What we campaigned for

Today was yet another moment in the first month of Obama's presidency that drove home why my son and I and millions of other Americans volunteered to work for change in America. Today's recap of the summit stimulus task force drove home just how organized and energized our new president is. In eight years, our so called "business school" president never took one step to enlist Congress and the private sector, to work on behalf of the American people, rather than their own narrow special interests. This is amazing considering this process approach is a staple of private enterprise, where people are brought together from all over the enterprise in order, in order to solve the more difficult problems. As one media person said today, "in all of his years of covering politics in Washington D.C. he has never seen an anything like this before in his life." President Obama had his fiercest critics on-hand, including Senator John McCain, Representative Eric Cantor, and Representative Darrell Issa to offer their views to the president, the assembled media, and all of America. It was our American political system at its best, which we haven't seen since 9/11. It was refreshing to hear John McCain get up and talk about bringing costs under control in the Defense Department. Dwight Eisenhower would have been proud to see a Republican start to take on the military-industrial complex. Of course now the defense establishment is complaining about how many jobs will be lost if we cut back on defense spending, as if we spend billions just to keep people employed. As McCain explained we don't need helicopters that now cost as much as Air Force One. Obama said he was perfectly happy with the helicopter he now has.

Later today, the President followed up his meeting with comments about our federal budget process. They were blunt and to the point - a budget was never set up to fund the Iraq war, even after the first year, when it was apparent we were going to be there for awhile. We have never set up a fund to account for national emergencies, even though they occur, each and every year since our nation was founded. These are prudent practices and applied every day in the business sector. Funny how our "business" president chose to ignore fiscal discipline in his eight years.

President Obama will restore confidence in America and get this country moving again with his deeds and not just his words. He is proving that every day of his presidency.