Obama at Two Years. What Have We Learned?

We are coming up on the two years since President Obama's election and the reviews are not coming in as well as many of his supporters would have hoped. The economic numbers are still wobbly. The war in Afghanistan is, at best, a long way from over. There is a fragile peace in Iraq, which can be attributed to the surge that Mr. Obama opposed as a senator. Most pundits are predicting some bad losses for the Democrats in the November mid-term elections. In the past two years a new group, collectively known as the Tea Partiers, has come into existence annd, love them or hate them, you can not deny their influence.

In the midst of all this I would like to ask the young supporters of Obama a question that my father used to ask me after something did not go as planned: Have you learned anything? Has the president for "our time" delivered as promised? Do you think that the changes that are needed are right around the corner? Are you impressed with how the President has conducted his foreign policy? Are your parents happier with their economic situation? Are you happy with your economic situation? Are the right people in charge? These are a lot of questions; do you think you have the answers?

To be fair, I am not really picking on the young voters. We are all young once. Really what I want them to do is learn from this.

I am going to go back to when I was a young voter. Ronald Reagan was running for office against Jimmy Carter. There was no way I was going to vote for Mr. Carter. But I was not sold on Mr. Reagan. There was alternative. A Liberal Republican congressman named John Anderson was running as an independent. He had some ideas which I thought, at least at the time, were interesting, even though I was not a liberal. So, I threw away my vote for John Anderson. In the long run, I'd like to think enough Democrats did the same to get President Reagan elected.

Leadership can be shown in surprising ways. So what did I learn that changed me? Well, the first thing was not to throw away a vote. But that was nothing compared to the education I got over the next six to nine months. The first lesson was a painful one. Painful, that is, for Mr. Reagan, because he got shot and showed his true self. When he was shot, I witnessed a man with a self-deprecating optimistic view of life. That got my attention; I like people like that. I thought that there must be something special about this guy.

Government governs best that governs least. Next I started to hear more about the importance of limited government. Government was bloated, taxes were too high, unemployment was too high, and inflation was out of control. Reagan called for tax cuts so that earners could keep more of their earnings. He was working with Arthur Laffer's theory that a decrease in tax rates actually brings in more revenues. He worked with Fed Chairman Paul Volker to maintain tight money and bring inflation under control. While this was going on PATCO, the Air Controllers Union, called an illegal strike. Mr. Reagan said he would fire them if they did (He really had no choice). They struck anyway; he fired them. Most leaders would have backed off. After all this, not only did I have a lesson in economics and public policy, I also had a lesson in leadership.

For the rest of Ronald Reagan's presidency, I became a true believer and an ardent supporter. I had a convert's zeal. Even before the recovery of 1983, I believed that his policies were going to work and I took on anyone who disagreed with me. From what I have read since then, my belief was stronger than a lot of his cabinet and even his beloved wife, Nancy.

With the right blueprint, patience will be rewarded. Later I saw that Mr. Reagan's policies continued to pay dividends as the Soviet Union fell and our military came back strong. Some historians have pointed out his strength as negotiator, something he learned as union leader and a governor. He also knew how to prioritize what he wanted: 1). Tax Cuts, 2). Strong Military, and 3). Deficit Reduction. Oh, by the way, his fight with PATCO not only got my attention, it got the attention of the Soviet Politburo. They knew that this was a guy who meant what he said. Ronald Reagan taught me and this nation a great many lessons.

Every four years, we hear about the importance of getting youth involved in politics. I would be lying if I did not say it makes me gag. If the youth want to get involved, they should get involved. But we should not have to make politics "cool" or palatable to get them involved. It always seems like some liberal claptrap. But my conclusion is wrong. I read the Reagan Diaries. President Reagan loved youth rallies as much as Mr. Obama does, maybe even more. With President Reagan, these rallies were about how much young people believed in this country and in Reagan's ideas which he felt were the ideas of a country looking forward. I say, without apology, that I get the feeling that President Obama's rallies are about how much they love him.

Before we move on, I want to emphasize the point that I was not original Reagan supporter. I would also like to point out that it was over two years before his policies showed signs of working. What became clear early on was that this man had a plan, he had leadership, and he was someone we could rally around.

So what should we learn from Obama? It may be too early to have all the answers, but here are a few that might get some partial credit on the Obama test.

Wishing that someone will be both post partisan and post racial society is not as easy as it sounds. The cool demeanor, the obvious intelligence, and the soaring rhetoric, and the biracial background are all good things. You can add to that people were tired of George Bush (to be fair to W, they were tired of Clinton in 2000). The problem, I believe, is that they really did not take the measure of the man, but instead turned Barack Obama into a Rorschach test of everything they wanted. They would project onto this guy attributes they expected out of their ideal leader onto Candidate Obama. These expectations were not only misguided, they were dangerous.

The reason that I believe they were dangerous was because it showed how little real analysis anyone did. Political analyst Craig Crawford (not a conservative by any measure) kept complaining about access; a warning that was largely ignored. State Senator Barak Obama was notorious for voting "Present" instead of taking a stand. U.S. Senator Barak Obama had limited time in the Senate and was absent for most of it. Chief Executive Barak Obama did not exist. People ignored these facts and now we are paying for them.

What should his supporters have seen? They should have seen a partisan, just like many other politicians. I have never considered a bad thing, in and of itself, but, if I were a Republican looking to reach across that aisle, one of the last people I would have looked for was Senator Obama. I think his liberal tendencies are helping the Republicans make electoral gains in this center-right country. But why did people think things would be different under a President Obama. The best I can tell, they got snookered by the rhetoric and by their Rorschach tests.

For some of us, we have been living in a post racial society since the Sixties and I think more and more people live in that world all the time. But, I think the President has shown, through the Henry Louis Gates and USDA employee Shirley Sherrod incidents, that anyone can over react to a situation and that he is no better equipped to handle it than most of us are. Some of these problems are, unfortunately, intractable, but others can be fixed when we look at the content of each other's character. President Obama stepped in this dog poop because he knew no other way.

Executive experience counts. Personally, I thought this was settled a long time ago and the answer is yes. Take the reaction to Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan. President Obama decided that we needed a lesson in Constitutional Law. That was not the issue. Leaders know how that there is more to it than that. NY Governor David Patterson knows this and that is why he is trying to work out a solution.

The Economy: reality bites. The economy hit a recession two years later and much harder than I predicted. Recessions happen. Recoveries also happen. This one was going to be tricky no matter who was in charge. But this White House has done everything possible to make the recovery more difficult in the short and long term.

What about deficits? In 2006, we were told that Republicans are overspending and the answer is Democrats. Really?? Let's not argue the point that Republicans lost their way on spending since 2000, because they did. But bringing in the Democrats for fiscal responsibility is like sending hookers to cure a syphilis epidemic. They are increasing the deficit at a rate that risks not only inflation but the financial future of our great-grandchildren.

What about the other economic issues? Wall Street was an issue, but so was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Congress wanted to win popular points and ignored those government agencies. TARP was a standard maneuver to unfreeze markets, which is important not just for Wall Street but for all America. And yet when it appeared time to stop it, Congress doubled down.

The Stimulus Package was supposed to bring the unemployment rate down, it has not. The good-bad news: economists are now pointing out that employment growth has been slow at the beginning of the last two recoveries. The bad news: the stimulus money is being spent and eventually we will have to pay it back and their will be no job growth that we can attribute to it. We have had one change: the White House and the Democrats no longer use the phrase "Stimulus Package." Well, I for one am glad they have so much respect for the intelligence of the average American.

There are other problems, some of which are the result of the government takeover of private industries. Now that they own them, they are afraid to let go if someone makes a profit. In the past we have found that the resulting recovery is worth letting someone get rich. For example, the 1980's Savings and Loans Crisis showed that not everything Mr. Reagan did worked and not every deregulation worked as planned. There were a few problems that contributed to the S&L crisis, one of which was increasing the maximum size of insured deposits while at the same time lowering the regulatory requirements, something a private sector insurer would never let happen. But when the S&L crisis occurred, the solution was to securitize the debt and move on. This is not a new solution; a similar one was used by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton with Revolutionary War debt. The faster we move to these solutions now, the better chance we have of a full recovery.

The world is a dangerous place not just because of who is in the White House. The consensus was that George Bush had ruined our reputation with the rest of the world. The corollary to that is that Barack Obama would walk in to office and peace would break out. Now I am not going to argue the point that many parts of the world prefer a liberal American president than a conservative one. I will make the point that I have yet to see evidence to the contrary that we are the last great hope on this planet (including saving the lives of tens of millions of Muslims). I would also argue that those rogue states like Iran, Syria, and North Korea are no more in line than they were before. Oh, by the way, combat operations ended in Iraq not because Barack Obama became president but because a surge that was pushed by none other than John McCain worked. It is still a dangerous world out there and some people respond to force.

Government run health care is not the answer. Obamacare is in effect for one reason: it had the votes. What other reason would anyone want behemoth? I have yet to find a compelling argument for government run health care. Is it that the government can run health care better? They run the post office and have for over 200 years. And yet I had to mail an important letter today and I used a private service. Another argument is that government health care means equal health care. This is, of course, false and I use as an example the fine public schools in my town versus those in the inner city. We do not tolerate bad schools and we will not tolerate bad health care. The most likely outcome is cost overruns and rationing. Mr. Obama can make all the speeches he wants, none of what I have outlined here is going to change.

I am hearing rumblings that less and less young people are identifying themselves as Democrats. This is not surprising, but it is surprisingly fast. When you start looking for a job, start paying taxes, and start raising a family, more and more people realize that not all the answers come from Washington. Then they start identifying with the Republicans. What Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Rahm Emmanuel and all the Democrats did was to use the crisis and the anti-war sentiment to put in place more welfare state-type programs. I think the young are starting to learn that this is not the answer. I hope they are also learning how truly cynical the current leadership is.

So what should we learn? Well here are a few things to at least look into:

• Leadership is not just about charisma or teaching lessons.
• Tax cuts work.
• Small deficits do not matter. Large ones do.
• Class warfare solves nothing.
• Know the difference between passing a law and passing a good law.
• Never forget our enemies or our friends.
• Most important: America is an exceptional county.