President Obama addressed the Democrats at an issues conference in a very honest way. I thought the televised exchange between Obama and the Democrats was exceptional. The President covered a myriad of issues in the meeting, but I was most interested in how he would address the issues of transparency, bipartisan effort, trade, and lending for small businesses through the use of TARP funding. On the issue of transparency, President Obama stressed the importance of “having all of the cards out on the table.” He also added, “I do think that the more open we are, the more transparent we are, the more people know exactly how things are working even if sometimes it takes longer to maintain that transparency, the better off we are.” The news seems to cover the quips and attacks of the opposing party members on an issue, but very little is done to present the contrast between proposed measures. The Democrats are partially responsible for this. They tend to focus more on attacking the other party (or each other) than selling specific points to their audience. No one wants hear a stump speech masked in rhetoric, tell the people the specifics and how it will be paid for. The Americans can handle an open and honest dialog of substance.
On the issue of bipartisanship, Obama was frank. He stated, “We’ve got to be non-ideological about our approach to these things.” He later added, “Sometimes we get ideologically bogged down. I just want to find out what works …” I hope that this message didn’t fall on deaf ears. Ideological differences have caused a rift within the Democratic Party compromising solidarity in its approach to important issues like healthcare reform. How else can you explain having a majority and fumbling the ball on healthcare reform? He had to address the barrier of ideological differences; it makes the whole concept of a bipartisan effort possible. On the issue of trade, he addressed the dangers of protectionism. “I have shown myself during the course of this year more than willing to enforce our trade agreements in a much more serious way. And at times I’ve been criticized for it. There was a case involving foreign tires that were being sent in here, and I said this was an example of where we’ve got to put our foot down and show that we’re serious about enforcement. And it caused the usual fuss at the international level, but it was the right thing to do. Having said that, I also believe that our future is going to be tied up with our ability to sell products all around the world, and China is going to be one of our biggest markets, and Asia is going to be one of our biggest markets. And for us to close ourselves off from that market would be a mistake.” He addressed the importance of being able to compete internationally and while this is extremely important, the US cannot compete without a manufacturing base. Every manufacturing job supports at least four other jobs in the US. Our manufacturing base is in China, so if we are to compete then we have to produce. Also, a move in a protectionist direction would be detrimental to our recovery-especially since we want China to buy our goods and hold our debt.
On the issue of using TARP funding for small businesses, he was clear on what he needed. “I do think it’s better to do them through legislation than through executive order. TARP was a congressionally created structure with some fairly stringent guidelines in terms of how we were supposed to approach it. It shouldn’t be hard to do, though. It’s a pretty simple concept. Banks have repaid money; there’s $30 billion that we could take that has already been repaid — immediately apply that to a fund so that small banks are — community banks are able to provide their small business customers with greater lending.” I am not in complete support of the idea of using TARP funding to lend to small businesses. I honestly feel like the banks are not doing their part, but the end result would be small business growth. Since the small businesses play a key role in our economy, then we’d have to free up credit somehow. I hope that both parties can focus on the objective of how small businesses can have greater access to credit, but I see this being a divisive issue.
This dialogue needed to happen. I needed to see Obama address his own party on the issues of transparency, bipartisanship, trade and small business lending. I believe in the Hawthorne Effect, which states that people perform better and are more productive when being watched. It’s become apparent that they need to be watched.
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