A Golden (Green) Opportunity Missed

Barack Obama's big mistake was focusing on the economy as his first official act.

When Mr. Obama was elected as our new President, my belief was that his career had only extreme possibilities: he would go down either as one of our greatest or worst presidents, with scant room for error. Without a great deal of experience, he took over the highest office in the land and inherited two wars, concerns about the environment, an abrasive political system, a major recession, and the watchful lens given to the first black leader of our nation. And now, a mere two months into his presidency, I fear that President Obama has missed a golden opportunity to unite our nation.

Whether our new stimulus package will actually stimulate the economy is best left to the economists to debate. However, the golden opportunity missed by this administration was not the specifics and pragmatics of the stimulus bill. No, the big mistake was in focusing on the economy as his first official act.

Focusing on the economic stimulus package was certainly the politically expedient thing for our new Congress and President to do. Concerns about the economy were, and will continue to remain, high. However, the harsh reality taught us by history is that the economy is far too vast to be easily and purposefully manipulated: it is complex beyond any computational predictions, and it is virtually impossible to design a government action which is certain to correct a recession. The simple fact is that we generally have to ride out a recession until it rights itself — and often the reasons for the end of the recessions are as subtle, numerous, unplanned, and mysterious as those under which the recession began.

The decision to focus on the economy was based upon the need to play politics, combined with a touch of hubris and seasoned with what I believe is President Obama's sincere concern for the welfare of his citizens. But rather than focus our efforts on an economic climate that we are likely unable to resolve, the far greater opportunity here was for the new administration to use this crisis (and Mr. Obama's campaign promises for hope and change) to unite Americans together in a common cause. Americans have shown on many occasions that we can draw closely together despite our differences. We, more than the people of any nation, excel in times of crisis. For Americans, the blackness of a crisis serves as the seed of new prosperity. Upon taking office, Mr. Obama had an opportunity nearly as strong as Mr. Bush after the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, just like his predecessor, our current President has missed the opportunity to unify.

Mr. Obama took office with sky-high approval ratings and an American public desperate for hope, change, and unification. Though the extremists in politics will never be satisfied, rank-and-file conservatives, moderates, independents, and liberals were all ready to stand together and rescue our country. Yet what has happened in these first two months? The President has appointed an extremely partisan cabinet, and Mrs. Pelosi's Congress negotiated the first major legislation of this era behind closed doors, without a Republican in sight. Both of these mistakes served to send the message that it would continue to be "business as usual" inside the Beltway.

These gaffes, however disappointing, are correctable. No, the bigger failure is that we spent our first two months focused on the economy in the first place. After all, from a fundamental philosophical standpoint, economic stimulus is one of the most clear differences between conservatives and liberals. Traditional conservatives believe that tax cuts, free markets, a less unionized workforce, and minimal governmental spending are the best way to ensure economic stability. Traditional liberals, however, believe that stronger government oversight, enhanced access to (and strength of) government programs, a protectionist market, and labor unions to ensure worker equality are the best ways to ensure a stable economy.

Did President Obama honestly believe that electoral goodwill would result in the conservatives in Congress (and in the country) putting a hold on their basic political philosophies? I do not believe that he did – no, Mr. Obama is far too smart for that. He knew that his only chance of getting this stimulus package fulfilled was to strong-arm it through and use his popularity to his advantage. He did so, and the results are a gigantic economic stimulus package and a reinforcement of the historically strong animosity between the two parties.

What Mr. Obama should have done – and may still have time to do – was focus on an issue upon which the majority of Americans agree: the need for energy independence and some form of environmental protection.

Though they reach their conclusions for different philosophical reasons, the majority of Americans now agree that America is at a crucial crossroads in providing a healthy future environment for our children (and our own prosperity). The environmental extremists have long been in this crowd, of course. The stalwart leftists are on board as well, thanks to Al Gore and his (somewhat hypocritical) crusade against catastrophic global warming. The neoconservatives realize the strategic necessity of being able to produce our own energy. Traditional conservatives have held for many decades that conservation of our environment is an important part of conserving our traditions and heritage. And now, the evangelical movement – a key voting bloc for Republicans – is on board, seeing it as a theological issue of being good stewards of God's creation.

If Mr. Obama wants to unify our nation, he should put together a special committee to develop a specific and practical action plan to usher in a new future for American environmentalism. This group must be truly diverse: conservatives are necessary to keep the results practical (and not enact policies like the Kyoto Protocol, which waste time and money for no real environmental impact); yet liberals are necessary to push the imagination and environmentalism into a faster gear.

Ideally, such a committee would have been formed before we poured a trillion dollars into a stimulus package. For if we had formed such a committee and awaited its recommendations, we could have used that money to make a transformative change to our infrastructure: retrofit coal factories for fewer emissions, build nuclear power plants in every state, expand wind energy throughout the Midwest, and invest in infrastructure improvements to better levelize energy generation. Instead, we threw a few billion dollars to this industry without a real plan or strategy to see a fundamental change in the way we develop our and manage our energy production.

The opportunities still exist, but the window is closing. The longer we delay, the more difficult the change becomes, as our use of raw materials (and reliance upon foreign powers) continues to grow while the total collection of resources continues to dwindle. We have missed a golden opportunity to unite the American people around a common cause, to better our environment, to secure our energy independence for the future, and to change the way government is done in D.C. Let us hope that we do not delay any longer.