Rather like a would-be government in Britain that talked of “sharing the proceeds of growth”, the candidate who wanted to redistribute wealth now, as President, has no wealth to redistribute. (Here’s what WE would do. — Ed.)
Even in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, New York knows how to throw a party. For most of yesterday hundreds of thousands of people made a sea of green that paraded up Fifth Avenue to mark St Patrick’s Day. Tens of thousands lined the street to watch them. The all-day party, fuelled by imports of Guinness and whiskey, seemed the more intensely engaged upon as an escape from omnipresent financial gloom.
Away from the party, the mood in America’s cultural and business capital is more firmly anchored in stark reality, and quite different from the euphoria that pervaded it when I was last here, on election day. President Obama still enjoys the popularity that comes with not being George Bush, especially in a city top-heavy with Democrats. But his initial response to the global calamity that he found on entering the Oval Office has not inspired popularity’s more sober elder brother, confidence.
Large constituencies, notably business, are voicing their skepticism openly.The President’s much-vaunted $787 billion stimulus package is being widely interpreted, even by some of those (such as Warren Buffett, America’s second-richest man) who openly supported Mr Obama for the presidency, as a serious failure. And we are only just past the first 50 days.
Mr Obama is lucky that his Republican opponents in Congress are disorganised, incoherent and without ideas of their own. The White House branded Rush Limbaugh, the populist talk radio host, leader of the opposition, following an assault Limbaugh had made on the President’s neo-socialist policies. This remark was designed not just to humiliate elected Republicans for their impotence, but also to attempt to terrify the American public at the thought of a man widely seen as a demagogue and an extremist leading a main political movement. It should worry Mr Obama that while the former part of the strategy has hit home, the latter hasn’t.
The main concern about the $787 billion package is that around $400 billion of it (estimates vary) is being used to buy off various Democratic constituencies, granting funding to local projects dear to the hearts of the congressmen whose votes were required to get the package through, and bailing out discredited banks and businesses that many feel deserved to go under. Only yesterday Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, asked for a change in funding rules to save the San Francisco Chronicle, an ailing newspaper in her own home town that has, by coincidence, loyally supported her. It is not impossible that her wish will be granted. This is what the Americans call pork-barrel politics, and there is enough pork in this scheme to keep pigs in business for decades. Another criticism of the package is that only 23 per cent of the money is expected to come on-stream this year, making a mockery of claims that the money was needed urgently to prevent meltdown.