Paul Krugman wrote an article in the New York Times today labeled "Barack Be Good" detailing some of the challenges Obama faces in living up to the sky-high expectations the American Public have for him. Krugman believes Obama's biggest hurdle is making the American people believe that government can be trusted again. As the Nobel Prize winner puts it:
Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good. Indeed, he has to be a goo-goo. Goo-goo, in case you’re wondering, is a century-old term for "good government"
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Franklin Roosevelt had the same problem when implementing "The New Deal," Mr. Krugman writes:
Franklin Roosevelt was a goo-goo extraordinaire. He simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. Mr. Obama needs to do the same thing.
The goo-goo bar is higher for democrats because they believe government has a legitimate roll in solving problems as opposed to conservatives who can ,and often do as witnessed by Bush and Co., use the "We told you government can't do anything right" excuse.
So, how does team Obama go about convincing the American public that government can actually get something right for a change and restore confidence? Roosevelt did it with Proper oversight and elimination of pork spending.
There was plenty of opportunity for the "New Deal" programs to be run a muck with fraud and weighed down by billions of dollars of pork thus destroying the public's faith. But Roosevelt implemented stringent oversight with a "Division of Progress Oversight" that eliminated corruption and fraud as well as Roosevelt's insistence that there was NO pork in the New Deal programs. (Remember how much pork was added to TARP's already $700 billion dollar price tag: $150 billion)
Krugman believes Roosevelt's strict adherence to goo-goo principles helped restore public trust and cemented the democratic party as the governing party for decades. He writes:
Last but not least, F.D.R. built an emotional bond with working Americans, which helped carry his administration through the inevitable setbacks and failures that beset its attempts to fix the economy.
Imagine that, a government that's created an emotional bond with the people.
I believe Obama has this same opportunity. An opportunity to make the people believe that government is on their side again. An opportunity to instill confidence, confidence that has been destroyed the last eight years with the utter corruption, incompetence, and moral failings of the Bush Administration.
Roosevelt has set the road map. Weed out corruption and waist. Restore confidence. Build an emotional bond with working Americans. All tenants Obama has spoken about, stands for, and has an opportunity to implement. Lets hope for the sake of the country Obama proves the leader the country needs.
I've enumerated a list of things i believe Obama must do to start down the road to restoring public faith in government:
- Close Guantanamo Bay
- Publicly remove torture as a policy of the United States
- Review the failings of TARP, explain to the American people what went wrong and implement a middle class TARP with the rest of the Tarp money.
- Insure the Stimulus package has limited pork and is targeted to the middle class with monthly reviews to be made public.
- Investigate what happened to cause the wall street collapse, prosecute those who have broken the law, implement measures to insure it never happens again.
- Deliver on Health care as promised for middle class Americans.