President Obama has taken a lot of heat from the left over the past year. Many liberals were dissatisfied with the health care bill, which looked a public option, and many argued that it compromised too much.
Equally frustrating for the left was his compromise with the right on tax cuts for the top one percent of Americans. Many interpreted this move as a sellout of the liberal ideals he promoted during his campaign.
If Obama's latest move is any indication, he doesn't intend on appealing to the left anytime in the near future.
This week, Obama wrote an op-ed piece which appeared in the Wall Street Journal in which he discussed an executive order he recently signed, which instructed his cabinet to look into previous government regulations that have been levied and determine which ones can be considered frivolous and unnecessary.
Naturally, the left is frustrated by this move, because it makes Obama appear to be an advocate of big business. The people who wish he would crack down and enforce stricter FDA regulations feel they are being left in the dark.
While we at The Spectrum understand their frustration, we feel Obama is making the right move by adopting a conservative stance on this issue (no pun intended). The fact is, the Republicans have a lot more now than they did during the first half of Obama's term.
Considering how much the Republicans were able to prevent the Democrats from getting done when the Democrats controlled both houses, their ability to block legislation will only strengthen now that they control the House.
As a result, it was a natural move for Obama to support the conservative stance of deregulation. In addition, there is fair chance that many FDA regulations are unnecessary, and this would simply be an opportunity to introduce a system that is more easily understandable.
The one flaw we found with Obama's op-ed was that it was too vague. Other than a brief mention of conflicting regulations regarding saccharine, Obama doesn't go into much detail about which specific regulations he would look to revamp.
Unfortunately, this leaves the order open to interpretation, which justifies some of the anger and frustration we've seen on the left.
While we don't expect this bill to be a blatant cave-in to right-wing demands, the lack of clarity gives the left no reason to believe it won't be.
We consider this a good move for the Obama administration, one that will go far in creating bipartisanship. With that said, we hope in the future, as this order moves forward, Obama will give the public a more clear impression of what he is doing. That way, he will do a better job of earning our trust.
