Views on News • February 24th, 2009

Selling the stimulus

by Chris Lato

This is the point where government bailouts are entering some dangerous territory. For example, in Houston they’re considering paying some of the bills for potential first-time home buyers to help improve their credit scores. President Obama is offering a mortgage bailout plan that critics say crosses the line from needed relief to rewarding bad individual economic decisions and irresponsibility.

Tonight, the president will speak to Congress and the American people and address what he’s done so far and what he’s still looking to do.  The basic template will likely include: Bush got us into this mess; more pain is coming; and, we’ll get out of it.

Obama has taken some heat for not clearly articulating what he is looking to do with all of these massive spending plans, and others are taking pokes at the president for the size of the bailouts and for turning from the Audacity of Hope to the Shock of Overheated Rhetoric in a matter of days after taking office.

No one said this was going to be easy, and we should be willing to give Obama a bit more time to find his sea legs while still being able to critique the specifics of his proposals. His challenge tonight is a matter of finding the right tone and giving people enough specifics to make the administration’s case that the government isn’t just handing out checks without reason to folks who don’t deserve it, while failing to do enough for those who are paying their bills on time.

By now, the world knows President Obama gives good speech. But now, people are looking for more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Views on News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.