller than its original scale.

Finally, in order to gain Senate approval, Obama had no choice but to send for a special plane to pick up a Democratic senator who was busy with his mother’s funeral arrangements so that he could take part in this urgent decision. Even with this senator, Obama’s bill only received 60 votes. If his private plane had been unable to fly due to weather, the bill would not have passed.

Obama’s presidential election campaign opponent, Republican Party member John McCain, said that this bill was “stealing from the next generation,” freely spending the money of children and grandchildren who are not even born.

Obama was prepared to nominate Republican senator Greg Judd as secretary of commerce, but the senator immediately withdrew. He said that the Obama administration’s ideology of government would be difficult to accommodate. The inauguration ball is over, and Washington has returned to its old two party politics.

Not long ago I pointed out Obama’s came to power with an anti-left mission. This time he was elected by a majority vote, and the left wing claims credit for it. Not only trade unions, but artists have also bragged about their contribution to his election. Because the support for Obama is so widespread, he does not depend on any special interest group and can establish cross-party relations.

What worries me, though, is that because Obama is a junior member of the party and many senior Democrats support him, and also because his qualifications and records of service are not extensive, he can be easily controlled when it comes to decision-making (unlike Hillary). After analyzing his political standpoints and first trial run, he has not broken away from the traditional influence and control of the Democratic Party. Even with his rhetoric about hope and a new starting point, he hasn’t actually implemented these policies.

It appears that while the difficultly presiding over the White House is still exceeding his expectations, Obama is fully ready, though he is still in the political practice stages. His first broad stroke, with great difficultly, has actually chopped wood, but the axe edge is blunt. The loss of his political capital is major. If the economic situation does not turn around, the Republican Party will rush in and portray him as a spendthrift and economy-destroying traditional Democrat. It is evident that Obama has not had a good beginning.


(The author is a Suffolk University Assistant Professor)