BEHOLD the ambition of President Obama. It’s not just that he wants to revive the economy and save the banking system, while reforming energy, health care and education. He seeks to redefine the center of American politics forevermore.
In his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan said that government was the problem. It was a sign of the staying power of Reaganism that Bill Clinton was forced to pronounce the era of big government over in 1995.
Obama didn’t declare the revival of big government last night – but only because he’s after an even grander prize: aligning extensive government activism not with an ideology, but with common sense and pragmatism.
As he outlined a sweeping agenda – from doubling the supply of renewable energy over the next three years; to forging a “retooled, reimagined auto industry”; to moving toward “quality, affordable health care for every American” – Obama disavowed any particular interest in growing government. He said he supported the $787 billion stimulus bill “not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t.”
Instead, Obama argued every part of his agenda is necessary “to fully restore America’s economic strength” and ensure that “this century will be another American century.”
This isn’t wild liberalism, he implicitly said, but the stuff of national greatness.
Almost immediately, Obama took care to correct his apocalyptic tone of the last few weeks. In an opening that noted “the impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere,” he vowed “we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
He compared current circumstances to other crises in American history, including the Civil War and the Great Depression, and cited the enduring progress made possible by government action in those times. We built the railroads and the interstate highway system, instituted public schools and passed the GI Bill.
This too, if Obama gets his way, will be such a pivot point. When his chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, said never waste a crisis, he articulated what Obama hopes will be the governing philosophy of his presidency.
Last night, Obama said “health-care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.”
Obama feels the fierce urgency of now, of capitalizing on the plasticity of the political and economic system as it is softened up by the pressure cooker of the sharp recession.
Can he pull it off? Much depends on whether he can successfully navigate the financial crisis. Last night, he identified himself with the anger over how the TARP program has worked, while making it clear the banks will need more federal funds.
He also talked of responsibility and clean government, while making what was close to a “read my lips” pledge for no taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year and talking of $2 trillion of cuts in government waste. Obama thus portrays himself as something of a fiscal conservative despite his promises of massive new government programs.
It probably sounded good to most Americans, who desperately want Obama to succeed. Whether it’s as plausible or credible when Obama comes back to speak to a joint session of Congress next year is the $1 trillion question.