Obama as President

[jasonandrew]

I've been fairly impressed with Obama as president in his first six months or so.

This country has a mountain of issues and I know that some of his supporters are unhappy in the order in which he is tackling them.

I used to think that his greatest strength was being able to inspire hope.

Instead, I think his greatest asset is his slow methodology. After eight years of Bush and eight years of Clinton, I think that the American Public is unused to a President that is slow respond until there is a plan in place.

Bush never seemed to understand the difference between action and consequence. Or he didn’t care as many have suggested.

Clinton was an emotional president. He allowed himself to make mistakes by making rash decisions.

Obama is coldly logical and methodical. I think many that were energized by the message of hope is confusion passion and ideals with tone and methods.

From a distance, it looks like he runs policy at the White House like a national debate. The first tricks any skilled debater is to learn the data and then establish precedent.

Obama is quickly establishing a lot of precedents.

Perhaps the most overlooked and yet most important is the Open Government project. There is a Chief Information Officer now in the White House. His job is to ensure that the Public can access information.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/innovations/Data/

To quote the site:

Data.gov is a citizen-friendly platform that provides access to Federal datasets. With a searchable data catalog, Data.gov helps the public find, access, and download non-sensitive Government data and tools in a variety of formats.

What does this mean?

All of the information that used to be hidden from us is accessible. This is important because now we can check facts.

When a politician says something, we can look it up.

We’re no longer held hostage to reporters or specialists with special access with an agenda.
Want to know how many single mothers are below the poverty line? Look it up.

Want to know what products have peanut extract? Look it up.

Want a quick way to know how a Senator voted?

You get the idea.

The last eight years, Carl Rove used stories and generated mythology to win elections for Republicans.

The Democrats took it like that poor guy from Deliverance.

Obama is changing how politics will be played. He is changing the nature of the debate.

You want to work towards legalization of pot? You have crime, medical, and economic statistics available directly to you.

Just as the internet has started the rise of the Citizen Reporter via blogs, I believe this is the start of the Citizen Politician.

Comments

[sasjhwa.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of debate about what he should have done. I know it is a lot easier to say what doesn't work than what does. I have been learning a lot about Austrian economics (and yes, I am still learning) which has the philosophy that the economy is the strongest in a Democracy when the free market has less government control. The government should enforce contracts but otherwise should keep its hands off the economy.

Let bankruptcies happen. Chapter 11 is designed to save companies, not destroy them. The pain is great in the short term but they are done. Propping up companies that couldn't keep themselves in business works in the short term but in the long term the underlying problem remains and the government will be stuck with its finger in the dike for years. It is a band aid on a severed artery, rather than proper surgery.

The current system leads to government control of private enterprise which scares me in a very Orwellian way. I do not trust the government. The founding fathers didn't trust the government which is why they wrote in so many ways to limit its power.

Unfortunately the power of the Presidency has grown ever more powerful over the last number of administrations and a great deal under Bush. It is very far out of balance from how the Constitution says it should be. That is an entirely different issue though.

[highway-west.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of debate about what he should have done. I know it is a lot easier to say what doesn't work than what does. I have been learning a lot about Austrian economics (and yes, I am still learning) which has the philosophy that the economy is the strongest in a Democracy when the free market has less government control. The government should enforce contracts but otherwise should keep its hands off the economy.>>

Austrian Economics was cutting edge in the 19th and 20th centuries. In practice, it doesn’t work for the complex banking system we have. Greenspan, former
Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Austrian Economics advocate, admitted that his policies over not strongly regulating the banking system caused problems. I spent two years working at a bank writing banking procedures. I can tell you how screwed up some of the practices are and how out of date the laws are. The Patriot Act really screwed the banking system by adding arcane laws.

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There is a lot of debate about what he should have done. I know it is a lot easier to say what doesn't work than what does. I have been learning a lot about Austrian economics (and yes, I am still learning) which has the philosophy that the economy is the strongest in a Democracy when the free market has less government control. The government should enforce contracts but otherwise should keep its hands off the economy.>>

Austrian Economics was cutting edge in the 19th and 20th centuries. In practice, it doesn’t work for the complex banking system we have. Greenspan, former
Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Austrian Economics advocate, admitted that his policies over not strongly regulating the banking system caused problems. I spent two years working at a bank writing banking procedures. I can tell you how screwed up some of the practices are and how out of date the laws are. The Patriot Act really screwed the banking system by adding arcane laws.

<<Let bankruptcies happen. Chapter 11 is designed to save companies, not destroy them. The pain is great in the short term but they are done. Propping up companies that couldn't keep themselves in business works in the short term but in the long term the underlying problem remains and the government will be stuck with its finger in the dike for years. It is a band aid on a severed artery, rather than proper surgery. >>

Bankruptcies no longer work as they used to due to some new laws passed by Bush and the Republican congress. Unless done properly, a GM bankruptcy would have lead to the death of that company and the assets sold off. Would that have helped the country? Would it have benefited the country to let it fail? There are theories, but at the moment, I suspect a lot of it is guesswork.

<<The current system leads to government control of private enterprise which scares me in a very Orwellian way. I do not trust the government. The founding fathers didn't trust the government which is why they wrote in so many ways to limit its power. >>

Again, you are using fear terms. Government control of private enterprise is socialism.

The tactics our government has been using since 911 has certainly been Orwellian.