Barack Obama is hoping to shift the fundamental structure of our economy away from individual self-reliance toward a type of Euro-socialism.
Public opinion can be very fickle. Barack Obama rode a positive wave of opinion all the way to the White House. The public welcomed him into office in that same spirit of hope in which he ran. Since the inauguration, however, the President is showing he has different plans than the ones he spoke about during the campaign. It should come as no surprise when the public turns on him just as easily as he has turned on them.
The contradictions between Obama's words and actions are many. He opposes big government, and then he vastly expands it. He says he favors bipartisanship, but doesn't practice it. He says he is against earmarks, and then signs the largest pork package in history. And that is just to name a few.
Such inconsistencies are contributing to a lack of confidence in Obama and his economic policies. The budget deficits he proposes are staggering. The trillions of dollars he wants to spend are incomprehensible. There is no evidence that stimulative government spending even works. Obama is apparently racing to remake America in a socialist mold before public sentiment turns against him. One wonders whether his political capital will run out before the financial capital of the country runs out.
There is simply no way the government can pay for this level of spending unless it prints money it doesn't have and debases the dollar. His numbers do not add up. Larger deficits are not the solution to a debt crisis.
Not that it is Obama's fault, but throw in Social Security and Medicare benefits to be paid in the future, and we effectively have placed the U.S. government in bankruptcy. Jerome Corsi recently reported in WorldNetDaily that: "The $65.5 trillion total federal obligations under GAAP accounting not only now exceed four times the U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, the $65.5 trillion deficit exceeds total world GDP." Obama addresses this looming crisis only in generalities, but his spending plans bring national bankruptcy closer to reality.
Yet Obama doesn't really care what happens to the economy. His overriding goal is for government to become Big Brother. He claims that by redoing health, education and energy policies he can cure the economy. It is a ruse by which government can control ever more of our daily life.
If he truly wanted the economy to improve, Obama would simply make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Having some certainty about low tax rates would do much to help the economy. But that does not fit with his plans to enact the most radical social change we have ever seen.
Over the past decade, the United States has become ever more dependent on foreign investment in its Treasury Bills, primarily by China and Japan. The willingness of these investors to continue purchasing trillions in U.S. debt has become ever more questionable as they have seen the U.S. economy deteriorate. If they ever walk away, our economy could collapse.
So, where does this all leave Barack Obama?
In the past, excessive taxation and spending policies have caused the economy to contract. High unemployment then followed, and increased government spending caused the budget deficit to soar. The central bank then tried to solve the problem by printing more money leading to higher inflation. The currency then depreciated, and international competitiveness was lost, leading to more unemployment.
Usually by this point an alarmed public turns to conservatives to clean up the mess. Think Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and Ronald Reagan in 1980. Could this pattern portend the end for Barack Obama? Not necessarily. Before conservatives can recover, Obama is hoping to shift the fundamental structure of our economy away from individual self-reliance toward a type of Euro-socialism. We will see which way it plays out.
It's a shame Obama uses his oratory gifts to punish rather than inspire personal achievement. He will likely continue on his merry path until his polls collapse and the public rejects him. The tipping point may be an international incident such as an Arab-Israeli war, Russian aggression, or some other crisis. With the weak domestic economy, and an Obama kumbaya response in a time of emergency, the whole illusion of "change you can believe in" could be laid bare.
Hopefully by the time the bloom comes off this fanciful presidency conservatives will have found their voice. Will Obama then reinvent himself with some Bill Clinton-style triangulation plan? Probably not. More likely, he has already shown us his best act and will slowly morph into a finger-pointing demagogue as his polls fade. If anyone else were president and deceptively trying to enact his programs, a full-scale revolt would already be underway.
But for now, Obama is still a curiosity to whom many are willing to give a chance. Political correctness still holds sway, and so-called "tea parties" are about as rebellious as it gets. In due time, the public will judge this man and his policies more clearly, and calls to stop him will grow louder. Let's hope it's not too late before that happens.
Re: When the Obama Backlash Comes.
I think anyone expecting an Obama backlash anytime soon is being overly optimistic.
I understand that many people of independent thought have already removed the veil from The Obama administration. However; this will never translate into backlash. Liberals, like conservatives come in two persuasions; thinking, and unthinking. I will list each of the author’s well thought out reasons for this impending backlash, along with the explanation as to why there will be no net effect.
Obama opposes big government yet expands it. – Obama’s programs are touted as necessary response to the economic plague left by the republicans. Liberals of both persuasions agree wholeheartedly with this argument. In such a discussion you can never get to the root cause of the current financial debacle. Once you admit the least involvement by a conservative administration, even one in name only, it is an immediate debate loser. The zinger is “Another conservative mess left up to us liberals to clean up”.
Bipartisanship – Obama has already given his answer to this. It came with his first, and so far, only meeting with congressional republicans just before ramming through the Omnibus Stimulus Package. That answer was “I won”. Liberals have no problem with this statement. This is their train to drive now.
Earmarks and Deficit Spending – We’ll deal with these together. There have been times during past administrations where liberals have vehemently opposed both earmarks and deficit spending. In December 2002 when Vice President Dick Cheney told soon-to-be-fired Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” He was excoriated in the mainstream press. It is much the same with earmarks. You see earmarks and deficits don’t’ matter nearly as much to liberals as the TYPES of earmarks and deficits. If earmarks promote ‘family planning’ services and deficits promote universal health care; these are ‘admirable’ deficits. Well worth going into debt for. Just as if you were to give a tax cut to the people, but immediately take it and more back in the form of higher gas and energy prices due to cap & trade. This is an ‘admirable’ reason to push the cost of living beyond the reach of 30% of Americans. Besides; with the money we’ll soon have at our disposal due to increased federal taxes; we’ll soon have to ability to give small stipends directly to the people to help lessen the pain of switching to ‘renewable’ energy sources.
Higher unemployment & inflation – These are part & parcel of the future of the Obama administration. As unemployment rises, it won’t be reported in the MSM as an effect of Obama economic policy. It will be reported as ‘Oppressive business owners eager to ensure their obscene profit margins.” Remember; Treasury now has the power to proactively step in and seize a company before it effects the economy.
How long do you think it will take before the Treasury Secretary declares the Wal-Mart Corporation is a ‘social’ failure because it does not pay ‘living’ wages, is not unionized, and does not provide a 100% company paid health care benefit to its employees. The Treasury Secretary and the administration would declare Wal-Mart to have ‘failed’ in its commitment to the community at large and seize the assets of the corporation. Even a profitable company can be fingered as a failure depending on the elasticity of the characterization. Looking at the evolution of this administration’s denotation regarding the issues of transparency, lobbyists, earmarks, and bipartisanship: How long before this definition is utilized. Who would argue? The overwhelming majority of liberals of both persuasions have been waiting a long tome for the Waltons’ to get what they believe should be coming to them. How dare they have a successful father!
Public alarm will eventually turn to conservative to repair the mess – Comprehensive Immigration Reform will fix that. With 20 million newly minted democratic voters eager to claim their piece of government entitlement; liberals will stay in unstoppable majority for generations.
No; Obama has no backlash to fear. Any failures on his part will be blamed either on George Bush, or not spending enough. Guaranteed democratic majorities, a complicit press, and an under-educated population give Obama nothing to fear for eight years. His only challenge will be how does he stay in power after those eight years are up? Musings for another day…
milbrat: I agree with your assessment that there is no immediate prospect of an Obama backlash.
As I’ve written before, http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/03/13/what%e2%80%99s-really-going-on/
there are two ways the Socialist Express can be stopped, neither of them appealing.
The first involves the same thing that typically brings down Liberal Democrat administrations: reaching too far, too fast. By cramming cap and trade, some version of the Kyoto treaty, radical health care reform/rationing, and other life-changing social and economic programs down the throats of the American people all at once, they risk a backlash.
Everybody loves health care reform, until they have to wait 3 months to see a doctor about a non-life threatening injury. Everybody wants to save the planet, until their heating and gas bill reaches stratospheric levels. Then, there’s a backlash — and if the opposition party actually appears to stand for something, they have an opportunity to win despite the media’s efforts to swing the election.
Second, there are exogenous events that can change the public’s mood. The Left/Media took Katrina and transformed a natural disaster amplified by corrupt Louisiana politics (which neglected the levies and had no real evacuation plan for New Orleans) into a Bush Administration problem. The Right will have no such help re-defining Obama’s legitimate mistakes, until the mistakes can no longer be excused away.
If this country is attacked again in a significant way on Obama’s watch, no amount of backtracking and fancy dancing will explain away the current administration’s complicity. Their focus on undoing many of the Bush Administration’s security measures, from closing Gitmo, to watering down terrorist surveillance, to trying to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as fast as they can, will in the words of an anonymous Obama supporter, finally “come home to roost.”
So there you have it. Short of a man-made economic disaster or enemy attack, we’re totally screwed.