Giving Thanks for a Fruitful Year

Another Thanksgiving comes, and this is perhaps the first in a long while with clear skies and still autumnal weather. I woke up refreshed and relaxed, ready to enjoy a few days at home. Reflecting on this year, it has been a long but certainly productive one both personally and professionally. This is the time for me to give thanks to the many blessings in my life that cannot be taken granted: a loving family, a quality education, secure life, good health, and many friends. Seeing the suffering, whether from economic malaise in Europe, war in the Middle East, or even from Hurricane Sandy so close to home, gave me good perspective. I know I could have done better to take time from my busy life to help out those in need - even delivering one Thanksgiving dinner to someone in need counts. I vow to do much better in December.

I'm also thankful to be an American. No country in the world offers its people as much freedom, both economic and personal, as us. The election has wound down, but it showed our country at its best - people exercising their civic duty to vote, and people debating about issues dear to our country. Let's hope the people's representatives (no matter how cynical you are of the political process) get their act together and avoid the fiscal cliff. If yes, all of us can breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to 2013. Our country still faces many problems ahead, including reinvigorating the economic recovery, tackling federal spending and debt, making health care sustainable, and opening our doors to promising new Americans. But we should be thankful of living here and having the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with our loved ones today and every year.

Obama's victory and new mandate

President Obama's election victory is due in large part to the failings of the Republican Party and Mitt Romney. I think many voters, including the independents and undecided, are unsatisfied with the state of the economy and Obama's policies over the past four years. But Romney and the Republicans offered no viable and concrete alternative path besides the usual rhetoric of smaller government, lower taxes, and free enterprise. That explains why voters remain deadlocked on who would handle the economy better. Meanwhile, the Republicans' social policies are seen as outdated and impractical, and that drove many women, minorities, young and educated people to Obama. The country may still be center-right economically or fiscally, but it is more center-left on many social issues. If the Republicans do not take a serious look at themselves and address their social and economic platform's failings, they will only be trounced in later elections.

Thus, I think Obama won because the public stuck with "the devil you know" instead of "the devil you don't know" and the economy is at least mending. That doesn't mean he has a large mandate to govern, unlike in 2008, and he must work with a recalcitrant Republican House. First priority must be the impending fiscal cliff. Even if Congress finds a solution - and let's hope they do long before Christmas - the country needs a comprehensive solution to address the federal debt and entitlement spending. They are behemoths facing Obama and Congress in the next few years. Other issues are important as well - immigration, overhauling the tax code, energy and climate change. But four years go quickly and if Obama can accomplish comprehensive reform in only one or two of those areas, his second term may well be more fruitful than his first.