OK, I confess, I voted for Barack Obama. I am not disillusioned with him after his first month. I am not disillusioned because I never had any illusions that he, or anyone else, could accomplish much. Indeed, the voters could have elected me, and I would not have been able to do anything much different from what President Obama has done.
Yes, as I said in this blog more than once, even before the election, I had hoped that our new President would address the problems of most ordinary people with consumer credit (not just mortgages) these days in a way that would allow them to be paid off on more reasonable and less destructive terms. But this has not happened.
I had also hoped that a new President might be persuaded to a method of health care reform more closely approximating national health care than anything we heard about during the campaign. But this has also not happened.
However, I realize that these things, and other things that might have been good, have not happened not because President Obama is dishonest but because no one in his position would have been able to deliver these things. Several factors contribute to this.
First, and most obvious, the economy is apparently going headlong into a depression. This limits what funds are available to do.
Second, President Bush's rush bailout package just before the election spent most of President Obama's flexibility before he was even elected, and spent it--predictably--on rescuing the economy by making the rich richer.
Third, the ruling thinking on both sides of the aisle in Washington emphasizes consumer spending as ultimately the way to create jobs and revive the economy. The only point of contention between the parties is how best to go about encouraging spending. Both sides are afraid of an increase in the personal savings rate that seems to be developing. This increase is good news for the economy in the long run, but bad for sales NOW--and no one in Washington can afford to look past the next election. Alas, anything that helps the common people stop going further in debt--like real assistance with that debt or national health care--increases the savings rate (since paying off debt is a form of savings). So such measures can't be countenanced, at least not now.
Fourth, and even more fundamentally, the corporate entities that are really in control of both the economy and the government are depending upon and fully committed to contnued increases in personal debt, as this increases their power.
But most importantly, our President is not free to make the changes that would really positively change things for the people because the Church of Jesus Christ in this country is still involved in the idolatry of expecting human institutions to provide for their needs. As long as this idolatry continues, things will continue to deteriorate, as I predicted more than 8 years ago. When the Church cleans up its act, and starts trusting God to provide and doing what He says to do with what is provided, our leaders will miraculously become free to do right, and things will improve for believers and unbelievers alike.
