The Budget: Shock and Awe

http://open.salon.com/blog/saturn_smith/2009/02/26/the_budget_shock_and_awe

The Budget: Shock and Awe
Saturn Smith


The coverage of the President's budget announcement today is surprising for the amount of surprise it seems to contain. The Post's David Broder is leading this Charge of the Shocked Brigade:



Let me summarize the rest of his column for you: how dare Obama, how DARE he, include spending on health care in his budget when the country is in a Serious Economic Downturn and is Fighting Two Wars. He accuses Obama of pursuing health care reform just because he can, right now, and ends with the line, "When we elected Obama, we didn't know what a gambler we were getting."

I have two problems with all of this surprise.

First, it misunderstands a basic tenet of Obama's Democratic vision. To pursue health care reform isn't something he's taking on in addition to the stimulus plan -- it's part of the overall Democratic effort to improve our national economy. I thought the president was pretty clear about this on Tuesday night, when he made reform of the system one of his top three economic priorities, and outlined the ways in which current rising costs hurt our economy. But David Broder and friends were apparently napping during that part of the speech, and woke only to hear the Democrats cheering -- and have therefore assumed that the only reason for pursuing this program is political.

snip//

The righteous indignation and shock is, well, shocking. Why do I feel like I keep waking up to a world where the campaign never happened, where Obama just fell out of the sky for a large chunk of the Washington commentary class? Is, perhaps, their actual shock not over what Obama's doing, but at seeing a president actually do what he set out to do? Were they expecting a reversal of fiscal behavior such as that under the last president -- a renunciation of declared principles in support of unexplained priorities?

If so, I'm delighted to see Mr. Broder disappointed. I only wish he would recognize the root of his surprise -- that Obama's carrying through -- and name it as such, instead of acting like Obama is recklessly and unpredictably "gambling" with American dollars in pursuit of political gain. He's doing what we sent him to Washington to do. Just because it's rare doesn't automatically make it risky.

I wish it would be folks like him who would find themselves forced to retire early, because he is truly worthless to all of us, and needs to find a palm tree to sit under, on an island somewhere.

go there every day to worship, because they need to get out of the way of the true progressives who are working hard to reverse the damage done to this country and Americans at large.