Obama and Biden

A successful President is one who is able to assemble, lead, and inspire a team that can achieve his vision. Leadership and inspiration, while necessary, are not sufficient; experience in the management of a large and slow moving enterprise is also critical.

Of course, it is useful to have a vision - and the last President of the United States to have one was Ronald Reagan. His vision included winning the Cold War and reducing tax rates from the confiscatory levels - only modestly reduced by the 1964 Kennedy Tax Cut which took effect after his 1963 death - that had been introduced during World War II.

President Reagan achieved both of these objectives - not least because he had all the necessary personal talents.

I don't see that sort of ability in Senator Obama. He has never held a job where he had to run anything. Nor does he have any significant foreign policy expertise. Given that we live in a world which is as unsettled (and as dangerous) as at any time in the past twenty five years, such experience is essential. He has moved to shore up his foreign policy failings by announcing that he has selected Senator Joe Biden as his choice to be the democratic Party's Vice Presidential nominee. Given the changes in the real - as opposed to Constitutional - powers of the Vice President over the past 16 years, the choice of a running mate should matter greatly to all American citizens.

Senator Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972 at the age of 29. He reached the Constitutionally required minimum age of 30 before he took office in January 1973. His time in the Senate has been marked by competent, albeit not particularly distinguished, service as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and, also, of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Neither of these posts has required the ability to run a large enterprise - nor have they equipped him with the tools to understand and help the President develop and implement domestic and economic policy.

Foreign policy expertise is readily available for hire. Former Secretaries of State are a dime a dozen, as are Ambassadors to the UN - some of whom are actually knowledgeable and competent, while there are many National Security Advisors and their Deputies who would be happy to return to government. In addition, since the Congress generally leaves foreign policy to the Executive Branch, a former Senator turned Vice President - no matter how distinguished - is of only marginal use in this area.

Notwithstanding the availability of foreign policy talent, the boss still needs the ability and knowledge to set the direction. Senator Obama is not that person.

In addition, many of Senator Obama's problems will be in the areas of domestic (social) and economic policy. The economy is going through a difficult period at the moment and public opinion is whining (former Senator Phil Gramm made a valid point) that a recession - sorely needed to wring out the economic imbalances caused by too many years of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Bubblespan's cheap money policies - should not be allowed to occur. We should well remember that, without the recession of 1981 - 1982, an 18 year period of growth with low inflation, and only one short recession, would likely not have occurred.

If, as predicted, we see an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House, and a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, we can expect some highly populist - and idiotic - legislation that will involve handing out money, that the government does not have or will have to raise in new taxes, to all sorts of noisy but undeserving characters. Expect, too, unfunded mandates to be imposed on States and Municipalities as well as employers. If so, then those of us who have lived within our means will be the ones to suffer.

We can also expect some class warfare style tax increases, on the grounds that the rich should 'pay their fair share'. Such tax increases are unlikely to improve the state of the economy but more on that another day.

Neither Senator Obama nor Senator Biden has any great knowledge of domestic and economic policy. Even highly competent hired hands, whether Treasury Secretaries or Domestic Policy Advisors, rarely have an office in the West Wing and the ability to drop in on the President to give their advice and opinions when it really matters. Expect a White House whose ignorance of economic policy is dangerous to our well being.

President Obama has made his choice. Unfortunately, while it may be the right choice to get him elected, he could have made few worse choices when it comes to governing our great nation.