Obama Change? Like Island Time?
When the Obama team signaled this week they would not follow through on their campaign promise to impose a windfall tax on oil profits, people wondered whether "Obama Change" was "change" only in some warped sense of the word -- like being on "Island Time" -- elusive, non-committal, eventual, perhaps. After all, he did say back in the day:
"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills."
That was June, 2008. So what was that campaign promise about? Easing the worries of families who were broke? Was it Obama's fleeting response to an audience who disapproved of oil companies getting super-rich while the economy flagged? Was it just an empty promise? Or perhaps now with oil prices so low windfall taxes wouldn't suffice to help individual energy bills. Did the president-elect's threat influence the price of oil? Perhaps oil executives lowered prices in order to dip below the radar a bit.
It's hard to know who's being more wily, Obama or oil companies. But before we can spend too much time wondering why the president-elect changed his mind on windfall taxes, Barack Obama gives us more promises. We reported a couple of weeks ago on Obama's address to the Governors' Global Climate Summit about his administration's intentions to act on climate change and invest in "500 million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."
In Obama's address to the nation yesterday, he re-presented the idea of the "National Infrastructure Reinvestment", which he also pushed during his campaign.
Highways, Information Super Highways, Technology, more Technology
On energy, Obama's promising to produce jobs by making buildings more energy-efficient. As he put it: 
"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won't just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."
"Installing efficient light bulbs." When Obama ran for president interviewers would ask him what he did to save energy and light bulbs and the exchanges became a bit of a joke. Here was his take on changing lightbulbs::
"...Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, ''I'm talking about personal. What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."
When Barbara Walter's asked Obama about the light bulbs a couple of weeks ago, they both laughed -- a shared joke. But now he's launching his "collective" light bulb plan? Obama is also promising a "sweeping effort" to modernize schools -- to make them energy efficient also.
Additionally Obama promises his administration will invest in infrastructure, new highways and bridges. And not only tarmac highways but information super-highways too. Saturday Obama also mentioned technology to solve healthcare problems -- by networking hospitals, increasing broadband penetration so everyone is on the internet, and increasing student access to computers.
Infrastructure without the B-Word?
Obama is following through with his campaign plan to launch a 21st century "New Deal" and says such an investment hasn't been made since the Eisenhower days. As a Senator, Obama co-sponsored the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007" introduced by Senator Christorpher Dodd (D-CT) in August 2007. The idea is to establish banks to fund the a subset of the projects Obama spoke of yesterday. When Obama campaigned last summer on "rebuilding America", he also talked about a bank, as well as promising to withdraw support from Iraq to fund infrastructure.
"we'll fund this bank by ending this war in Iraq. It's time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead."As everyone knows, Iraq is a bit in limbo -- and where's the bank? Where's the follow through on banks? Or is it all a joke?
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Acronym Required wrote on infrastructure and the Minnesota Bridge collapse in "Guano Takes the Bridge, Pigeons Take the Fall". We wrote about infrastructure and the levees in "FEMA and Disaster Preparedness", "Disaster Preparedness - Can We?", and "Levees - Our Blunder". We're fascinated with technological salves for problems.
