President of Everything

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/16/AR2009021601102.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

President of Everything

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, February 17, 2009; Page A13


This is a presidency on steroids. Barack Obama's executive actions alone would be enough for any new administration's first month: decreeing an end to torture and the Guantanamo prison, extending health insurance to more children, reversing Bush-era policies on family planning. That the White House also managed to push through Congress a spending bill of unprecedented size and scope -- designed both to provide an economic stimulus and reorder the nation's priorities -- is little short of astonishing.

Now it's time for the administration to get to work. For his next act, Obama must set the parameters of a new presidential role that he did not seek but cannot avoid: managing the big chunks of the private-sector economy that are now more accurately described as semi-private at best.

This week, executives from General Motors and Chrysler are reporting on their progress in transforming themselves into lean, mean carmaking machines, capable of leading American industry into a new golden age. They will also explain that they need some more money, and fast, if they are not to crash and burn. GM, which got a $9.4 billion cash infusion from the government just two months ago, wants the remaining $4 billion that the Bush administration approved; Chrysler, which got $4 billion in December, urgently needs $3 billion more.

snip//

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has fought against transparency in the bailout program that would let everyone see which banks have pneumonia and which merely have a cold. My belief is that the pneumonia-vs.-cold distinction was bound to become evident, with or without the Dodd amendment. In any event, if one of our big banks were seen to be in danger of failing -- becoming, in effect, a dead bank walking -- the Obama administration would have few choices other than to nationalize it.

Then there's the housing problem, which may be the most difficult of all. Foreclosures and plummeting home values are at the heart of the economic crisis. Either millions of Americans are going to lose their homes or millions of mortgage contracts are somehow going to be modified. That's not an attractive choice.

All Barack Obama wanted was to be president. He may have to become an auto executive, a banker, a mortgage broker and who knows what else before this crisis is done.

[AtomicKitten]

1. I never doubted for a moment that Obama is up to this epic task. n/t

[EraOfResponsibility]

2. thanks