Poverty of Reason

Barack Obama is offering nothing novel with his proposals on public works, health care, or education. FDR thought the government could invigorate employment and poured massive amounts into the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other New Deal programs that most economists now believe extended the depression. FDR (and Herbert Hoover before him) raised taxes and erected barriers to free trade just as Obama is doing. Taxes and tariffs will not renew prosperity but delay if not preclude recovery all together. Universal care schemes exist throughout the developed world. They lead to delayed care, care rationing, and the denial of vital but expensive procedures or medications that extend life but do not stand up to cost/benefit analysis by government bureaucrats. Money is being poured into public k-12 education with public school teachers consistently making more than their parochial or private school counterparts. Bringing discipline and accountability back to elementary and secondary public education could work and wouldn't cost a penny. This President really has little interest in growing minds though, if it conflicts with his ambition of growing unions. Educators' unions will thrive under Obama, students will suffer. Autoworkers from the American labels may well end up owning the car companies with the government in a public-private partnership. These employee owner with government's socialist intrusion situations may extend to other businesses as well. Obama is re-instituting the LBJ welfare state, but with his higher income tax proposal for high earners, it should be renamed "the war on prosperity" instead of "the war on poverty". Obama is determined to force Americans to rely on government-he is even reducing the deduction for charitable giving at a time when Americans need charity more than ever. Obama's mean-spirited action here is meant to induce an even greater dependency on government. While none of Obama's ideas are revolutionary, the speed with which he is initiating them is shocking. It is reminiscent of the meth-addict who is convinced he has less chance of being stopped by the police if he stands on the accelerator driving through rush hour traffic. The end of this story is always grim.

The Obama Depression

The current economic turmoil may not have started under Obama, but he has done nothing to improve the situation and everything to capitalize on it. Obama bears heavy responsibility for the GSE (government-sponsored entity) mess of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being the second largest recipient of their lobbying money when he sat in the Senate. Only Christopher Dodd received more and he was in the Senate much longer to get it. Obama thwarted more regulation of these bad loan mills and fought to extend credit to the uncreditworthy from the time he was a community organizer on-his mindset and manipulations put us in this sinking ship. From the beginning of the Presidential campaign, McCain should have pounded Obama and the Democrats on their attempts to prevent more regulation which sadly succeeded and their readiness to overlook outrages such as Franklin Raines more than one hundred million dollars in compensation when he chaired Fannie Mae. In the event, this misfeasance was barely mentioned, and when it was, McCain's attempts at educating the public about this issue were half-hearted. He never really tried to close the sale out of fear that if he hammered Obama too hard or focused too much attention on Raines, he might be perceived as or called a racist as both these scoundrels happen to be black. It is a shame McCain was feckless, because the country he could have led is now in the worst crisis her economy has faced since the Great Depression, repeating and magnifying many of FDR's mistakes. Dear pater, who is old enough to remember, says this is worse because even before 1929's Black Tuesday, Americans lived in lean times and could navigate leaner ones. Today's Americans are, in Dad's opinion, soft-in many cases, fat and spoiled to boot-and in his perception, are falling into the abyss of the new travail from higher heights and are not well-equipped to deal with vicissitudes the way the largely agrarian Americans who had recently turned back the Kaiser and defeated the Huns were. If you can't be without video-games for a few days or cable, try to survive a week on stale bread and beans. Your grandfathers did, and you may have to with our young Marxist leader determined to change us into his just socialist utopia.

Democrat Dollar Doldrum

Tonight's PBS Newshour featured Paul Solman interviewing amongst others New Jersey Governor Corzine and a Democratic US Representative who both agreed that massive New Deal style infrastructure programs are necessary to save our economy as demand has dried up. They agreed with a leftist economist that FDR had dropped the ball by not spending more on make-work programs to pull the US out of the Great Depression. They were followed by a female Washington Post reporter who concurred that the only way out for the country was massive Federal spending on roads, bridges, schools, and "green " investment. It is the taxpayer who will see his green (money) being confiscated to finance all this and history has demonstrated that this socialism has no prospect of returning us to prosperity. This is balderdash propounded by the power mad and accepted by idiots.

Rose Colored Glasses

Rice and Obama featured on the punditry programs this morning. In Rice's case, she continues to promote the virtues of what has to be regarded as the worst Republican administration since Hoover (if not ever). But what else would she tell Chris Wallace? Perhaps the blood and treasure expended were justified, but even so, they helped drain the coffers of the nation and put the opposition party in power. The new socialist leader also propounded his Utopian vision of New New Deal a la FDR. I just can't wait for the bureaucrat to arrive at my door with my energy consumption meter. This is something that would have made Stalin "green" with envy. How much government intrusiveness will formerly free Americans be willing to take? And don't look to weak as water Republicans like my own Senator Alexander to stand in Obama's way. On reducing carbon footprints, Lamar agrees with Barry. They will have a love fest and an era of good feelings at the cost of our liberty. Perhaps it is time for a third party, one with only conservatives in its ranks.

Obama and Lincoln

Obama was the highlight of Sixty Minutes last night. He declared his admiration for Honest Abe (one wonders if Obama realizes Lincoln was the proto-Republican). How long will it take for Obama to suspend the right of habeas corpus as Lincoln did? Will he use an act of terror as his excuse or fabricate another provocation? Obama also revers FDR and is sure to implement a new New Deal which only prolonged the Great Depression.

Turmoil, Trauma, Treachery

Economic dislocation is already escalating. Unemployment numbers are rising. Obama has promised a $3000 tax credit for each job a business creates. Even at minimum wage, a full-time employee will make many times that and that does not include the expense of training and benefits. Once hired, Obama's infatuation with trial lawyers will make it problematic to fire anyone. Under Obama, unemployment in the private sector is destined to skyrocket. Government will try to offset this with massive make-work programs in the spirit of FDR's New Deal or Johnson's Great Society, both dismal and demonstrable failures. The taxes to pay for Obama's government leviathan will only cripple entrepreneurs that much more. Herbert Hoover raised taxes in a recession and did a brilliant job of pushing the economy over a cliff. If Obama follows the path of John Maynard Keynes or Lester Thurow, he will injure the nation irrevocably. He must embrace the supply-siders, follow the path of Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer and allow private enterprise to grow us out of our current travail. But Obama's animus to capitalism and love of power will prevent this. He will not honor his pledge to lower taxes on 95% of the people. In all likelihood, he will betray many of his own high earning voters and raise taxes on everyone already paying them. This was the victory of populism, progressive prevarication, and power madness over patriotism and productive people.