The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: Viewpoints

Second-year graduate student

As Barack Obama continues to sweep up states and delegates on his way to the nomination, one can only ask, is America ready for a President Barack Hussein Obama?

At first glance some would suggest that I am attempting to play to conservatives' fears or trying to make some sort of right-wing hay out of Sen. Obama's middle name. Rather, I am just stating his name as it would be recorded if he were to become president. After all, historians, political commentators and others often cite presidents using their full formal names such as William Jefferson Clinton, George Walker Bush and others. Some may want to make or take political cheap shots with his middle name, but that is not the purpose of this article.

The real purpose of this article is to examine what a President Obama may look like.

As we see with all candidates for the Oval Office, many promises have been made on the campaign trail, along with sentimental fluff and to a lesser extent, substantive policy initiatives.

For starters, Obama just recently unveiled his economic plan, which he hopes to enact when he takes the reins from Bush. He is full of great ideas like universal health care, more tax cuts for the middle class and an additional $150 billion worth of economic stimulus aimed at the "green energy sector," according to report published on Bloomberg.com.

Additionally, Obama wants to invest $60 billion in national infrastructure projects on top of doling out more loans and other financial assistance for higher education. All of these plans sound great, but as Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the movie "Jerry Maguire") said, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

At a time when this nation is spending more money than it can print, an Obama presidency may be far too expensive. Democratic operatives, supporting Obama, are chatting up the airwaves trying to convince the nation that with the repeal of the Bush tax cuts and with the ending of combat and non-combat operations in Iraq, we can afford all of these and other programs. However, they may be fudging the numbers.

It has been suggested, by some economic pundits, that if a President Obama was able to repeal the tax cuts, the generated revenue would add up to around $100 billion. This leaves a substantial gap still to be filled.

Some argue that a savings will occur with the ending of the war in Iraq, but they are wrong. The money we are spending in Iraq is borrowed money, not money the Treasury Department has accrued through normal revenue streams. Thus, by eliminating Iraq spending and replacing it with other discretionary spending we save a total of $0 if we break even, which I don't think would happen.

Balancing the budget and returning to surpluses should be the top priority of the next president, but with a President Obama we might just see a continuation of out-of-control spending.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools