When then-Sen. Barack Obama titled his autobiography “The Audacity of Hope,” (borrowing from a sermon by his spiritual mentor, the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright), he probably didn’t suspect his young presidential administration would be marked by far too much “audacity” and far too little “hope.” 
Let’s start with what ails the country.
The problem in the United States today isn’t that our medical records aren’t computerized. It isn’t insufficient funding for Pell Grants. It’s that the credit markets aren’t operating properly.
Banks don’t know how much their holdings are worth, and they’re afraid to make big loans. Investors doubt that the recession will end soon, so they’re reluctant to put their money into a market that may keep going down.
If the Obama administration starts by solving the banking crisis, the rest of our problems should seem smaller by comparison. Obama nodded in this direction during his primetime news conference on Feb. 9.
“We are going to have to work with the banks in an effective way to clean up their balance sheets so that some trust is restored within the marketplace, because right now part of the problem is that nobody really knows what’s on the bank’s books,” the president declared. He added that his administration had a plan. “I don’t want to pre-empt my secretary of the treasury. He’s going to be laying out these principles in great detail tomorrow,” Obama announced.
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