Posted by
Curt Day on Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:38:14 PM
President Obama's economic starship is somewhat like the Starship Enterprise. Where it is going, it is doing so boldly. And certainly, Obama's economic starship is definitely showing a pioneering spirit in terms of where it is willing to wonder. The question becomes whether that pioneering spirit is a friendly spirit.
President Obama has promised to address some long neglected domestic needs. In the past, Presidents who have directed more funds toward domestic needs have done so by diverting funds from military needs. Clinton was able to spend more on domestic needs by cutting the size of the military. On the contrary, when there is an increase in military spending, it is accompanied by a decrease in domestic spending. Martin Luther King observed this when he saw how the budget for the Vietnam war made impotent the war on poverty. Bush, on the other hand, tried to selectively cut domestic spending. Sure, Medicare spending went up because the deals made helped certain corporations. But other domestic spending either decreased or did not increase at the appropriate rates. This was especially true when it came to infrastructure projects like maintaining and strengthening the levees around New Orleans which were ripped open by Katrina.
President Obama is trying a different approach. Not only is he increasing military spending, he is also increasing domestic spending as well. Now if money grew on trees, that would not be a problem; but that is not the case. So we have a problem. To increase both domestic and military spending makes us more financially vulnerable in the long term. We were already hurt by Bush's increased military spending as seen in his credit card wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To conservatives who are eager to attribute fault to everything Obama does, this seems like Obama is trying to be all things to all people. That assessment would be wrong. Obama did leave out an important group of people in both his campaign speeches and his current policies. That group is the lower class. So far, Obama's stimulus package has been advertised as help for the middle class. But actually, Obama's promises follow the Propaganda Model used to describe the mainstream media (MSM) by Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book, "Manufacturing Consent." According to Herman and Chomsky, the MSM shapes the news to the audiences targeted by those who sponsor the news, its advertisers. Thus the news broadcast by the MSM must appeal to those who have money to spend on products. In addition, the MSM must filter the stories it broadcasts less its news puts a damper on the consumer spirit of those who would be buying products.
Obama's plans were designed to appeal to several groups. They certainly were designed to appeal to his campaign contributors and as a result, the financial institutions who were in trouble received bailout money with few strings attached. Obama also appealed to the large constituency of voters called the middle class because he depended on their votes to win. But Obama never made a noticable appeal to the lower class. Was that because he took them for granted? Possibly. Or was it because appealing to the lower class would hurt his chances with everyone else? That is possible too. Regardless, Obama appealed to the middle class on up. And except for his proposal to provide insurance for the uninsured, his policies and proposals leave people from the lower economic class without a dime. Thus we can unfortunately say that Obama's economic plans have not tried to achieve what Martin Luther King suggested in the 1960's.
So Obama's economic starship is boldly going where few have gone before. This should be important to us because we are all on that starship.Though we should not see many dramatic changes in the near future, there is an ominous threat from a galaxy that is far, but not too far, away. That threat is an economy that is too deep in debt and has lost manufacturing tools with which to bring itself out of debt. Will Obama's journey have a happy ending? Only time will tell. But it does not look too promising right now.