Toward the end of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday, I leaned over to ask a fellow reporter who — like me — was covering a watch party at the Blue Note in downtown Columbia what her thoughts were.
“He’s too big for his shoes,” she replied.
I assumed she was referring to the Illinois senator’s pledges to: 1) end the war in Iraq; 2) make health care accessible to all; 3) put America’s youths through college, 4) end U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East and 5) create 5 million American jobs over the next decade — all while still managing to “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families.”
Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for U.S. president, smiles during his acceptance speech Thursday night in Denver.
As a college student who relies on student loans to pay for school, as someone who hasn’t been able to afford health care on my own and because I had to wait tables for two years while earning a meager hourly wage as a newspaper reporter before coming back to school, all of this financial support sounds great.
The more than 300 Obama supporters at the Blue Note Thursday sure seemed to agree. “Yes we can!” they chanted amongst banners that read “hope” and “change.”
Maybe it’s the cynic in me, or maybe — in an attempt to remain an objective journalist — I was consciously trying to distance myself from all of the political rhetoric. But the question keep lingering in my head while watching Obama’s historic address: How’s he going to pay for all this?
I certainly don’t think health care premiums should break a working man’s budget, and I agree, it’s a shame that today’s minimum wage is hardly enough to pay the rent, let alone feed a family.
But at the risk of sounding like my father, I wanted to know how the smiling senator would manage all of this “change.”
Sure, we could use a portion of the $9 billion the U.S. spends each month on the war in Iraq if the troops are withdrawn, but what happens if we’re attacked again while Barack’s in office?
How far would an effort to end tax breaks for mega-corporations go?
How much of the bill, should someone like my father, a strictly middle class guy, a self-made man of sorts who put himself through school, be footing?
What about someone without “boots” currently who wouldn’t pull themselves up by their “bootstraps” even if they had them?
Are we talking about giving handouts to the undeserved or truly helping all Americans, many of whom, admittedly, are in great need?
These are questions for which I don’t have any good answers.
I’m reluctant to criticize Obama’s grand ideals, but perhaps he should have spent more time Thursday explaining how he will accomplish them instead of telling us what John McCain doesn’t know.
But, I guess, we’ve got two months for all of that …right?
Tags: acceptance speech, Barack Obama, Blue Note, college, health care, Iraq, jobs, oil, political rhetoric, taxes
