Richard Brand: Still The Vision Thing


There are now a whole series of commercials about people who claim they voted for Obama in 2008 but that they are now disappointed with his administration and do not believe they will vote for him in 2012.

I am among those who have been disappointed by Obama’s administration. I had great hopes that he would be able to carry his vision of an administration that was focused on solving the problems that confront our country. That he wanted very much to work together with the leaders of both parties to find solutions to our major problems and have bipartisan cooperation. He had had experience as a community organizer of bring people together to work for a common solution to problems. We have got to find solutions to our common problems.

For the last twenty years or more since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have had five major issues that must be addressed in a bipartisan way.  There is a new reality of globalization. That is why you have to press one for English so often. We live in global reality now. Corporations, Religions, Educational institutions and on and on all have international components.  Businesses are working in all countries. Universities have all kinds of “study aboard” classes.

A major part of the globalization is the migration of people all around the world. Refugees from all kinds of wars, famines, persecution, and poverty have been moving all around the world. Immigration and illegal immigration are not just unique to the United States. But it must be addressed.

Another part of that globalization is the information technology which has changed the ways all of life works. Americans are no longer just competing with cheap labor in foreign countries, but we are now competing with cheap talented labor in foreign countries. Now the smart students in India can compete with the smart students in France on an equal footing.  The United State Student has to compete with both.

The United States has a major debt and annual deficits problem that must be confronted by a consensus action.  Simpson-Bowles have said that cutting spending alone will not solve the problem, and raising taxes alone will not solve the problem, but there has to be some of each. 

And the fifth issue is rising energy consumption and rising climate change. There has to be found cheap renewable energy. These five will have to be solved by our national leaders working together to come to some common bipartisan solutions. I had hoped that Obama could begin to bring together that kind of dialogue.

Obviously, what he encountered were some major problems that had to be dealt with immediately.  Automobile bail out, which seems to have been a very good deal, had to be done. The support of Wall Street had to be put in place. The Stock market is now at a four year high, which suggests that that action was good for the country. There were two wars that were not on the budget that still had to be managed, and one of them is being brought to a close. He has added to the debt but the amount he has added is the smallest amounted added to the debt since Eisenhower.

But the major problem was that from the very beginning the Republicans decided that they would not participate in any bipartisan cooperation. They vowed after the election of 2008 that they would make Obama a one term President.

It does not seem very honest to attack a man for not achieving much when you have prevented him from enacting the programs that he believed were necessary to solve the problems.

Obama has not fulfilled all our hopes. From his Executive powers he has done much that moved our country forward towards the ideals and principles by which this country was inspired. Obama sees and knows that we must adjusted, educated, change, and evolve to be great again. Romney and Ryan seem to believe that we must go back, restore, return to previous ways to be great.  I still share the vision that the future greatness of this country lies in the enactment of change. The enactment of the change the Republican prevented the first four years.