Episode 35: My First Obama Beef

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Week one is over and done. All in all, I’m happy to see that the change we can believe in is actually starting to take shape, and very early on too! The hot button topic of the moment is the economy and for the most part, I agree with much of the proposals I have heard. So far, coming out of academia, there isn’t much in the stimulus package that is helpful for me, but I really like the idea of investing a lot of money into shovel ready projects: building and fixing roads, bridges, tunnels, schools etc. I LOVE the idea of investing into Green Tech. (check out http://lifekills.wordpress.com – a great new blog that is a nice resource for finding out more about green technologies). In order to compete with Asian countries, we NEED to upgrade our network infrastructure as we are light years behind them in that department – quite literally too, with their fiber optic network, they can download DVD sized files in a few minutes in opposed to several hours to a few days in the States. And we need to lay the ground work for reducing the cost of healthcare so we may begin to provide universal healthcare. Anyone who finds faults with these plans just doesn’t get it. However, one portion of the stimulus I think is not necessary – $2.5 billion dollars to be allocated for sex education and contraceptives.

I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Democrats are a party of a million agendas. I knew Obama was the man for the job because somehow he was able to unify the party under one banner during the ELECTION. Now that the democrats won, we have regressed into old ways, trying to pass all these progressive agendas into law. It’s not that I don’t want progressive agendas to be passed, but I feel as if we’re not pacing ourselves for a marathon, but rather for a 100 meter dash. I agree with the logic, that investment into family planning *may* increase awareness, and some kind of free clinic to offer contraceptives, or perhaps a tax credit for companies that make contraceptives, may decrease unwanted teen pregnancy that may in turn save hospitals money from fewer patients. However, the effect of such a bill is so far into the future, so contentious a political battle, and so unrelated to the immediate task at hand, that it is not a battle worth fighting – now.

Obama will get the votes for this bill whether or not he gets the blessings of the republicans as the bill currently stands. However, if solidarity is the theme for this administration, then burning his political capital on the fight for family planning is PC not well spent. He gave the GOP what they wanted with the tax cuts. Take it one step further and knock the family planning out of the bill and the GOP will take that as a major gesture that he is willing to hear both sides out. Spend this political capital wisely now, and his return on investment will grant him even more capital to fight that battle later on down the road.

**NOTE** The blog I plugged had the wrong URL. It has been corrected now.