Responsibility

On Tuesday, President Obama did what George Bush could never bring himself to do: he took responsibility for a mistake. He was talking about his appointment of Tom Daschle to be Secretary of HHS, but who withdrew his name after tax problems came to light. But the President's larger point was about responsibility.

"I'm here on television saying I screwed up, and that's part of the era of responsibility," he said. "It's not never making mistakes; it's owning up to them and trying to make sure you never repeat them and that's what we intend to do."

While repeating his belief that Daschle was the best person for the job, he added: "But I don't want my administration to be sending a message that there are two sets of rules. One for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes everyday. I think I messed up, I screwed up, in not recognizing the perception that even though this is a honest mistake, I believe, on Tom's part, that, you know, ordinary people are out there paying taxes everyday and whether it's an intentional mistake or not, it was sending the wrong signal."

Then on Wednesday, he affirmed the responsibility of government to protect taxpayer investment in bailed-out banks by insisting that these immense bonuses stop and super-high salaries be trimmed. He said:

"But in order to restore our financial system, we've got to restore trust. And in order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street.

We all need to take responsibility. And this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses. As I said last week, that's the height of irresponsibility. That's shameful. And that's exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.

This is America. We don't disparage wealth. We don't begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset - and rightfully so - are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers."

But Obama's most important statement was to Congress, which needs to stop playing politics and discharge their responsibility to address this economic crisis as Americans. They need to stop trying to score points, especially with misleading and downright false statements about the economic recovery bill, and get it done.

" A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future. Millions more jobs will be lost. More businesses will be shuttered. More dreams will be deferred. That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that is before Congress today. ..

Now, in the past few days I've heard criticisms of this plan that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis - the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive. I reject that theory, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."