Todd Terwilliger

Change and hope. These are the inescapable buzzwords as new President Barack Obama makes his final triumphant march into the White House.

But once the music’s stopped, the jetset has jetted off, and the confetti’s been swept from the floor, there’s real work to be done, work that will test our mettle as a people and our thirst for change. That is, if President Obama is willing to do what needs doing.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

The Obama campaign has focused on looking forward, always looking forward, but there is no way to understand where we are without looking back. I’m not convinced that the new regime wants to look back but it must. The past administration must be audited (this should happen at every regime change). Criminal acts must be prosecuted. Trespasses must be undone. Things that were broken must be fixed.

Chief of the broken things to be fixed is the gross over-extension of the executive branch perpetrated by the Bush administration. Will Obama be strong enough to give back power that is in his hands? Will the Democratic party allow him to give back that power?

Stimulus Response

I had hoped that Obama would look back to FDR and the New Deal but his early economic advisors appear cut from the same cloth as the Bush era thinkers. I believe that the current method of doling out monies without rule or stricture to banks like Citi and other mega-corporations is wrong. The money disappears into the machines and no more is seen of it. All that we get in return is the debt. In contrast, the New Deal undertook physical works that stand even now, benefiting communities years and years after the crisis that necessitated them arose and then passed. It was a trickle up rather than a trickle down. I am so tired of the trickle down.

The Hundred Days

I read somewhere this morning that President Obama will be tested to turn the economy around in his hundred days. I hate to break this to everyone but this economy isn’t going to turn around in one hundred days. Again, I look back at the Great Depression. To round it out, let’s call it a ten year event, spanning 1929 to 1939. Ten years, folks, ten years. I think we’re looking at a similar scale. It won’t be an even decline and there may even be some false teases of early release but they won’t last. At the least, we’re looking at two presidential terms of depression. And people are talking about solving the problems in 100 days? Let’s not confuse hope with fantasy.

Racing in a Marathon

So here’s the rub: quick-fixes, patches, and jerry-rigs won’t repair what’s broken. President Obama needs to understand this and we need to understand this. If the expectation is that all can be well in 100 days, we’re doomed. We’ve got to think for the long haul and if that means we take some lumps, then we earned those lumps to take. Are all of us brave enough to take them? That, to me, is the real question of this new era. I hope we can. I hope we can change.

Technorati Tags: bush, fdr, great depression, inauguration, new deal, obama