Now that President Obama has been inaugurated, seven of Princeton’s best minds tell us what they expect and hope for from his administration in the next four years. What Obama means ...
... for global warming
The most significant change I can expect from the Obama administration in the climate/carbon arena is a renewed respect for science and its value in the policymaking process. Furthermore, I expect the new administration to plan to rescue the economy (in part) by saving the environment: funding development and demonstration of new, highly efficient, low-carbon technologies and subsidizing their implementation; and revitalizing our current transportation and electricity infrastructure to be more coherent with a low-carbon economy. I anticipate that Obama will press for a declining domestic cap on greenhouse gas emissions, hopefully without loopholes, in the context of an emissions-trading system, supplemented by tightening of command-and-control regulations like appliance and automobile efficiency standards. Finally, I expect the forceful resumption of U.S. cooperation on this problem at the international level.
There are political risks in this approach, and success is not guaranteed. Congress ought to act swiftly on a cap (though it will more likely do so during 2010). But there is a danger that Obama will decide he "paid at the office" with the rescue plan and defer capping emissions indefinitely. Such an approach would fail because a carrot without sticks doesn't work in the energy arena. On the other hand, agreeing to specific international targets before Congress has set domestic arrangements in place would be a grave political error.
All in all, I am cautiously optimistic that the United States, under Obama's leadership, and the rest of the world, will act in time to avert unmanageable climate change.
-Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and in the Wilson School, member of the International Panel on Climate Change
... for healthcare
President Obama understands that there are serious cost and efficiency problems with U.S. healthcare as well as equity issues based on some Americans lacking medical insurance. The medical industry has been incredibly slow at computerization, contributing to our high rate of medical error partly caused by misreading handwritten instructions, not knowing what other drugs a patient is taking and the like. Obama will ask for a $10 billion per year subsidy for five years with phased-in requirements for IT electronic records. He also wants providers to report costs, outcomes and medical errors and suggests the use of outcome measures as a factor in pay to providers. He has suggested an Institute to produce and disseminate information on effective practices and wants better dissemination of best practices. Providers for government-subsidized programs will be required to utilize the most effective disease-management programs. He also wants to end the ban on the government using its monopsony power to push drug prices down.
Obama recognizes that medical care is not the only input to health. Nutrition, exercise and general lifestyle choices all matter, so watch for some assistance to employers and schools for promoting healthy lifestyles.
Of course, the center of his program will be expanding medical care coverage with pay or play for large employers and new subsidies for low-income people and small businesses, but to date Obama has not called for mandating universal coverage.
I hope Obama changes his mind on the tax exemption for employer-provided medical insurance. This World War II legacy favors high-income individuals because tax exemptions are more valuable to them. It subsidizes medical interventions over exercising, stopping smoking or eating healthfully and should be abolished.
-Elizabeth Bogan, professor of economics
... for the Middle East
There is a lot of optimism that President Obama will be able to affect Middle East policy positively. The list of expectations includes, but is not limited to, striking a peace agree-ment between the Palestinians and Israelis, withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, containing Iran and ameliorating the tarnished U.S. image in the region. There is no doubt Obama is committed to withdrawing troops from Iraq; however, his most vital challenge will be moving the peace process forward and indeed transforming it from a lengthy undertaking to a durable agreement that provides for a lasting two-state solution. On this imperative issue, Obama will not only need to show commitment, but he will also have to make tough decisions. Appointing experienced diplomats from Clinton's administration shows that Obama is interested in picking up where Bill Clinton left off. Hillary Clinton's acknowledgement of both Israel's security needs and Palestinian suffering in her confirmation hearings demonstrates the new administration's awareness of the Palestinians' centrality to any durable agreement. Given this pertinence, the Palestinians can no longer be sidelined, as they were for years under the Bush administration. Obama's silence on the catastrophe in Gaza, however, was deafening to the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims across the globe. Expectations are high, which means if Obama does not deliver and deliver quickly, his administration may very well inherit the legacy of the Bush administration in the Middle East - an administration that has retarded peace efforts, fueled radicalism and hatred against the U.S. and Israel, and further bolstered authoritarian regimes in the region. Obama inspired new hope for millions of citizens in the United States; hopefully, he can do the same for people in the Middle East.
-Amaney Jamal, professor of politics
... for science
The new Secretary of Energy is a Nobel Laureate in physics. One co-chair of the Presi-dent's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is a Nobel Laureate in medicine, and the other, a Princeton graduate, is a MacArthur award winner and one of the major contributors to sequencing the human genome. The newly appointed administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is one of the nation's most distinguished marine ecologists and a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - not to mention the recipient of an honorary degree from Princeton. The candidate for assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is a respected physicist who has been a vocal advocate for investing in energy and environmental research. What Steven Chu, Harold Varmus, Eric Lander '78, Jane Lubchenco and John Holdren, respectively, have in common is a deep commitment to mobilizing the power of science and engineering to improve human lives through discovery and innovation. At the highest levels of government, the United States has a science policy team that is extraordinarily well qualified, effective and visionary. What a time to be a scientist!
-Shirley Tilghman, president, Princeton University and professor of molecular biology
... for civil liberties
Most of Obama's supporters expect quite a lot from his administration, and I am no exception. One of my strongest objections to the Bush administration was its craven use of national security as an excuse for doing almost anything it wanted to do - the reasoning was that if we were to avoid another terrorist attack, we had to take any measures deemed necessary by the party in power to defend ourselves. The result of this mistaken attitude was not only two wars, but a series of harmful incursions upon civil liberties here at home. "Homeland" was Bush-code for a country at imminent risk of domestic attack, and I hope Obama never uses the word. I never believed that we were at such a risk, and I certainly did not believe that we had to trade liberty for freedom. Nor do I now. America is built on the premise that liberty and freedom are inextricably linked, and Eric Holder's confirmation testimony made it clear that the Obama administration will not accept such a false dichotomy. This morning (if my notes are correct) Obama said that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." Quite right. We will indeed have difficult choices to make, but they can be made without sacrificing the liberty of American citizens.
-Stan Katz, professor in the Wilson School and member of the Obama transition team
... for immigrants
The phenomenal Barack Obama is a canvas upon which multiple causes and social yearnings have been inscribed. He is portrayed as the first African-American to become president of this great nation. Yet he is as white as he is black. Progressives see hope in his commitment to human rights and the environment, but conservatives note that his agenda includes themes dear to their heart, like tax cuts and personal accountability. I see yet another facet in Obama's constitution: he is the child of a foreign born student and an American citizen; a second-generation immigrant of sorts. He behaves as such in his capacity to embrace diverse traditions and rise above stultified divisions of the past. He will be a friend of immigrants and implement policies that will give opportunity to youngsters, including those brought at an early age to this country by unauthorized parents. Having grown up in the United States - and therefore as American as can be - those children are still deemed illegal and are technically deportable to countries they cannot remember and where they do not belong. Roughly three million such youngsters languish in this land without rights or future. I expect the new administration to swiftly pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act that will finally give full citizenship to those children. At last, an egregious blot on American integrity will be cleansed.
-Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, professor of sociology
... for the arts
It's shameful that the amount of public money we spend per capita on the arts is negli-gible compared to most so-called advanced nations. But the problem is not necessarily one of the amount of money involved. My own view is that the institutions of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities are a little content in their application-receiving and grant-giving cycle. That's a very one-dimensional view of how to sponsor the arts and runs the risk of being inertly passive rather than energetically proactive. I see that President Obama has, quite rightly, listed arts education as a priority. I doubt, though, if he'd be so quick to suggest that a Scientists' Corps should lead an educational initiative as readily as he's suggested an Artists' Corps should be put to work in the schools. What would seem patronizing of early-career scientists is meant to seem provident to early-career artists. That's an idea that really needs to be thought through and bodied out by a suitably qualified Secretary for the Arts, a government position that's familiar, yet again, throughout the rest of the civilized world.
-Paul Muldoon, professor of creative writing and director of the Lewis Center for the Arts
Tell us what Obama means for the issues you care about in comments.
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