When Obama Took the Reins of the Presidency, a lot of people expected that all of a sudden some magic was about to happen. Things would get better quickly now that that ignoramus, George W Bush, was out of office. After all it was Bush that started two unnecessary wars costing trillions, gave tax breaks to the rich costing billions that were unpaid for and ran up the national debt, and created a Medicare Part D drug benefit program costing ongoing billions which was again uppaid for and ran up the national debt even more. Dick Cheney famously said, "Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't count." Well, if they don't, Dick, how comes it that your party is so upset over them now? Or is it only when a Democrat is in office that you're so concerned? The ongoing Bush deficits which Obama inherited are what's causing most of the Obama deficits because they are structurally built into the budget.
You might think that Obama would just cancel the wars, restructure Medicare Part D (he is trying folks) and get rid of the tax breaks for the rich (he's trying for that too). The problem is Obama can't do any of these things unilaterally. He doesn't have the power. I know that seems quaint to a lot of people that the President doesn't have unlimited power, but the fact of the matter is that the President needs Congress' help to get anything done and the Republicans in Congress are doing their unlevel best to see to it that the President gets nothing done. Nada!
Obama for his part doesn't want to make any radical departures from Bush policies. He has picked up exactly where Bush left off, and slowly, gradually, he's trying to turn around the ship of state. But he doesn't want to do it too abruptly. That's not his modus operandi. No matter how odious and repulsive Bush policies were, Obama holds his nose and starts out exactly where Bush left off. Witness the two wars. Obama didn't pull the troops out of Iraq the minute he took office. He could have. As commander in chief that's one area where he does have almost complete control. But he didn't want the discontinuity. Instead, he took a slowly but surely approach with the result that American military involovement in Iraq is finally coming to an end about one and a half years after Obama took office.
Make no mistake - Obama's policy on the war in Iraq is infinitely better than Bush's or McCain's would have been. Those two gentlemen would have found all kinds of pretexts for continuing, even ramping up, the war. Every mosque bombing or police station bombing would have caused them to send more troops. They are kneejerk warmongers. This is exactly what they did when Bush was in charge. Instead, Obama has resisted any change in his gradual policy of disengagement no matter how many bombings have occurred. My prediction is, even if you have a radical takeover of the government in Iraq unfavorable to the US, Obama will resist the temptation to send the troops back. Bush or McCain wouldn't.
The same thing is true about the war in Afghanistan. Obama is taking a gradualist approach to winding that war down over the course of a year whereas Bush or McCain would find pretexts to stay there indefinitely. This gradualist, incremental approach is not fast enough for many on the left, but consider the alternative - ramping up the war. Sure Obama did a "surge." So what. The general curve of involvement is downward although that is not quite evident yet.
Now take reducing the outlandish military-industrial complex budget. Very cleverly, Obama has Secretary of Defense Gates make a big announcement about that. Gates has announced that he would like to cut military spending by $100 billion over the next five years. But, unfortunately, this is subject to Congressional approval. Obama was too smart to announce these potential cuts himself because Republicans would pounce all over it and say he's "weak on defense." But when Obama has Republican Gates announce a major cutback, what can they say? Similarly, Obama has been understated about the Iraq War coming to an end. Notice he didn't put a sock in his jock and stride aboard a Navy carrier and declare victory! He has downplayed it, and to good advantage. He doesn't want to give Republicans the ammunition to say "weak on defense," "weak on war." Blah. Blah. Blah.
Obama's letting the Bush tax breaks for the rich expire again is a way of maintaining continuity with the Bush administration and just letting happen what was already set in place by the Bush administration itself - that the tax breaks would expire in 2011. The Bush administration hoisted these tax breaks on its own petard! The reason this came about was that the Bush administration used the reconciliation process - the same process that was used to pass Obamacare - to enact them. That process mandated that they should expire in ten years if they weren't paid for which they weren't. However, Obama is maintaining in effect the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. A clever way of raising taxes on the rich without having actually to do anything - just maintaining current Bush policies in effect. Hoist then on their own petards whenever you can, I say! Of course, Republicans are howling because they want Obama to maintain the tax cuts for the rich even though they were due to expire. But the egg is on their face! Obama will finesse them on this as well he should.
Obama has shown concern for the deficits by insisting on a return to pay as you go which means that any programs he puts forward have to be paid for. This was clear with the health care bill. Bush, on the other hand, totally abandoned pay go in his orgy of spending and increasing the national debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. He doubled the national debt and created ongoing structural deficits which Obama, unfortunately, had to inherit.
Obama also maintained continuity in health care in many ways while passing a major piece of health care legislation. This infuriated many progressives who wanted a public option. But Obama maintained the same private system; he didn't put the health insurance corporations out of business like many progressives wish he had. Despite cries of "socialism," Obama didn't adopt a European style health care system. He reformed around the edges, getting rid of the most egregious and odious features of the current health care system like rescission and denying health care insurance to those with a previously existing condition. Provisions were made for the expansion of community health centers which will do a lot to provide services to the poor. So it was a hodge podge rather than a simple and direct system like "Medicare for everyone." Again Obama tried to maintain continuity even at the expense of alienating his base. However, the hodgy podgyness of the health care bill has created the situation where people don't really understand or appreciate what it's all about and right wing talk shows, Fox news, Republican politicians and Tea Partiers, fueled with right wing billionaire Koch brothers money, have demonized it. The right wing feels that they can demonize anything out of existence no matter how benign and fruitful it actually may be.
So despite Obama's incrementalist approach and his penchant for maintaining continuity with the Bush administration, he has actually turned the ship of state in a new direction. His problem is that the right wing media has continued pulling hard in the opposite direction and there is no effective counterbalance that would sing Obama's praises and angelicize, for lack of a better word, his noble and in many ways successful efforts despite all out obstructionism by Congressional Republicans.
