When he takes office, President-elect Obama will face a mountain of challenges – more than any incoming president in recent history: the global financial crisis, the Iraq War, the federal deficit, the energy crisis and more. The most critical thing this new president can do, though – which must be done to make any policy solution a success – is restore the citizen’s seat at the government’s table. One of the worst outcomes of the past eight years has been the erosion of democracy and the phasing out of the people’s voice in the government. It is imperative that this be reversed.
For nearly eight years, virtually the only voices that the Bush administration listened to were those of big business and corporate donors. We paid a hefty price: We saw an emergency management agency that couldn’t provide needed aid after a devastating hurricane, a mine safety agency that coddled mining companies at the expense of worker safety, the dominance of politics over science at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an energy policy written by and for the fossil fuel industry, and an economic meltdown after the deregulation of the financial services industry.
