The Obama administration has been accused of exploiting the economic crisis. While Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is saying that the link to the economic crisis is vital to the Obama agenda. Conservatives are saying that the administration is using the crisis as an opportunity for action that does not normally exist.
Even though Obama currently “holds the upper hand” in the polls opposed to the republicans who are appearing chaotic and desperate. He is still moving fast for good reason, political history shows that time is not on his side. President Obama wants action in 2009 on both fronts. He has seen his predecessors’ political capital decline after their first years in office and knows he has to act fast.
As team Obama starts in on his initiatives on health care, energy, education, the auto and financial industries as responses to the crisis. Republicans are saying the recession is just an excuse for big-government ambitions that liberals have failed to achieve for decades. Accusing the Obama administration with using the 800 billion dollar economic stimulus plan to pursue what Wall Street Journal editorialists called a “40-year wish list” for liberals.
Last week a survey showed that 52 percent believed that President Obama had taken on “too many other issues” besides the economy. This is exactly the reason why he found himself defending government investments in banks and auto companies. “I want to disabuse people of this notion that somehow we enjoy meddling in the private sector,” he said.
However some democrats are unhappy with Mr. Emanuel’s “crisis” statements believing that he has just given the republicans “a cudgel for battering their motives.” Mr. Emanuel voiced no regrets, saying “it is plain that national crises create opportunities for action that do not normally exist.”
As Mr. Emanuel said about President Obama’s goal long before his first 100 days, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” is exactly what the Bush administration did with the crisis to invade Iraq. They are not letting their window of opportunity go to waste. In policy making you have to wait for your window of opportunity to open and that is exactly what is happening.
The link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/us/politics/04causus.html?ref=us
2 comments:
Isn't it funny that everything we have learned in class really has come to help us understand the President's relationship with Congress? Anytime someone brings up the President and Congress I cannot stop thinking about the class on the "Ten Commandments" in regards to the President. Understanding them helps me understand the direction in which we are moving, one being more legislation for the betterment of U.S. citizens two being more legislation that will hurt us economically and the other being no legislation at all.
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