Academic

Reform Fatigue

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

President Obama is no incrementalist, and his favorite adjective to describe his myriad reform initiatives is "comprehensive":

• The Budget: "These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air ? they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long:  the high cost of health care and our dependence on oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit."

• The U.S.-Mexico Border: "I think the main thing we need is better enforcement. And so this week we put forward a comprehensive initiative to assist those border regions that are being threatened by these drug cartels to provide assistance to the Mexican government to make sure that on our side of the border we've got more personnel, more surveillance equipment."

• Afghanistan and Pakistan: ?Part of what you?re seeing both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think, is fully resourcing a comprehensive strategy that doesn?t just rely on bullets or bombs, but also relies on agricultural specialists, on doctors, on engineers, to help create an environment in which people recognize that they have much more at stake, in partnering with us and the international community, than giving in to some of these extremist ideologies.?

• Health care: "Our goal will be to enact comprehensive health care reform by the end of this year."

• The Financial Crisis: "We've put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts. It's a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible homeowners, to restart lending, and to grow our economy over the long term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress."

If you aren't a stickler for direct quotations, you can easily find more, like references to Obama's plan for comprehensive education reform,a comprehensive review of the tax system, and a comprehensive New Energy plan.

I admire President Obama's enthusiasm for his new job, but reform fatigue among the American people is inevitable. That's why the Obama Administration is moving so quickly on so many fronts. He won't get everything he wants, but the U.S. regulatory system will look markedly different next year.

The good news for lawyers is that we get to sort of all of this out. While recent reports about the legal market have been grim, I see bright times ahead.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on March 30, 2009 (boomark / email).