In the first month of his presidency, Barack Obama averred that if in three years he hadn’t alleviated the nation’s economic pain, he’d be a “one-term proposition.”
When three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track” and even Bill Clinton calls the economy “lousy,” how then to run for a second term? Traveling Tuesday to Osawatomie, Kan., site of a famous 1910 Teddy Roosevelt speech, Obama laid out the case.
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It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.
Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The “breathtaking greed of a few” is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their “fair share,” the middle class would have a chance. Otherwise, government won’t have enough funds to “invest” in education and innovation, the golden path to the sunny uplands of economic growth and opportunity.
Where to begin? A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It’s mis-investing. As for federally directed spending on innovation — like Solyndra? Ethanol? The preposterously subsidized, flammable Chevy Volt?
Our current economic distress is attributable to myriad causes: globalization, expensive high-tech medicine, a huge debt burden, a burst housing bubble largely driven by precisely the egalitarian impulse that Obama is promoting (government aggressively pushing “affordable housing” that turned out to be disastrously unaffordable), an aging population straining the social safety net. Yes, growing inequality is a problem throughout the Western world. But Obama’s pretense that it is the root cause of this sick economy is ridiculous.
As is his solution, that old perennial: selective abolition of the Bush tax cuts. As if all that ails us, all that keeps the economy from humming and the middle class from advancing, is a 4.6-point hike in marginal tax rates for the rich.
This, in a country $15 trillion in debt with out-of-control entitlements systematically starving every other national need. This obsession with a sock-it-to-the-rich tax hike that, at most, would have reduced this year’s deficit from $1.30 trillion to $1.22 trillion is the classic reflex of reactionary liberalism — anything to avoid addressing the underlying structural problems, which would require modernizing the totemic programs of the New Deal and Great Society.
As for those structural problems, Obama has spent three years on signature policies that either ignore or aggravate them:
A massive stimulus, a gigantic payoff to Democratic interest groups (such as teachers and public-sector unions) that will add nearly $1 trillion to the national debt.
Would this not be your strateegery if you were Obama? If I were him I'd do exactaly what he and the democrat party is doing, deflecting the reality and extending the lie. For the statist, the lie is the Way. It's the only matter of course; the means and the end.
Of the many things I've learned in this life, is that the masses when confused and confounded, are much more willing to embrace and reconcile the lie. Even when the facts are before them. The lie catapulted Obama to a first term as President, it can happen again.
My advice to the GOP, nominate a conservative fighter, bring the fight to the democrat doorstep, be unrelenting in highlighting reality.
My advice to Team Obama, continue on course, only amplify 10 fold. Lie, lie and lie some more. Blame the "rich", corporations, Wall Street, America's past, anyone but yourself for your failure as President. I like the presidential style/rhetoric morphing, you're Lincoln, no, now you're Reagan, no, now you're Teddy . . .keep doing that. It gives the illusion to the masses, you are actually someone you're not.
If I were obama and of the leftist persuasion, I would also do what he is doing. He can't assume responsibility for this economy as all other Presidents get tagged with because he would lose. It is indefensible.
Blaming the rich works with the vast majority of the American public. They don't care that the taxes proposed on those folks won't significantly reduce the deficit. They know deep down in their gut that we are spending our way into bankruptcy. However, they want those entitlement checks.
When people are willing to emasculate their own military for an entitlement check then you know where that eventually leads. We are a 'dependency nation' and anyone that appeals to that dependency will win.
POTUS has no choice but to go "all Chicago" on America over this next year. It's why the Republicans need to understand that there is both a policy and political strategy involved in knee-capping him and winning the White House. If the GOP isn't prepared to present a competent, non-partisan and highly accomplished candidate to contest Obama (knowing what we know about the impact of his policies AND politics...I shudder to think what America is going to look like in 4 more years. Thus it's important for folks in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary states to ask themselves who's best able to manage our way out of this financial abyss we find ourselves in.
In what is most assuredly going to be the dirtiest, nastiest, ugliest campaign in history, we need a candidate who will go toe to toe with the one. Somebody who cannot be intimidated by the MSM and Axelrod-esque mud slinging. John Mc Cain wasnt up to it. Remember Ayers, Alinsky, and the like were all off limits 4 years ago. Im just not sure that Romney is equal to the task. However, Newt seems to be looking forward to it. An ideal candidate he is not, but I recall an article posted by VDH here not long ago. That article showed us all the things that don't matter anymore about our candidates since no objections applied to Obama. Im not naive enough to think thats actually true but think about a bare knuckle year-long bar fight of a campaign between Newt and Obama. EVERYTHING that Obama says will be challenged and countered this time around. Last time there was weak, if any, resistance at best. While I agree with my fellow posters here who say anybody would be better than Obama, its time to choose. Newt is many things, but shy and deferential arent among them. The national polls which record the "Obama vs. Candidate X" supposedly tell us that the GOP'er who fares best is Romney. In the streetfight that is sure to emerge, I believe many Independents would vote for the proverbial ham sandwich rather than Obama, and, many who are left will be turned off by the "Blame everyone but me" campaign Obama is about to put into high gear. REmember, those making $250k are millionaires in current Democrat vernacular. The Obama campaign has already been exposed focusing on the jobless poor and abandoning the middle class. In an ugly campaign, the "1%" who are responsible for our woes will slowly become the Employed "50%". I dont think employed members of the middle class who struggle to live paycheck to paycheck will tolerate the demonization intended to mobilize those living welfarte check to welfare check. THat may sound harsh but it will sound like a nursery rhyme compared to what lies ahead next year. Newt is the guy to fight in hand to hand combat. In my opinion.
Yes…just do nothing and let the media get you elected again. At least if he is doing nothing, he cannot make things worse…right??
Look, it’s perfectly clear to everyone not blinded by ideology fooled, by soothing rhetoric, or bought off by generous governmental dole that President Obama’s first term has been an unmitigated disaster for this country. All we need is for the middle class to realize that his policies will crush the middle class and in the end…not really affect the rich at all.
The more he talks the more evident this becomes so let him make more speeches and lose voters with every word. If instead he just lets media tout his terrificness, he has a greater chance of winning and the '99%'...losing.
Obama has not changed his position at all, just the examples he uses. His presidency has always lied to make his point. Make America a socialist country. He will demonise everything that makes this country great to continue his efforts for re-election. Actually, where would Obama be today if it weren't for the rich and powerful, just a poor kid in the slums of Kenya.
Why? He would be no worse and would have the benefit of eliminating Obamacare to start, as any GOP nominee who would win would do.
I am not much of a fan of anyone running - which makes it two cycles in a row, and perhaps three. I only know that under Obama I see - and I mean this seriously - Chavez, Castro, etc. When you figure he cannot get worse he does. And in warning anyone with a skeleton in their closet of any size (and we almost all have something) what $1B can do to destroy your life - that is the Axelrod way - perhaps other better candidates have melted away.
That might be Gingrich's only advantage - we already know his bad stuff.
There's something categorically wrong with Gingrich. Sorry you don't see it.
For one thing, I am concerned that his conversion to Roman Catholicism is calculated. All the evidence supports it. With epiphany comes contrition. With contrition comes modesty. Gingrich is doing the most immodest thing imaginable -- seeking the most important powerful office on earth.
For another, anyone who spends $250k to $500k on jewelry and who isn't making $10 million per year worships a god other than our God, and that god is named Bling.
Third, anyone who calls the Ryan Plan "right wing social engineering" on Sunday and says the very next day that any ad quoting him on that is a "falsehood," and then proposes a government program to put kids to work in schools to inculcate within them the culture of work -- the very essence of right wing social engineering -- is fundamentally devious. Not self-deceiving. Devious.
Did I mention telling America on national TV that he rendered "historian" services for Freddie Mac, the entity which, with its big brother Fannie Mae, you (incorrectly) hold primarily responsible for the financial crisis? Or that he loves America so much that sometimes he got overworked and addled and screwed women not his wife?
Is America so close to collapse that it resembles other countries at that crossroads in their histories?
That you can presume to pronounce what's 'categorically' wrong with anyone else, while supporting Obama and his political liberal worldview, is truly audacious. What's 'wrong' with your guy Obama can't be confined to just 'categorically' - he's sporting the entire enchilada of 'what's wrong'.
If you think a "political liberal worldview" makes Obama as dangerous as I think Gingrich is, I hope you pack a piece wherever you go. There are liberals everywhere. Especially in cities. And especially in cities in blue states. Be careful!
Obama does not have a liberal world view; Lord Obama has a neo-Marxist world view, completely disconnected from the struggles of ordinary Americans, and with Chicago thuggish overtones.
Probably is, I doubt he is all that clever, so someone else makes it work - which is why the less you hear from him, the better his polling numbers tend to be.
And as to your church comment re Newt - if you approve of Obama who sat in a racist hate filled church - you are not able to even make the argument. So try again.
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A massive stimulus, a gigantic payoff to Democratic interest groups (such as teachers and public-sector unions) that will add nearly $1 trillion to the national debt.
