Turning “Yes We Can” to “No We Won’t”

Posted on by

Yikes.

I have seen so many interviews with really important people and smart media types post election on all of the good things the new administration will do for us. Even DC Mayor Fenty was discussing this morning all of the new programs that President-Elect Obama would bring into our city: New funding; new programs; new housing; and additional federal aid.

Yikes.

Our President-Elect doesn’t have a magic wand. The sentiment is that the economy will worsen further from now until January 20th. The market got crushed just the day after the President swept the election. There is no light seen at the end of the dark tunnel yet. Do you see one? Perhaps this was why President-Elect Obama seemed low key and was tempering expectations in his acceptance speech. This journey is the hardest one faced by an incoming President. Perhaps only FDR or a Lincoln faced worst circumstances.

If there are fewer revenues and fewer earnings, the tax base will be smaller even if the effective tax rate increases. If the base is shrinking, the revenues to spend on new programs will be smaller not growing. There will be less economic growth and less revenue from the people that get taxed.

The new President will have to be really tough on saying NO. The new administration will have to zero base budget programs that are needed and ones that need to be created or strengthened. We are a “gazillion” dollars in debt now already. :-)  We have to look at government and spending and programs the way a new CEO of a company would cast a critical eye - cutting what is waste or non-essential and focusing us on big important programs that are needed in these new times. We need a “rebuild” now. We have to say NO to say YES!

It is hyper ironic that the Republicans have presided over BIG Government build-up and deficit; privatized banks; doled out bailout dollars; and initiated huge deficit spending as they once stood for “less is more” in government. And now the most liberal President we have ever elected will have to start to say NO. Saying NO will free up dollars to reemphasize elsewhere. There is no taxing mechanism at all on top earners that can grow us out of the issues we face. That is fact. Our liberal President will have to act like a Republican President to fix the economy; get us re-respected globally; and make Americans feel good about ourselves again. He can raise taxes but if he doesn’t say NO, his new programs won’t get funded.

Strategy and vision and hopes and dreams won the election. Say it one last time, “Yes we can.”

But now harsh reality will set in. We will have to cut and re-orient and reboot. Get used to it. Say it loud and proud, “No we won’t.”

This change in uber brand strategy from campaign promises to operational excellence will be the biggest challenge our new President has to conquer. We are all in it together but this journey is not going to be as much fun as the pundits seem to show in their glee the morning after.

10 thoughts on “Turning “Yes We Can” to “No We Won’t””

  2. Ted, I agree with a lot of what you said.

    JC, don’t forget that a record amount of voters participated in this election, and Obama won very easily. I don’t see where you’re going with your “this isn’t what MLK was talking about” statement.

    The bottom line is that it’s terribly unpatriotic for anyone to root against our leader (and therefore our country), simply because they’d rather see him fail than see our country succeed with him as our leader. That’s selfish. Let’s give him a chance to do the job before we pass judgment. The people that say things like “I’m moving to Mexico” are unpatriotic. These are the same people that accused me of not loving my country just because I didn’t agree with the war in Iraq, and now they’re threatening to move to Mexico because their guy didn’t win an election?

  4. Ironic, isn’t it Ted. He campaigned promising the world which he darn well knew he couldn’t or even shouldn’t deliver. The country can’t afford it.

    You conveniently forgot about what Ronald Reagan faced when he had to mop up after Jimmy Carter. Unemployment skyrocketing, inflation gone completely a muck, interest rates for a home mortgage around 20%, gas lines, hostages in Iran, an Iran that had been friendly to the US which Carter helped overthrow and put the Ayatollah in power – and what did Reagan do? He cut taxes on EVERYONE, not just the highest earners (who aren’t really wealthy, just high earners) from 70% to 28%. Wow! What a concept. We had the longest running peacetime expansion of the economy that followed without a private industry prop like Clinton got with the Internet boom and government revenues actually rose with the lower marginal tax rate. The high earners actually accounted for paying a higher portion of the federal income tax burden under the lower Reagan rates than they did under the previously higher rates. It’s called incentive. It’s what America is about.

    I agree with most of what you stated. The RINOs that were in the majority in the House and Senate (I shudder to label them “in power” because these guys didn’t know how to be the majority party – so used to being the minority) were not leaders and that’s why they acted like, well yes, Democrats — spending wildly and not focusing on solutions to the real issues Americans generally agree on by 70+% like focused and limited government, immigration policies that will secure our country, national security, real energy policies, the economy (thanks Dems for the CRA, the Clinton Justice Department, Frank, Dodd, Schumer, Fannie, Freddie, mortgage enablement for people that couldn’t pay – but home ownership is a right too crowd – and the like!!).

    All that said, I pray the new president makes sound decisions. Still, ironic after promising so much, with the campaign dust now settled and Obama about to ascend to the throne, er uh, pulpit, er uh, oval office – he’ll have to actually “govern from the middle?” Doubtful. His ego won’t allow it and Pelosi and Reid certainly won’t. He’s never been a centrist. We just elected the MOST liberal man in the US Senate to the Whitehouse. The leftists didn’t work so hard to get him elected to allow him to put the brakes on. Look out America. You don’t know who you elected.

    This is a brash statement, but had conservatives ever found the first promising African-American candidate with real values and a real understanding of how the country runs, it really would have been a landslide electoral college vote – something on the order of Reagan-Mondale. We want leadership with principled understanding, regardless of skin color. We recognize what Dr. King fought so hard to communicate. This was not it.

    Great win by the Caps last night when they finally pressured the Canes! -4 point game turned into a +4 point game. Rock the Red!

  5. Obama has a very tough choice ahead. He owes a lot of favors for his successful nomination to people that want more programs and more spending. He can appease them, which probably won’t be good for America as a whole. Or he could cut spending, raise taxes (on all of us), and set the country on the road to recovery.. and of course not be re-elected cause he pisses off the people that got him elected.
    I am confident he will do the right (unpopular) thing. He has already backed out of his 16 Month Pledge to get all the troops out of Iraq and now is going to “work for a solution.”
    That was a great first step in my opinion.

  6. The liberal “Republican” by name only makes way for the most liberal of our senate…great! anyhow, god bless america

  9. Obama clearly stated during the debates that spending some things needed to be reduced, while other things should be cut out intirely. This still can’t be counted on to completely take care of all the new programs. Hopefully, our taxes won’t be raised too much higher to cover any balnce after that. Obviously, things aren’t going to turn around right away. If things get at least a little bit better over the course of the next few years, I’ll be a happy man. I’m not going to expect too much, but some would be reasonable.