Populism won't be Obama's panacea

BELEAGUERED Barack Obama came out swinging in his State of the Union address this week. The President reverted to his winning campaign gambit of running as an outsider against the bad old ways of Washington, while adding a healthy dose of populism. After the "Massachusetts massacre" loss of the Kennedys' Senate seat, and voters' stunning indictment of his first year in office, Obama had few other options.

The voters' complaints are clear. You bailed out Wall Street and ran up trillions in public debt. You have wasted a year on healthcare reform we don't want. But you let unemployment climb into the double digits, and a quarter of us owe more on our homes than they're worth. Do something!

Obama heard this message loud and clear. With his party's fate in November's congressional elections hinging on employment numbers he can't control, Obama's best hope is using his new change-you-can-believe-in populism to shape perceptions of him and his agenda. But there are three ways it could founder.

First, running for office as an outsider is easy; governing as an outsider is much harder. For much of the country and the world, the President is Washington. Obama admires Ronald Reagan because he was able to pull it off. The great communicator was able to brush off his early stumbles with a winning mixture of folksy charm, down-home bravado and ideological commitment that won over many Democrats. Obama has less time for Bill Clinton because the "comeback kid" came back by tacking squarely to the centre after the carnage of the 1994 congressional elections.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Today Obama's problem is that he seems to be losing the very voters Reagan won over and Clinton's bowed down to. Centrist Democrats in congress are scared stiff of supporting Obama on issues as diverse as healthcare, finance, and climate change because they fear it may cost them their seats.

Obama's first task is to convince them that supporting his newfound populism will have the opposite effect. But this is Obama's second problem. He just isn't a natural populist. Populism is inherently anti-elitist. Obama's Harvard and Chicago law school pedigree, his aversion to tub thumping, his preference for deliberation, and his faith in the power of reason and knowledge, all conspire against the credibility of his populism. That Obama was able to make his urbane outsiderism a winning formula in 2008 was remarkable. Repeating the feat in office as Middle America's champion is much harder.

But the third and biggest problem with all populism, Obama's included, is that it is much easier to say what you are against than what you are for and how you will get there. Implausible contradictions seem to be the order of the day.

Obama wants to rein in healthcare costs, but he seems willing to accept a reform package that does very little to contain costs. He wants to freeze government spending, but not until he spends a lot more this year to create jobs and build infrastructure.He is committed to winning in Afghanistan, but he will pull out in 2011 come what may.

Governing may be the art of convincing voters that what seem contradictions are, in fact, the path to the promised land. This is his task ahead.

Obama's plan combines what won him office, running against Washington, with what the tenor of the times is calling for, economic populism. Now he must hope that congress buys in, that his jobs agenda works, and that American voters are once again convinced to buy in, too. It has a chance. But no one should bet the farm on it just yet.

Professor Geoffrey Garrett is chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney

Source:theaustralian.com.au/

Watch Obama State of the Union Address 2010 Full Video Online

The State of the Union Address 2010 delivered by President Barack Obama aired in most of the major networks. The world stopped to watch the State of the Union Address 2010. Anyway I wont be keeping you guys long. Here is the video, You guys can check it out after a quick preview on what we will be hearing from President Obama on his First State of the Union Address 2010.


President Barack Obama, Had a lot of good things said in the State of the Union Address 2010. For those who missed it, here is your chance to be able to watch the replay on the State of the Union Address 2010.



Read more: http://www.timesasia.net/watch-obama-state-of-the-union-address-2010-full-video-online-29221229.htm#ixzz0e8zoMclg

State of the Union notes

This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are," Obama said.

But it fell short for some gay activists. An organization representing service members who had been dismissed called on Obama to push a repeal in the upcoming Pentagon budget.

STAYING AT HOME: HUD secretary gets the call
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan got the nod to miss attending the speech in person -- fulfilling a requirement that someone in the line of succession stay away in case a catastrophe takes out the country's leadership.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also missed Obama's State of the Union address, but she was in London attending a conference.

REMEMBERING HAITI: A thank-you for pitching in
The president praised Americans who are helping Haiti recover. Obama said he was inspired by the "fundamental decency" of the American people. "It lives on in the 8-year-old boy in Louisiana, who just sent me his allowance and asked if I would give it to the people of Haiti," he said.

LET'S MEET: Extending a hand to the GOP
The president said he wanted to hold monthly meetings that included Republican leaders.

Obama looked at them and said, jokingly: "I know you can't wait."

A NOD TO THE MISSUS: Child obesity initiative lauded
The president lauded Michelle Obama for her initiative to lower the rate of child obesity in the country. The chamber stood in applause, while the first lady, sitting in the gallery, gently nodded.

"She gets embarrassed," Obama told members of Congress.

GALLERY GUESTS: The first lady's VIPs
The gallery guest list of 25 people sitting with Michelle Obama included:

• Tina Dixon, a former stay-at-home mom whom Obama met when he visited a jobs training site in Allentown, Pa., that received funding from the economic stimulus package

Source:freep.com/

Obama Pushes $10,000 College Tax Credit and Student Debt Relief

President Barack Obama touted education among his top priorities in his first State of the Union address, proposing a $10,000 higher-education tax credit for families and debt forgiveness for people who have been repaying their college loans for at least 20 years.

Obama urged the U.S. Senate to join the House in overhauling the federal student-loan system, saying such a move would end “unwarranted taxpayer subsidies” to banks and help revitalize community colleges. He also supported an update of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration education effort.

Obama said the cost of the higher-education initiatives would be offset by money saved from his plan to provide all new federal loans directly to students, instead of through private lenders led by the Reston, Virginia-based SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae. While some Republican lawmakers have opposed this plan saying it may raise college costs, the Congressional Budget Office said it may save the government $80 billion in 10 years.

“In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education,” Obama said in yesterday’s speech. “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”

Obama, who plans to send Congress his budget request for fiscal 2011 next week, said he’ll propose the $10,000 tax credit for families paying for four years of college, and more money for Pell Grants that help low-income students afford college. He also called for an expansion of an income-based student-loan repayment program the Education Department started in July.

“Let’s tell another 1 million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years -- and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service,” Obama said.

Student Loan Savings

The plan to provide federal college loans directly, approved by the House in September, aims to protect student loans from turmoil in financial markets and end federal payments that Obama says are wasteful. It would discontinue the 43-year- old Federal Family Education Loan Program that subsidizes and guarantees loans made by private lenders.

Starting in July, all new federal loans would be provided through a separate program, created in 1993, that lets the Education Department lend directly to students.

Representative John Kline of Minnesota, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, said such a plan may create new expenses for students.

“Making the federal government responsible for a larger share of student debt is likely to do nothing more than exacerbate high college costs,” Kline said yesterday in an e- mailed statement.

Education Budget

Obama’s budget plan, set to be released Feb. 1, includes a $3 billion raise in discretionary education funds next year, shielding federal school programs from his proposed freeze on some domestic spending, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said yesterday. That’s about 6 percent more than this year’s $47 billion discretionary budget for education programs other than Pell Grants, Education Department spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya said yesterday in an e-mail.

The $3 billion contains Obama’s proposed $1.35 billion expansion of the Race to the Top competitive grant program, which rewards states that make the most progress in raising academic standards, boosting teacher quality, tracking student gains and improving failing schools.

That program, which will award $4.35 billion in stimulus grants to states this year, has “broken through the stalemate between left and right” on how to improve the nation’s public schools, Obama said.

‘Reward Success’

“Instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success,” Obama said. “Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform - reform that raises student achievement, inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans.”

The budget proposal would allow another $1 billion in K-12 education spending, for a total of $4 billion, if lawmakers reauthorize No Child Left Behind this year, Duncan said.

The 2002 law, enacted under President George W. Bush, requires states to measure student achievement through standardized tests.

While states can set their own standards to determine what constitutes an adequate education, they can lose some federal funds if they don’t show yearly progress toward those goals.

Obama and Duncan have said the law prompted many states to weaken their academic standards and led schools to devote too much time to standardized test preparation. They want states to agree on a common set of tougher, nationwide standards. They also want to give states more flexibility in meeting those standards than they now have under No Child Left Behind.

“In this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential,” Obama said.

Source:bloomberg.com/