Let’s see. It’s been said in the news media; our Internet chat rooms, forums and blogs; our pages; and our private discussions with our liberal friends, to wait and see what President Obama does before we criticize him.
We’ve been told, “He’s no socialist. You’re just being mean,” or “closed-minded” or “ignorant.”
Or maybe we’re just small-town folks bitterly clinging to our guns and religion.
Well, we’ve had plenty of time to see. Let the complaints commence, and not just about Obama but the whole rotting cesspool that is our nation’s elected government.
This isn’t all about Obama. It also is about his teammates around the nation and the causes he believes in.
Here’s a quick glance at the first half of the year:
Cap and trade passed the U.S. House Friday. Eight Republicans crossed the line and voted for this. They could have defeated it at birth. That would be my kind of abortion, but the Democrats in charge (which doesn’t necessarily include our Peter DeFazio, who voted no) and a handful of Republicans apparently favor aborting our economy with the creation of a market based solely on buying and selling government-issued pollution permits.
Gun rights remain intact despite U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s sucking up to the Mexican government and hinting at reviving the ban on so-called assault weapons. This is probably the one area that will survive President Obama’s administration intact as most folks still seem to recognize that bearing arms actually is a right. Gun sales and the ammo shortage since President Obama’s election seem to support this, and plenty of Democrats openly oppose more restrictions on our Second Amendment rights.
Such an attack on rights many Americans consider fundamental would be political suicide right now.
Deficit spending is on the rise in spite of all the Democratic rhetoric against deficit spending. They mistakenly blame our current fiscal crisis on President Bush and company. The blame goes much further back, and virtually everyone is guilty. The causes are much more than deficit spending, but that is the Democrats’ answer to the problem. The Democrats properly criticized President Bush’s deficits and correctly call Republicans hypocrites. Now they have earned the same label.
If the Bush Administration’s economic policies were so destructive, it seems strange that President Obama and his party are continuing at least two of them, nearly doubling deficit spending and continuing the TARP program, and they helped lead the way to last fall’s collapse with other destructive economic policies. It just underscores my contention for the past decade that President Bush is a socialist too, and lefties should have accepted him.
President Bush gave us a record $1 trillion deficit €“ absolutely unthinkable for someone who should be a fiscal conservative. President Obama is pushing a record $1.8 trillion deficit. Obama followers didn’t like President Bush doing it. They say it’s going to take time to reverse the mess President Bush gave us €“ but our current leader is going to clean it up by just doing more of exactly the same thing, Keynesian spending. Maybe they believe John Maynard Keynes was right only when it’s a Democrat in office.
So much for “change.”
More extensively socialized healthcare is right around the corner. While Obama pushes his socialist expansion of the industry, Oregon Democrats are going out of their way to bolster the number of uninsured folks in our state by taxing small businesses and individuals who pay for their own insurance €“ raising the price and potentially forcing them off their free-market insurance. This from the folks who supposedly want to see everyone insured. Thanks, guys.
TARP is still going, and with it we get President Obama running our corporations. I don’t know how much longer it will be before liberals will actually accept the “socialist” label. This particular action clearly falls under the technical definition of socialism: public funding and management of the banks’ means of production.
My hat is always off at one level to socialists who stand proudly for their belief, as wrong as it may be. They’re honest about it.
The same argument being used to justify this €“ since we’re paying for it, we should have a say €“ is already being leveled now and then across the Internet for universal healthcare. When it’s in place, the federal government arguably will have a right to dictate your daily menu, what you drink and smoke and how you exercise. Civil libertarians who supported President Obama and his crowd should be very afraid. It’ll only be a matter of time.
One of President Obama’s redeeming qualities, as far as I’m concerned, is that he is a smoker. Yet he is so weak, he is ready to sign a bill putting tobacco under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration, the anticipated effect being a decrease in nicotine in cigarettes. It sounds more like a counter-intuitive tax increase.
Smokers will tend to smoke more when you cut their drug out of the delivery device €“ witness what happens when most smokers switch from full flavor to lights. The man should sit behind his desk and light one up in the Oval Office to make a point about individual rights. But he won’t because he is concerned more about building and running a nanny state.
Government Motors €“ It’s President Obama at work again. It’s apparently among those things too big to let die. Now the federal government is set to become the largest shareholder in General Motors, comrades.
The Fairness Doctrine doesn’t appear to be making a comeback, despite fears that it might, but President Obama has been busy. Perhaps he’ll get to this one later.
Looking more locally, Oregon Democrats are pushing some $800 million in new taxes in a state that last month was second in the nation for unemployment. Our state revenue is based on income or cash flow, just like real businesses and real people. When times get tough, they don’t have the option of simply raising their revenues. They must cut spending. The state does have this ability even though it shouldn’t. State Democrats are rolling forward because we “can’t afford” to cut our state-run services.
This isn’t a matter of whether we need these services. This is a matter of reality. The state’s economy is in shambles, and increasing the burden on a sinking economy is stupid. This economy already failed to provide the “needed” revenue once.
Somehow, squeezing the economy some more is supposed to help. We can’t squeeze the golden goose too hard. Its eggs are going to get smaller as it wheezes and gasps for air.