The economy continues to worsen, and the experts are not pleased that the current lame duck government has left economic policy blowing in the wind until the new guys take over in January. Paul Krugman looks at why this is a bad thing, but doesn't get into what the president or president-elect should be doing to solve this problem. Floyd Norris, on the other hand, is more straightforward:
By resigning from the Senate before the current session began and allowing it to appear that a sense of drift could prevail until he is inaugurated, Mr. Obama may have missed an opportunity to exert leadership.
Maybe. While the consequences of the government's failure to act now are clear, it is less clear what Obama could and should be doing to influence policy before his inauguration. Even if he had maintained his Senate seat, it seems doubtful that he could gin up support for an automaker rescue package in the face of a presidential veto and filibustering Republican minority. There is the question of decorum -- branch overlap between Obama's future executive position and his current legislative one, and overlap between his goals as president and Bush's. I'm all in favor of setting aside decorum in favor of achievement, but I'm not sure I see a path for Obama to really exert any power until he's ensconced in the Oval office with larger Democratic congressional majorities.
Folks have been discussing moving inauguration closer to the election in the future, I don't see any reason why this is bad idea so long as adequate time is left for transition; we've already changed the date once in our history and it's clear that contemporary communications technology, among other advances, has created a situation where the new president could be in office around mid-December while the incumbent has a month remaining on the docket. An agreement could presumably be made that Bush would support, or refuse to veto, certain items that the new president will be supporting in January, but it's hard to imagine the present incumbent agreeing to such a power sharing agreement.
--Tim Fernholz
