President Obama Finally Steps Up To The Plate

It is not often that I compliment any politician for their actions and positions, basically because they rarely provide the opportunity for me to do so. Thus, I find it heartening and required when a politician steps out of their political comfort zone, possibly endangering his or her relations with their respective political supporters, to do the right thing for the country.

To my surprise, President Obama has finally stepped up to the plate of responsibility lately and did the right thing. Three somewhat courageous recent actions come to mind:

- It looks like he finally was able to close the free trade treaty with South Korea that was mostly negotiated under the Bush presidency. The treaty negotiations had hit a snag or two a couple of weeks ago but it now looks like it has been finalized and awaits the Senate vote for it to be ratified. It appears that most interested parties are happy with the final product and that it should result in increased job opportunities for U.S. businesses, particularly agriculture and automotive.

When I heard that the treaty was in trouble a few weeks ago I figured it was Obama the politician playing to his union supporters, most of whom are on record opposing any kind of free trade agreements and that the treaty now had no chance of being finalized since it had entered the political zone. However, it looks like the President did the right thing, pushed, nudged, and negotiated the treaty to a successful agreement, even if it ruffled some union supporter feathers.

- An article in today's USA Today newspaper reported that the government had recently cracked down on over 500 people that were involved in Ponzi fraud schemes, stock price manipulations, and other financial shenanigans. The hundreds of criminal defendants cited involved over $8 billion in losses from over 120,000 unsuspecting investors. One situation involved a Texan who pleaded guilty in an oil and natural gas Ponzi scheme that stole more then $485 million from over 7,000 investors. A Florida man was convicted for an investment scheme that prayed on the local Haitian community.

The arrests, convictions, and confessions came about as a the result of the administration's creation of a multi-agency task force on fraud. This task force was put together a year ago to combat an increase in economic crimes and fake investment schemes. Nice work, done quickly, from a government that historically had no idea on how to stop these types of financial frauds. Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, and a host of other crooked economic schemes robbed Americans of billions and billions of dollars in the past while the government seemed helpless to prevent it.

This is the type of nitty-gritty work that basic government should provide. There is still a long way to go, especially when you see the estimates of how much fraud goes on within government programs, such as Medicare, but at least it proves that government can fight back if it focuses.

- The third act of stepping to the plate is a big one and it involves the potential compromise that Obama has worked out with all parties as it relates to the expiring Bush tax cuts. Basically, the Democrats did not want to renew the tax cuts for those American families earning over $250,000 a year and they wanted to renew unemployment benefits. The Republicans wanted to renew the Bush tax cuts for everyone and not renew the expiring unemployment benefits. Failure to find middle ground would result in every American paying higher income taxes on January 1 and the unemployment benefit pot would have run dry. Both of these situations would have been a disaster for the economy and for a while, it looked like the Democrats and Republicans were willing to screw the economy and its citizens just to prove a point.

Rather than play chicken with the future of the country, the President finally stepped forward and took charge, hopefully working out a compromise that saves what ever hope there is to getting the economy going again but still ticking off both die hard Republicans and die hard Democrats? Why the angst on both sides? Because the compromise keeps all of the tax cuts in place for two years (ticking off the Democrats) and also extends the unemployment benefits (ticking off the Republicans).

This was a pretty courageous move on Obama's part since he is taking some heavy hits from the more extreme left members of his voting block. But he realized that compromise was better for the country and finally took the reigns of leadership back from Pelosi and Reid and stepped to the plate. He had handed those reigns to them in his first two years, happier to act like a President than to actually be the President. He seemed happy to fly around the world and give speeches to adoring crowds and to mingle with athletic teams at the White House and to film television commercials for the George Lopez show and to discuss, at length, his NCAA basketball tournament picks, etc. As a result, Pelosi and Reid ran roughshod over him and did what they wanted.

Now he appears to have stepped back into the ring and is getting his hands dirty in actually governing for a change. He worked the details of the South Korean free trade treaty, his financial fraud task force is finally doing some good, basic government work and protecting the financial interests of Americans, and he his forging a compromise for the good of America, not the good of his career and political party. Will this type of behavior last or is it just a short term spurt? Will he revert back to the almost figure head President figure like he was before, acting like a President rather than being a President who works the details and the hard negotiations, especially since the Republicans will be much stronger and peskier in 2011? I have no idea if this selfless behavior will continue but felt it needed to be recognized while it lasted.


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