Obama on Spending

For the last decade, our country has operated as if we have access to unlimited resources, and an endless economy. America seems to have taken on this personality that we can do anything, and as the great nation that we are, no measure can stop us. Unfortunately, this is merely facade. We have gotten ourselves into incredible debt, with the national deficit at $10,655,730,608,95s2.03 set to increase at a rate of 3.86 billion per day since September 28, 2007. Scared? You should be.

Now when Barack Obama becomes president, he has promised to make a substantial impact on the national deficit. And noble as this may be, I have trouble seeing how this can be done considering his platform. An article from the San Francisco Times sums up this dilemma, "President-elect Barack Obama set out on Tuesday to reassure Americans that he intends to restrain spending despite the staggering bills for financial rescues and emergency government spending that seem to mount by the day." President Obama is in a very difficult situation in that he will be faced with the biggest economic crisis of our generation, probably even our lifetime, while also having to satisfy his constituencies with his policies. So how will President Obama rein in spending? He plans to focus on efficiency within the budget, raise taxes on the wealthy, eliminate tax breaks for large corporations and oil companies, cut military spending, and make line-by-line revisions throughout the national budget (this is obviously not a complete list of all the economic changes President Obama intends to make). While these are all excellent ideas, and will help improve the situation, they cannot possibly reverse what has been done to the state of the economy. 

Obama has promised his constituents a new health are system in which the government will be forced to spend billions to systemically revamp the program. He has also endorsed investing in new sectors of alternative energy which will cost billions. He also must fund the War on Terror, clean up the Iraq War, and perhaps in his term will have to deal with the new sector of terrorists from the Middle East which looked to attack Westerners and many others in India. He has also promoted education and student payment reform, must maintain homeland security, among many other programs, and provide enormous emergency aid to the economy. And while I hate to be such a skeptic, all of these efforts will cost a lot of money that the United States isn't in a position to give right now. My hope is that Obama's stimulus packages and emergency aid will help get the economy back on track, his plans to cut spending will work, and Congress will be mindful of spending limitations. If not, this country will have to face much bigger problems.