Priorities

Had I been in President Obama’s shoes on Inauguration Day, I would have thought my first priorities for the country, in priority order, would be:

1) Fix the economy as fast as possible
2) Fix the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
3) Deal with the ballooning national debt
4) Deal with the terrorist threat

Fixing the economy would have meant (a) preventing a wave of banks from going under (he did that), (b) get regulations in place to prevent a repeat of this problem (little has been done on that), and (c) get unemployment down as fast as possible (not much effective has been done here).

Fixing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have meant finding and selling an exit strategy for both wars, since the wars are accomplishing little, draining our economy, straining our military capacity, and essentially immobilizing our ability to react to new threats in other places – a fact not lost on nations like Iran, China, Russia and North Korea. Obama did finally promulgate a new strategy for Afghanistan (surge followed by quick withdrawal), but of the options he had, I think he chose a bad combination.

Dealing with the ballooning national debt requires reducing the size of government, raising taxes and reducing government expenditures. He has clearly ignored this issue entirely and let Congress run riot with new spending and enlarging government.

Dealing with the terrorist threat would mean implementing all the things the 9/11 commission urged, and that the previous administration ignored. Thus far, he has ignored them too, though this failed Christmas Day bombing attempt might galvanize him into action – we will see.

What President Obama apparently thought were his top priorities, at least judging from his actions thus far, were:

1) Pass a stimulus bill to prevent a deep depression (I agree with the priority, even though I think the implementation was flawed)
2) Pass a health care reform bill (that would have been perhaps 8th or 10th on my priority list)
3) Pass some sort of carbon cap bill to address global warming (Important issue, but not among my top 4 priorities)
4) Decide what to do in Afghanistan (right priority, though I think he came to the wrong answer)

What would your top 4 priorities for the nation have been on Inauguration Day 2009?