Financial Times Editorial Comment: Obama’s hundred days of ambition

Financial Times Editorial Comment: Obama’s hundred days of ambition
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 29 2009 19:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 19:00
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c468b42-34e6-11de-940a-00144feabdc0.html


Barack Obama’s presidency is off to an impressive start. Far from seeming daunted by the economic conditions he inherited from his predecessor, Mr Obama has maintained the posture, so familiar from his election campaign, of purposeful energy, steady calm and preternatural self-confidence. Polls say he continues to enjoy strong personal support. Although his policies are a little less widely admired, the country is behind him and wants him to succeed.

After so brief a time, it is frivolous to insist on solid achievement, though Mr Obama does have some to boast of. Congress passed an enormous fiscal stimulus that was much along the lines he first requested. Its design could have been better, and if anything it should have been bigger, but few would have been willing to bet last November that Mr Obama would succeed as well as he did on this issue. On the unfinished business of financial stabilisation, the record is less good. But here Mr Obama is entitled to ask for patience: this is a really difficult problem and, much as his critics may deny it, one that admits of no easy solution.

In foreign and security policy, the new president has departed abruptly from the policies of the previous administration on some subjects, and pressed on with little change in others. In striving to wind down the US commitment in Iraq while building up US forces in Afghanistan, Mr Obama is essentially following the path set out by Mr Bush. Soon a new course on Afghanistan and Pakistan will be needed; his thinking on this is not yet clear.

In other regards, there is a clean break, guided partly by his regard for international opinion. He has promised to close the Guantánamo prison. He has sent conciliatory messages to Iran and Venezuela. He seeks friendlier relations with Russia. These welcome innovations should not be dismissed as mere mood music – not yet, anyway. A president who listens rather than hectors, and who treats foreigners with respect, is one who is capable of learning. Warm feelings aside, that is a trait that is likely to serve his country and the world beyond well.

Hard choices in foreign policy of the sort that Mr Obama says he is keen to confront are certain to present themselves shortly and it is too soon to say how he will fare: whether, on the Middle East, he will stand up to Israel, for example, and whether, if his overtures are rebuffed, he will stand up to Iran. But it is not too soon to welcome the new tone, so refreshingly different from that of Mr Bush, and to hope that it will get results. So far, the response of US allies – on fiscal stimulus and support in Afghanistan, for example – has been disappointing. This is a criticism of them more than of Mr Obama.

Aside from energy and unflappability, Mr Obama has demonstrated another key trait: ambition. The sheer scale of the economic problems facing the new administration would have persuaded a less visionary president to scale back his plans. Mr Obama has made no concession. On the contrary, he has seized on the economic turmoil as all the more reason to press on with comprehensive healthcare reform, a decisive shift to a lower-carbon economy and a far-reaching programme of public investment.

If he succeeds in these endeavours, he will be regarded as a great president, and rightly so. If he fails, he will be accused of hubristic overreach, with equal justification. He has staked his presidency on this gamble.

One danger that will become more apparent with time is that Mr Obama’s long-term plans, as laid out in his first budget, are fiscally unbalanced: projected taxes fall a long way short of projected public spending. In other words, he is not yet being honest with the electorate about the costs of his policies.

The scale of his ambition, and its marked partisan character, also carry another risk, that of dividing the country. Part of Mr Obama’s appeal to the electorate was that he sought a bipartisan approach to government. In this he seems genuine: his friendly respect for people who disagree with him is unfeigned. But his policy goals are those of a bold progressive liberal. Mr Obama can significantly increase the size of government and reform the tax system to make it more progressive, but he cannot do this and be bipartisan too.

One might ask, why should that matter? Democrats won the White House and have majorities in both houses of Congress. Mr Obama is striving to do nothing he did not say he would do. But remember that US voters are more sceptical of the policies than they are of the man. At 100 impressive days, that sounds a note of caution.