Obama governs like a professor

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You are a banker. During the course of your 100-hour workweek and countless meetings comes a free moment. You get a glass of water, take a walk past a few cubicles and see the flat-screen TV you pass everyday on the way to your office. Time to watch; you only have 30 minutes for lunch.

CNBC is on; they’re talking stocks and it’s exciting. There is even humor on this show because politicians come on and pretend to be smart. You laugh because you know better. Before the congressman can finish his point, the host makes him pause. There is breaking news: The presidential motorcade is pulling into a political rally.

Great, it’s him again.

Not five minutes into the speech, he mentions you — not by name, but by association. It is those bankers, he reminds the crowd, that are the problem. He says that you Wall Street-types only care about profit and scamming people.

The crowd cheers. He jokes you are the only reason it rained today and the audience cheers louder. He makes no note of the hundreds of people you employ or the hard work you did all week. Today, like all days, is a campaigning day for this president. And today, like all days, it is all your fault.

Lunch is over. You throw away your sandwich. Somehow you’ve lost your appetite.

After the rally, the president returns to the West Wing. Without a CEO or a business leader in his cabinet, and with a righteous indifference toward the opinions outside of academia, he charts a predictable and unpopular legislative agenda.

Everything needs more government, he tells us. Not smarter government, not more efficient institutions to look out for the welfare of citizens or the stability of markets — just more. This is how a professor governs: Speak of that which you do not know, mock those who you do not understand.

Consequently, it is no surprise that many American professionals have a bone to pick with his administration’s agenda. An astounding 65 percent of doctors oppose “ObamaCare.”

Doctors and hospital administrators wrote countless op-ed’s to voice opposition and suggest alternatives to his party’s health care bill. But their input was not included in the most sweeping changes in the American health care system in a generation.

Clearly, President Barack Obama made a risky political calculation when he took office: Ridicule the big dogs to win over the little people.

Unfortunately, the business community is kind of like NATO — an attack on one is an attack on all. Thus, it is not just CEOs and bankers whose lunch is ruined by Obama’s rhetoric.

Family shops and restaurants equally are frustrated with the president’s tone toward business. They might not have all the jazzy press coverage of large corporations, but you better believe they have as much fight.

And because his policies have ignored their needs too, discontented small businesses have lashed out at the White House in a fashion not seen in a very long time.

The National Small Business Association has come out to oppose Obama’s proposed tax increases on those making more than $200,000. Some estimates indicate 43 percent of small business payrolls would be affected, even as a recession already has devastated their bottom line.

Perhaps more shocking is a recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Business in which a significant portion of small business owners polled said they feel Washington does not understand their needs.

At the end of the day, Americans do not want their president in an endless war of words with their employers. People are yearning for the man they remember from Iowa; the one who said America is a special place and that politics are not about dividing people. People want the old Obama back.

It is disappointing, to say the least. For as eloquently as Obama ran from former President George W. Bush’s “stay the course” dogmas in the presidential campaign, he just as stubbornly has mimicked his predecessor’s reputation as an ideologue.

And just as Bush’s approval plummeted as a result of his erroneous handling of the Iraq War, so go the current commander in chief’s Gallup numbers because of a mismanaged economy.

This is how Obama governs — like a cowboy, like a professor.

Ameek Singh is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at sodhiamei@msu.edu.

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