The Problem With Obama

Barack Obama seems like a nice person. He radiates charisma. He talks about changing the way we do things. People are being caught up with him and his story: In Friday’s New York Times, David Brooks wrote this from Radar O’Reilly’s hometown:

"Obama has achieved something remarkable. At first blush, his speeches are abstract, secular sermons of personal uplift — filled with disquisitions on the nature of hope and the contours of change.

He talks about erasing old categories like red and blue (and implicitly, black and white) and replacing them with new categories, of which the most important are new and old. He seems at first more preoccupied with changing thinking than changing legislation.

Yet over the course of his speeches and over the course of this campaign, he has persuaded many Iowans that there is substance here as well. …

He’s made Hillary Clinton … seem uninspired. He’s made John Edwards … seem old-fashioned. …

Obama is changing the tone of American liberalism, and maybe American politics, too.

In other words, when it comes to Obama’s appeal, Brooks is on board. But Brooks doesn’t really tell us where the Obama Express is going. And that’s a problem.

Certainly, Obama is inexperienced in foreign relations, but then so are most of the other candidates, both Democratic and Republican. McCain has experience, but Huckabee and Romney don’t, and Giuliani talking about 9/11 and the mayor of New York having a foreign policy is a stretch. On the Democratic side, two of candidates with the most experience, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, have dropped out. John Edwards was a senator for six years – and spent much of that time running for president or vice president. Hillary Clinton’s experience, at least in the 1990s, was more with Bill’s affairs than foreign affairs.

But my problem with Barack is less with his lack of foreign affairs experience and more with his lack of economic affairs experience. Obama seems to have the economic beliefs of a social activist or community organizer – a social activist or community organizer who hasn’t been around long enough to learn how things really work. Problems with subprime mortgages? Obama wants to criminalize mortgage brokers (even though it will mostly mean poor people with borderline credit scores won’t get mortgages). Low wages? Increase the minimum wage (and don’t even think about the jobs that might go away when you do so). College too expensive? Make it affordable with government tax credits (even though the tax credits will let colleges raise their tuition even more). Credit cards taking advantage of people? Create a government rating system (because government does things so well).

And here is the combo I like the best (these are quotes from Obama’s website): "Cap outlandish interest rates on payday loans" and "Encourage responsible lending institutions to make small consumer loans". Why lenders will want to make loans they aren’t making now when new limits are put on interest rates is beyond me, but it sure sounds like the kind of "government is great/all we need is more laws" thinking that social activists and community organizers are so good at.

It’s a shame, if Obama gets elected, that the country will have to go through the cost and trouble of trying to educate yet another liberal Democrat in economics. It’s an even bigger shame that most of the costs of this education will be borne by the people Obama is trying to help.