Editorial: The Obama Reality; Why "Hope" is not Enough

The Coffee Shop
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We give ourselves a new President on January 20. And with it, a long list of of expectations pinned on something called “Hope”.

What will we get? Ultimately, it is up to us to decide, not our new President.

President-Elect Obama faces a daunting set of prospects, and I doubt any Presdient would envy his position. The Economy, Iraq, health care, our society… The U.S. has suffered economic and social errosion for the past two decades. It has been a long time since we’ve had to rely on something other than “hope” or “promise”, but now is that time.

President-Elect Obama, as fine a man as he is, as fine a President as he may be, cannot save us from our own greatest adversary: Ourselves.

Add to these domestic challenges the perception (reality?) that the U.S. has not been as good a global citizen as it may have been for the previous two decades. That, despite our inconveniences at home, is another necessity for us to address: To re-assert ourselves as the global leaders (examples first). The champions of *true *liberty, freedom and independence. We must resist the temptation to cast the world in our social mold while allowing it to develop its own in freedom and safety but without duress or influence.

Americans flocked to the polls in record numbers. The message was clear: They didn’t like the previous administration any more. They wanted help, they wanted “Hope”. Will “Hope” save us?

Maybe. But only if the hope we have is in ourselves- in the belief in our own ability to work hard and change. It will not be easy, it will not be fast, it will not be painless.

Each time our nation, or rather the *people *of our nation, have faced a challenge- for three centuries now- they have risen to it. The Revolution, The Civil War, slavery, World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, Watergate, The Gulf Wars, 9/11 and now… Americans are resilient, resourceful and tough.

But if we depend on our President too much, our government too much, we will fail. It is up to us. We must manifest the “Hope” into action on our own- taking responsibility and action. Our new President will not do that for us, he will not “fix” the United States, he will not “fix” us. Only we can do that.

I don’t envy President-Elect Obama’s position, it is a difficult one. Like many previous Presidents I am concerned that he will be judged unfairly. He carries many burdens- he is the “cure” for racism, is the savior of our society, he will “fix” our economy. One man cannot do that for all men. Only each man can do that for himself, starting with himself.

As we prepare to welcome our new President remember that we must, at least, hold ourselves to the same level of expectations for change that we hold him to. That ultimately this country starts with each of us.

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**I agree mostly with what you stated. However, the American people have been “told” by democrats they will take care of us either through tax reductions or stimulus spending. Nothing will change except that government will become an even bigger influence on our lives :frowning: Some people understand its up to us as **individuals to make of our life what we will and there will be people who will continue to perfer government to bail them out.

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I have often said in jest that if Hillary had been elected, I would quit my job and wait at home for the government to take care of my needs. I hope that isn’t true of Obama, but I’m very concerned that his solution to government overspending is to spend a lot more money.

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I was a rare and isolated believer in the previous administration. I believe President Bush did a good job in a very difficult time. I doubt *any *President could have done much better, but we will never know. History, hindsight and retrospect are easy pulpits for criticism.

I am also a supporter of President-Elect Obama. I believe some people who voted for him did not read the “contents” on the label though. They don’t truly understand his platform. They hope he will “save” us. President-Elect Obama will not “save” us. It isn’t his job. I do believe he will make well conceived, often unpopular decisions that will put the onus of change and hope on us. I believe he will usher in a new (and possibly unpopular) period of personal accountability. Many people won;t like that. Ultimately though, it is our best hope.

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I am also a supporter of President-Elect Obama. I believe some people who voted for him did not read the “contents” on the label though. They don’t truly understand his platform. They hope he will “save” us. President-Elect Obama will not “save” us. It isn’t his job. I do believe he will make well conceived, often unpopular decisions that will put the onus of change and hope on us. I believe he will usher in a new (and possibly unpopular) period of personal accountability. Many people won;t like that. Ultimately though, it is our best hope.
Agreed, concerning President Bush. I think history will be far kinder to him than the present.

But, your above statement, on what do you base it? President-elect Obama’s record and his own words would seem too indicate the opposite. I do hope you are correct, though. As rampant personal accountability and responsibility would be great for our nation.

I did not vote for President-elect Obama, but he is my president and I do now support him and hope/pray/etc that his is a highly successful administration. I must admit, though, that his cabinet appointments have done nothing to make me believe that change is a-coming. I hope I’m wrong.

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The message I got from him these past two years, is not one of he is going to save us, but that he is going to try and educate us…In that way, we can save ourselves…I never got the he was a top down kind of guy, but the opposite…That’s what I hear from him, and that’s what you see in his campaign…The big question is, are we going to listen to what he has to say, and act accordingly…It is one thing to change the system(which is quite difficult on it’s own), and another to change peoples habits. I hope that the timing is right for a guy like him, and we are all ready to change some bad habits that have been hardwired into our society for a very long time…

Besides building bridges, roads, dams, ect., I really hope we start to build stuff that I want to buy again, and then sell it to the rest of the world…We need to graduate more engineers than lawyers, more craftsmen than bankers, more doctors than stockbrokers…We need a good slap in the face to wake us up, and it appears the hand is swinging towards our face right now…

He doesn’t have the best circumstances in which to begin his presidency, but it is what it is, and he has to deal with that stuff too. I just want to see his ideas incorporated into the drastic measures that have to be taken as much as possible. Make every borrowed dollar spent, count as much as possible, and have its impact felt not just in the here and now, but in the future…

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“The message I got from him these past two years, is not one of he is going to save us, but that he is going to try and educate us…In that way, we can save ourselves…”

My concern is many people who may have voted for him have a different set of expectations.

“Besides building bridges, roads, dams, ect., I really hope we start to build stuff that I want to buy again, and then sell it to the rest of the world…We need to graduate more engineers than lawyers, more craftsmen than bankers, more doctors than stockbrokers…We need a good slap in the face to wake us up, and it appears the hand is swinging towards our face right now…”

Agreed.

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I believe some people who voted for him did not read the “contents” on the label though. They don’t truly understand his platform.

I somewhat agree, but one optimistic thing (myself an Obama supporter and a close friend of mine who isn’t both agreed on) is that Obama does not appear to be afraid of upsetting the extremes on either end. He has upset some of the people in his own party and some people in the other party, so far his governing style (based mostly on his appointments) seems very centrist and very inclusive. I like a guy who isn’t afraid to piss off some of his own supporters.

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I’m very concerned that his solution to government overspending is to spend a lot more money.

With that statement you are entering the debate between several economic schools of thought. I assume you consider yourself a conservative, so I assume the old stigma of “tax and spend” democrats is what upsets you. You like low taxes, small gov’t…that’s fine, I disagree somewhat, but can respect that. However, you and I can both agree that tax more/spend more and tax less/spend less are both realistic ways to keep the books balanced. You might not like tax and spend, but if you tax a bit, you can spend more. And I’ll concede that if you cut services, you can cut taxes. Unfortunately, the current administration has cut taxes like a republican and spent at a rate that would put any democratic administration to shame, that simply can’t work. This is the only time we have gone to war without increasing taxes to pay for it, and not only haven’t we increased taxes to pay for it, we’ve cut them.

There aren’t a whole lot of options left for getting our sputtering economy going again. Expansionary fiscal policy seems to be our best bet at this point which is what Obama is advocating, in part, because our monetary policy gun is out of bullets…

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I hardly hold that stigma only to the Democrats - the Republicans have been doing a dandy job of overspending as well. It’s intake versus output. If you raise taxes, fine, but don’t then accelerate spending beyond the increased intake. In my simple opinion, you could make huge strides by simply keeping the government budget at the same dollar level for a few years. Of course the game in Washington is to plan a 15% increase, then “only” increase by 10% and call it a 5% cut.

And while I’m not much for raising taxes, my primary objection is that the money will NEVER be spent responsibly, it will just go to pork. For instance, I would have no problem raising the federal tax on gasoline gradually up to $5.00 per gallon over the next ten years, if only to change driving behaviors in America, but will that money go into roads and transportation, or will it be used in the complex shellgame that the politicians keep playing??

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I was a rare and isolated believer in the previous administration. I believe President Bush did a good job in a very difficult time. I doubt *any *President could have done much better, but we will never know. History, hindsight and retrospect are easy pulpits for criticism.

I am also a supporter of President-Elect Obama. I believe some people who voted for him did not read the “contents” on the label though. They don’t truly understand his platform. They hope he will “save” us. President-Elect Obama will not “save” us. It isn’t his job. I do believe he will make well conceived, often unpopular decisions that will put the onus of change and hope on us. I believe he will usher in a new (and possibly unpopular) period of personal accountability. Many people won;t like that. Ultimately though, it is our best hope.
I think the statement I put in bold is vastly under-stated, at least as far as I have experienced. Being on a college campus, I have to say that 90% of the students who voted for Obama fall within this category. They voted for him because of words like “Hope”, “Change”, “Save”, etc. I don’t think any of them actually know anything about what Obama actually stood for though. I have asked many of them why they voted for Obama, and the answers I got typically sounded like “Because he will change the country”, “because he will save us”, etc. When I asked how they thought he would do this, I got mumbles and blank stares aplenty.

Overall, though, I agree with what you said. I think Bush did as well as he could, and I don’t think any other president would have done any better.

And I honestly do hope that Obama brings about a period of personal accountanbility, as you say (unfortuantely the pessimist in me doesn’t expect that from him, but I’m trying to stay open-minded). I think personal accountability, more than anything else, is what our country needs, but is SERIOUSLY lacking.

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The only way out of this is to raise taxes. If Obama had balls he would raise the gas tax and use the money to pay for the stimulus package programs. The sad fact is that we are going to be f’d no matter what. In 20 years the expenditures for just the entitlement programs will take all of the tax revenue. We are in for a very rough 50 years. Most of the industrialized countries are going to have it even worse due to declining populations. China will have it worst of all because they have no safety net for the seniors. Expect riots in the streets in the next decade.

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“Besides building bridges, roads, dams, ect., I really hope we start to build stuff that I want to buy again, and then sell it to the rest of the world…We need to graduate more engineers than lawyers, more craftsmen than bankers, more doctors than stockbrokers…We need a good slap in the face to wake us up, and it appears the hand is swinging towards our face right now…”

Couldn’t agree more. But we need some sort of seismic cultural shift that sees education and hard work as important. That’s where Asia will pummel us. We think the coolest people are media clowns, sports stars, ass-kicking cops and commandos and Donald Trumps and that its not cool at all to be educated professionals. That thinking needs to change: I would like to think that Obama, for all his superstar status, can help change that thinking. We’ll see.

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I think Bush did as well as he could, and I don’t think any other president would have done any better.

He may have done as well as he could, but you’ve gotta be kidding me - no other president would have done better?

Regardless of your political slant, I find this statement amazing.

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I think Bush did as well as he could, and I don’t think any other president would have done any better.

He may have done as well as he could, but you’ve gotta be kidding me - no other president would have done better?

Regardless of your political slant, I find this statement amazing.
As you said, let’s ignore political slant. I am of the opinion that a different president would have handled the situation much differently. I don’t necessarily think that someone else would have put us into the same shit-hole we are in now, but I think they would have put us into a different shit-hole. Regardless, it’s still a shit-hole.

Let me state, I am not a fan of any politicians, regardless of political party.

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In years to come Bush may get a better wrap in history , but Obama has really been given a card house to repair . They like to post news reports "Gas down $1.39 since last year " " A Huge stock market surge Nov- Jan " , Nobody that works , really believes that .

People believed three things would never happen — that DID . Their homes value dropped - their secure job wasn’t - their investments all drop ( some just before / during retirement ) .

The progression will be , Yes we CAN , Maybe we could , Geeez we tried , Boy we’re screwed , Do you like government cheese ?

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"Besides building bridges, roads, dams, ect., I really hope we start to build stuff that I want to buy again, and then sell it to the rest of the world.

not going to happen.

it is not the 1950s and 1960s anymore. the era of quasi-colonialism ended when the developing world ran out of borrowing room.

a large transfer of income is underway from the western middle class to developing nations like china and india. the western middle class is going to shrink significantly over the next 20 years, while the developing world’s middle class grows.

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I predict you’ve just shared part of his inaugural speech, which is something that he really should say.

Funny, he didn’t say anything like that during the campaign.

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My concern is many people who may have voted for him have a different set of expectations.

Same here and I did not really get the impression that he didn’t do much to try and change their expectations or impressions, but rather let them think that their expectations would be met … or at least let them continue believing that until voting time.

Imagine the backlash if the “change” he was talking about was in regards to personal responsibiity and independence from the government. I don;t think that’s the message many of the voters for him perceived.

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However, you and I can both agree that tax more/spend more and tax less/spend less are both realistic ways to keep the books balanced. You might not like tax and spend, but if you tax a bit, you can spend more. And I’ll concede that if you cut services, you can cut taxes.

True, but I want the money that I earn (which isn’t much…grad student) to be spent the way I want it, not what the government forces me to spend it on. Because of my lack of income at the present time, I probably benefit more from higher taxes/more services, but at some point I plan on earning a decent amount and don’t want a large portion of it swiped before I get to see it.

That and i think there are too many broken gov’t systems. If its broken, FIX IT OR GET RID OF IT.