David Brooks is, to my mind, the most perceptive American political commentator. He is a conservative who understands both the potential and limitations of Obama. Today, he argues that Obama’s decision to try and do everything through the stimulus is as bold as it is risky. He writes that:
“This is daring and impressive stuff. Obama’s team has clearly thought through every piece of this plan. There’s no plank that’s obviously wasteful or that reeks of special-interest pleading. The tax cut is big and bipartisan. Obama is properly worried about runaway deficits, but he’s spending money on things one would want to do anyway. This is not an attempt to use the crisis to build a European-style welfare state.
The problem is overload. Four months ago, no one knew how to put together a stimulus package. Now Obama wants to use it to rush through instant special-ed programs and pre-Ks. Repairing the power grid means clearing complex regulatory hurdles. How is he going to do that in time to employ workers in May?
His staff will be searching for the White House restrooms, and they will have to make billion-dollar decisions by the hour. He is asking Congress to behave and submit in a way it never has. He has picked policies that are phenomenally hard to implement, let alone in weeks. The conventional advice for presidents is: focus your energies on a few big things. Obama just blew the doors off that one.
Maybe Obama can pull this off, but I have my worries. By this time next year, he’ll either be a great president or a broken one.” Obama is inheriting a daunting set of challenges. But this is why he has an opportunity to attempt something like this, normally it would not be possible to try and do as much at once. Can he pull it off? I suspect yes. Ultimately, I think Congress will defer and the plan will pass pretty much as he wants it. My main concern is that the domestic agenda is so all consuming that the White House will miss one of the world’s many crises coming to the boil.
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