If you’re like me, you were deeply disappointed in the results of the Presidential election last November. And a little surprised – well, a lot surprised.
Barack Obama won a second term, and he was at the top of his game. He was confident, in fact cocky. He won the election, and he would have things his way.
Not only did Republicans not win the Senate, as many thought they would, they actually lost seats. Republicans also lost a few seats in the House, but maintained the majority. Obama was confident that he’d roll over House Republicans, and get pretty much what he wanted.
And at first, he did. After his re-election, the initial battle was widely referred to as “the Fiscal Cliff.” Obama wanted to raise taxes – Republicans didn’t. Because by law taxes were slated to go up on everybody if no agreement between Obama and the Congress was reached, Obama had the upper hand. Republicans, fearing that markets would crash, the economy could tank, and that no agreement meant taxes would go up on everyone, decided to allow taxes to go up on people at high income levels only (I voted no.) Obama had won – sort of.
Since that initial “victory” it’s pretty much been downhill for him since then.
A few examples. President Obama’s January State of the Union Address was a laundry list of new big government, big spending programs. None of them have gone anywhere. And none of them will. Unless of course the Democrats are successful in taking back the House and holding the Senate in 2014. If they do that (although most pundits don’t think they have much chance of taking back the House), the last two years of Obama’s Presidency could be as big-government-growing as his first two: Obamacare, Stimulus, Dodd-Frank, etc.
Next, Benghazi. The drip, drip, drip unraveling of what appears to be a cover-up on Benghazi, has the potential of significantly damaging the Obama Administration. Although most of the mainstream press have all but ignored this story, witnesses being called today in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have the potential of finally breaking through.
Next, gun control. After the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook, President Obama had the opportunity to bring Americans together, and come up with a comprehensive plan to actually address violence in America. We could have seriously addressed cultural violence, in our movies, TV shows, video games, etc. We could have seriously addressed mental illness and the role it plays in violence in our society. Instead, Obama took the partisan route – let’s pass more gun control laws.
He wanted a ban on so-called assault weapons. A ban on certain gun magazines; and of course, additional rules for background checks. He got none of them. (There is, of course, a chance Democrats will bring some gun control measures up again – probably closer to the election if they determine it’s to their political advantage.) Again, stay tuned.
And finally, the sequester. Obama was pretty sure he had Republicans on this one. He figured they’d cave, because not only did domestic spending get cut (really just slowed down), but so did military spending. And Republicans generally hate to make cuts in the military. He was wrong. Republicans decided that the spending and debt problem was so enormous, that they’d agree to keep the spending cuts in the military in place, in order to start to get domestic spending under control.
Then when Republicans unexpectedly didn’t cave, he greatly exaggerated the impact that the two-cents on-a-dollar cuts would have on average Americans. He attempted to make the sequester cuts as painful as possible by, for example, shutting down tours of the White House, and making air travel even more painful than it already was, by furloughing air traffic controllers, rather than bureaucrats. After turning down Republicans’ offer to give him more flexibility to avoid furloughing the air traffic controllers, Republicans gave him the authority anyway. Obama backed down, signed it into law, got the flexibility, canceled the air traffic controllers furloughs, thus averting the pain. Obama lost – the public won.
So where does that leave us? With a President who just six months ago was re-elected to a second term, and had considerable momentum. Over these last six months, however, he’s been losing that momentum, and it’s an open question whether he’ll ever get it back.
That being said, let’s not overly exaggerate his slide. He’s still President of the United States, and arguably the most powerful person on the planet. He has an additional three-and–a-half years in office. He’s still Commander-in-Chief of all our military forces. He can still issue Executive Orders. He can still veto anything Congress does. He’s still a prolific fundraiser. He still has the bully pulpit of the Presidency. He’s still a powerful guy.
Whether he uses his powers to address long-neglected substantive issues like entitlement reform, tax reform, and the $16.8 trillion and growing national debt, or whether he continues to play small ball, remains to be seen.
A lot depends on it.