by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both the elder and younger George Bush all found the third and fourth years of their presidencies harder than the first and second. The nation and the world tired of speechmaking. The novelty of a new commander in chief faded; poll numbers went south. The same thing is now happening to President Obama on a variety of fronts.<\/p>\n
Democrats assured voters that we would love ObamaCare once the new federal healthcare plan was at last implemented. Republican critics warned that we would like it even less once we saw it unfold. We will soon see who is right, as the four-year implementation begins in earnest during 2011. But if 100 organizations and corporations have already obtained exemptions from the Obama administration, how many more will seek to avoid the new law in 2011?<\/p>\n
Something also has to give on the budget this year. Keynesian spending was supposed to jump-start the economy and bring in more federal revenue. Instead, borrowing another $3 trillion the last two years has not led to much of an improved economy, as unemployment is still well above 9 percent. We will see a rendezvous with fiscal reality in 2011 since either Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, or defense \u2014 60 percent of the government’s yearly budget expenditures \u2014 will have to be trimmed. It is one thing for politicians to give speeches about reckless spending and unsustainable debt, quite another to freeze Social Security increases, up the retirement age or cut Medicare benefits.<\/p>\n
For the last two years, there have been two energy assumptions of the Obama administration. One, the global economic downturn in late 2008 that saw oil prices crash would give strapped American consumers a sudden gift of cheaper gas without much government action. Two, solar and wind power and “millions of new green jobs” would also usher in our alternative-energy future.<\/p>\n
But harsh realities have intervened. While the Obama administration was making it far harder to develop oil and gas on government-owned Western lands, and hampering offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the world economy was recovering \u2014 and with it, energy demands were increasing. As oil now approaches $100 a barrel, gas is already over $3 a gallon and headed still higher. It may have been two years since the beleaguered motoring public embraced the chant “drill, baby, drill,” but when voters begin paying nearly $4 a gallon in 2011, they will want far more oil production and far fewer pie-in-the-sky green speeches.<\/p>\n
With the new proposed defense cuts, the US Army will lose almost 50,000 troops in four years, the Marine Corps another 20,000 \u2014 along with radical curtailments in the number of armored vehicles, front-line jet fighters and new ships. But will there be commensurate reductions in American commitments overseas?<\/p>\n
Perhaps all US troops will soon leave Afghanistan and Iraq, while China will not flex its muscles against Taiwan or Japan. Maybe North Korea will not attack South Korea. Cyprus probably will stay quiet. The former Soviet republics in theory could improve their relations with Russia. The Balkans should remain peaceful. Israel does not want another war with Hamas, Hezbollah or Syria, or a new one with Iran. Mexico may win its drug war. Yet the rub is not that there is a likelihood in 2011 of simultaneous conflicts in a variety of hotspots, but that there are no assurances there won’t be at least one among so many scary places.<\/p>\n
Finally, President Obama has proclaimed a new willingness to seek comprise and consensus with Republican opposition. However, the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives, energized by the Tea Party, believes that such sudden presidential outreach is predicated only on the electoral reality of Democrats losing 63 House seats in the last election. The conservative opposition also assumes that it was elected to dismantle, not facilitate, the Obama agenda.<\/p>\n
So in 2011 we will see whether Obama still talks of his opponents as “enemies” who need to be “punished” and kept in the “backseat,” or if he is willing to concede that bipartisanship now may mean that his liberal vision of 2009 was rendered inoperative by the political reality of last November.<\/p>\n
On a variety of fronts \u2014 healthcare, the budget, defense and politics \u2014 we have heard lots of easy rhetoric the last two years. But now the reckoning comes due in 2011 \u2014 and it may be not a pretty thing to watch.<\/p>\n
\u00a92011 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both the elder and younger George Bush all found the third and fourth years of their presidencies harder than the first and second. The nation and the world tired of speechmaking. The novelty of a new commander in chief faded; poll numbers went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[271],"tags":[1026,50,88,40,213,440,67,552],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-13U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6858,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obamacare-generation\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":0},"title":"The Obamacare Generation","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab -- as they already are for other entitlements -- in the midst of a bad economy. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 There are all sorts of time bombs embedded within Obamacare. Will we force doctors to treat the millions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/let-obama-be-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":1},"title":"Let Obama Be Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After his party's devastating setback in the 2010 midterm elections, Barack Obama was re-elected earlier this month by painting his Republican opponents as heartless in favoring lower taxes for the rich. They were portrayed as nativists for opposing the Dream Act amnesty for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Obama Administration"","block_context":{"text":"Obama Administration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6821,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/learning-through-pain\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":2},"title":"Learning through Pain","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 What will history make so far of our five-year voyage with Barack Obama? What will it make of hope and change \u2014 other than a sort of hysteria of 2008 that was a political version of the Pet Rock or the Cabbage Patch Doll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Identity Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Identity Politics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/identity-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-great-new-year-stampede\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":3},"title":"The Great New Year Stampede","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There is a new-year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time. Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semi-automatic rifles and as much ammunition as they can afford. But buyers are not just camouflaged\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6778,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamacare-speak\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":4},"title":"Obamacare-Speak","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Obama administration is altering its language like there's no tomorrow. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 The Obama administration once gave us \u201cman-caused disasters\u201d for acts of terrorism and \u201cworkplace violence\u201d for the Fort Hood shootings. Now it has trumped those past linguistic contortions by changing words to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Healthcare"","block_context":{"text":"Healthcare","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/healthcare\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5710,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/after-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":4086,"position":5},"title":"After Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We can imagine what lies ahead in 2017 \u2014 no matter the result of either the 2014 midterm elections or the 2016 presidential outcome. There will be no more $1 trillion deficits. About $10 trillion will have been added to the national debt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4087,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions\/4087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}