Obama's Promises - Term Paper Example

In 2007, the American public witnessed the greatest propaganda assault in the history of published media. A campaign of candi Barack Obama used every means of communication available to speak of “change” and “hope” to a nation pessimistic about their government’s ability to impose productive (and favorable) public policies. The previous administration shook their confidence in transparent government acting on behalf of the “common man”. This populism, taken with the colossal failure of the Bush administration, led to the election of a man who cast their “failed policies” as fundamentally and philosophically opposed to his own. The message of “change” and “hope” that his campaign bombed the public with was entirely predicated on the existence of a contrast: they and I, thou and I. Obama’s election is solely attributable to this contrast and the rhetorical emphasis upon that contrast. America experienced this same phenomenon in 1976: the year in which Jimmy Carter became renowned for lofty campaign promises. All that Carter needed was an image: the image of an “outsider”, somebody “fresh”, somebody to stand in contrast with the failure of Nixon and his corruption. Like Carter, Obama has made promise under the guise of an outsider, and Americans took him on his word. But Carter met resounding failure, both in his ability to stand up for his country in the face of its enemies and to bring lasting improvement in the country’s economic situation. To the question of whether the current President can keep those promises he has given to get elected, it appears as though he will not be able to. As Jonathan Woon and countless commentators have indicated, there is an aura of optimism floating above Obama’s supporters. Of course, the stars are aligned for the implementation of progressive policies not seen since the legislation of New Deal policies (Woon 329). The Congress is led by Democrats in both houses, ready to submit to a Democratic President for approval. But not only are liberal members of Congress impeding the “progress” that Obama supporters are seeking, politicians have not changed their ways from the paradigm the new President called “politics as usual”. The optimism these supporters share is merely symbolic: it is what the President represents as a person, and not as a politician, which is the subject of so much hero worship. Although optimism is good when dealing with life’s problems, in excess it can stand in the way of real progress. Loyalty to people, instead of loyalty to ideas, can lead well-intentioned people (the voters of America) to support a President no matter what he fails to do. Before proceeding, we ought to look specifically at what we refer to when speaking about the President’s “campaign promises” and what constitutes a fulfillment of these promises. During his campaign, or during his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the office of President, Obama outlined a course of action which he called the “American promise”. This plan is marked by a series of promises in a wide range of issues that face Americans in a complex political landscape. The Promise included cutting taxes for ninety-five percent of working families, encouraging small businesses, and discouraging corporatism. This means creating “a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it”. Servicing the tenor of this tax agenda, Obama’s Promise means “affordable, accessible healthcare for every single American”. To do this, his plan is to compel insurance companies to cover the sick and weak, and to give lower premiums so that everybody can have the funds for health insurance. With respect to education, another pressing social issue, Obama promised to fulfill the obligation to give all children access to education, pushing for higher quality in teachers and facilities, and to pay for young Americans’ college educations so long as they “serve their community or country”. The candidate’s energy agenda also received much attention from voters and pundits. He established a decade-long plan to end dependency on foreign oil: a promise to invest in clean coal, nuclear power, and natural gas. This meant compulsion of American automakers to design and sell fuel-efficient cars, and thereby secure working jobs. Taking these policies together, it is clear that the candidate’s economic and domestic agenda is a reimplementation of New Deal progressivism (Obama, Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama). This means a flooding of government-supplied resources into the economy to spur growth and providing the infrastructure (via government programs) for job-creation. Given this historical parallel, Obama continues his promise by looking at labor law, saying that he would ensure paid sick days and better family leave for workers, and close the gap between incomes in the sexes. With regard to federal spending, the candidate promised to cut useless federal programs (or reduce their costs), and pay for “every dime” of his costs. This promise to pay for “every dime” is something that will be looked at in due time, in the context of the federal government’s recent spending spree. Of course, economics and social issues are not all there is to be looked at when one is President. It might be said that the complexities of macromanaging foreign relations and national defense outweigh those of micromanaging an economy. For the national defense, the candidate promised to end the war in Iraq and shift attention to Afghanistan: that sending troops into harm’s way ought to be accompanied with a clear mission and a clear way to exit. With respect to foreign relations, the candidate’s chief message was in rebuilding the image of America, and to be tough in its diplomacy instead of in its threats of force. The point of this shift in mindset would be to “build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation, poverty and genocide, climate change and disease”. Clearly, domestic interests can be (and often are) sacrificed in favor of foreign policies (Wittkopf and McCormick 112). The degree to which the candidate can follow through on his campaign promises is largely of a function of how well he or she can balance foreign and domestic interests. However, we are still not entirely clear on what it would mean for a candidate (a candidate of any kind) to “fulfill” a campaign promise. What kind of promise is a campaign promise? Obviously, such a promise does not constitute a verbal legal contract, for if it did, many Presidents would find themselves being sued for not following through. Rather, a series of campaign promises make up what is called an “election platform”, which a political party uses to appeal to voters. There is nothing binding in a campaign promise, just as an election platform is a series of opinions—normative judgments that say how we ought to fix a problem. Therefore, we ought not to see strict, legal fulfillment of these promises as “keeping the promise” in the general sense. Instead, we must regard a campaign promise as something like an assurance and not really an obligation, similar to when a parent promises that there are no ghosts in the closet or monsters under the bed. Thus, in order to “fulfill” a candidate’s campaign promise, that President must merely achieve a minimum level of his pledge. We know with certainty that a campaign promise is not an end in itself; obviously, it is used by a candidate to get himself elected. In this way it differs from all other kinds of promises, and thereby does not commit the President to any specific course of action. The question remains, however, whether the current President can follow through on any of his assurances, even to a minimal standard required of him, in his term as President. Beginning in foreign policy, it is difficult to see any change in the transition from the Bush administration to that of Obama and the Democratic Congress. The new President seems more open to “talking”, but what does this really mean? With respect to Iran, why would an unresponsive leader suddenly feel the urge to speak? The Bush administration’s foreign policy was to wage international war on terrorists, leading inevitably to a trap in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Obama promises to extricate American forces from Iraq, this seems to have come at the expense of a larger, more costly war in Afghanistan. Even his promise to take Iraq of the table has faltered, with the new President constantly changing his mind because of “conditions on the ground”. There have been four promises with respect to Iraq, and the last of which was the promise that there was no change in his third promise. Given the special situation of Iraq, it is highly unlikely that a withdrawal of American forces from that country would be in the best interest of America, Iraq, or the rest of the world. In Afghanistan, it is equally unlikely that victory will be found; inevitably, it may come down to be a case of acknowledging the Taliban’s legitimacy. Given America’s weakened abilities to conduct foreign wars when the economic situation is so bleak at home, it may be the case that Obama’s promises dealing with foreign relations are unfeasible (Dingli). Recall that a central piece of the candidate’s election was the contrast his propagandistically drew between himself and the “failed policies of the past”, referring of course to his assessment of a Bush administration’s foreign and domestic policy. However, it remains unclear how the Obama administration’s foreign policy will be any different, and thus how he will deliver on campaign promises of “change”. The new administration has spoken of three D’s: defense, diplomacy, and development—leaving out an essential one, according to columnist Robert Kagan, which is diplomacy. The Bush administration, despite its rhetoric, was profoundly anti-freedom and anti-democratic: supporting Musharraf, Putin, Mubarak, and dictatorships in Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States. Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, which were marked by failed military strategy that left the door open for future dictatorships, there was hardly any place in the world where the “freedom agenda” was followed through upon. As Thomas Carothers warns, “A major post-Bush realist corrective is needed represents a serious misreading of the past eight years” (Kagan). And Obama seems to hardly be an escape from such a policy. If it can accomplish anything, it will be in matching the rhetoric laid forth by the previous administration, accompanied by very little action to back it up. Given the previously-mentioned obstacles to democracy and peace, it is very unlikely that the current President will be able to fulfill, even to a minimum standard, much of difference between his foreign policy and that of the former President. The President’s promises on foreign policy, however, seem rather tame in comparison to those he has made with respect to domestic and social issues, such as education, healthcare, the environment, and energy. These promises are not so much what he has said about how he is trying to fix the problem. For instance, his promise is not that he will pass a multi-billion dollar stimulus package. The promise deals with that for the sake of which the stimulus money was handed out: namely, the economic problems America is experiencing. Americans took the candidate on his word that his policies would fix the economy and thus open the door for reforms in education, healthcare, the environment, and energy. Thus, all promises that the candidate made during his campaign hinge upon his ability to follow through on this one: fixing the broken economy. This means jump-starting job creation, stabilizing the markets, and getting credit flowing once again. Such a lofty goal is one that Obama has stated “only the government” can achieve (Loven), lending credence to the view that the President has promised to fix the problem through his own policies. Nevertheless, a critical look at the means by which the new administration is going about fixing the problem reveals serious problems, despite economists’ assurances (or, “promises”) of its effectiveness. A little more than half of the package is actually expenditures, and the rest takes the form of tax cuts, which are unlikely to activate the 1.5x multiplier effect on which the entire measure depends. Economist Frank Shostak recently posed the question, “The government doesnt create any real wealth, so how can an increase in government outlays revive the economy?” (Shostak). It seems this question has no real answer and is thus a rhetorical question: one which punches a whole in the economic policies of the new administration, and their plans to “fix” the economy. Without a strong economy of taxpaying, working citizens, it is clear (both to the public and to the President himself) that Congress will be unable (or unwilling) to push through additional spending measures dealing with other social, domestic, and foreign issues. The President’s term will turn into a backwater channel and none of his potential “fixes” will be implemented. Like many Presidents in recent history before him, Barack Obama will fail to live up to the extraordinarily high expectations he set for himself. Not only were the concrete policy changes he promised unachievable, but the entire tenor of his campaign will stand for nothing when, at the end of his term(s) in office, we see that his Presidency was a continuation of those policies he rhetorically challenged during his first campaign. It is likely that Obama’s second campaign will be a matter of asking for clemency for the lack of progress seen under his first term. And the American people will likely reelect him, fearing that if they do not, the “investments” his administration has made will be for nothing. But they will be for nothing. The promises Obama has made as a candidate and as a President represent the primacy of style over substance when it comes to politics. What the candidate needed to do was to advertise and to create a contrast between himself and his predecessor when none existed. The obstacles are too great for this President to impose lasting “change” on the American people, especially by means of an institution that is inherently incapable of bringing about positive social or economic change—the federal government. Obama has allocated the power of fixing an economy to the government, instead of to entrepreneurs in the interest of a speedy recovery and fulfilling the promises that elected him. Regrettably, such new power will come at the cost of immense suffering and failure. Bibliography Dingli, Shen. Can Obama Honor His Promises? 11 November 2008. 10 April 2009 . Kagan, Robert. Foreign Policy Sequels. 9 March 2009. 10 April 2009 . Loven, Jennifer. Obama: Only Government Can Break Cycle of Job Loss, Economic Downturn. 9 February 2009. 10 April 2009 . Obama, Barack. "Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech." Denver, CO: New York Times Online, 28 August 2008. —. "Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama." Election Night. Chicago, IL, 4 November 2008. Shostak, Frank. Can Fiscal Stimulus Revive the US Economy? 22 January 2009. 10 April 2009 . Wittkopf, Eugene R. and James M. McCormick. The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence. 4th Edition. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003. Woon, Jonathan. "Change We Can Believe In? Using Political Science to Predict Policy Change in the Obama Presidency." Political Science & Politics 42 (2009): 329-333. Read More