When the Obama Backlash Comes
By Jeff Lukens 

Public opinion can be very fickle. Barack Obama has ridden a positive wave of opinion all the way to the White House. The public has 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 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 is 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 to 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.
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Jeff Lukens writes engaging opinion columns from a fresh, conservative point of view. He can be contacted through his website: www.jefflukens.com

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Obama: the First 100 Days
A comprehensive analysis.

DISASTER!

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A $50 Lesson 

I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? ' 

She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.' 

Her parents beamed and were so proud. 

'Wow...what a worthy goal.' I told her, ' But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. 

Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. ' 

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ' Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ' 

I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.' 

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

HT to Christine White

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On our grandchildren’s future 

This was a weekend for the grandkids. Actually, it was a weekend for “Papa Jack”, for I can think of no better way to spend a weekend than with my two grandsons. On Saturday morning I was able to spend a few hours with two-year old Dylan, playing “fumble-roosky” with a small rubber football on the family room floor and enjoying his giggles and happy squeals each time he got to the football before grandpa did, then taking him down to a nearby school playground to watch him swing, and go down slides, then finishing up the morning with cheeseburgers at “Mickie-D’s” (MacDonalds). From there it was up to the first of two soccer games that my older grandson, thirteen-year old Connor, was playing in this weekend. He was the hero of Saturday’s game, scoring a goal and setting up two more as his team won that game, 3-2. Needless to say, he was pumped! It carried over to Sunday, when we traveled to Colorado Springs for his second game. He scored another goal but, unfortunately, his team went down in this one 4-2. 

During the hour-long trip to “the Springs”, my mind could not stop wondering to a question that has occurred to me more and more frequently in the last few months…what will life be like for Connor and Dylan when they are raising their families and eventually enjoying their own grandchildren fifty years in the future? Unfortunately, for the first time in my life, I am not very optimistic for their future. I am confident that they will go off to college and. like their parents and grandparents; that they will enjoy a relatively prosperous life in the America of the future. I use the term “relatively” in the sense that, as compared to society in general, they will probably be in the economic middle- to upper middle-class as their parents were.

What I worry about, however, is that this will not have the same meaning as it does today. I worry that they will not have the same freedoms, the same liberty, and the same opportunities that their parents and grandparents did. I am concerned that they will not have the same comfortable homes, the opportunities to travel, and the same freedoms to make life’s choices that we had. Because of the demographic waffle iron masquerading as today’s call for “social justice”, much more of their income will be taken up with paying taxes, standing in queues for goods and services, and tolerating the bland mediocrity that is inherent in a social welfare state.

We owe it all to the people of my generation and the generation that followed for not caring enough to prevent it from happening. This is when I realize that it is entirely for them that I write conservative articles on my website, carry signs at Conservatives’ “Tea Parties”, and ring doorbells or stuff envelopes for conservative candidates in election years.  

Two articles that appeared in this weekend’s postings at the American Thinker online journal illustrate my concern. In the first article entitled, Mark Steyn on 'Who Will Lead the Post-American Era', author Rick Moran expresses his confidence that America will weather the rapid move toward a socialistic society that we are witnessing will be reversed and overcome just as moves to the left always have been reversed in the past. Unfortunately, I do not share Mr. Moran’s optimism. For most of the last hundred years, every time Liberal programs have been implemented in our country, any later reversal has been a case of two steps forward and one step back. In other words, the overwhelming trend has been an ever-increasing move to the left, with only minor steps back to the right. What we are seeing now, however, is a great acceleration of this trend, unmatched since FDR’s futile attempts to bring us out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The trillions of dollars of spending that to which Barack Obama and his friends in Congress are committing us to cannot be unspent, and it will be our children and grandchildren who will pick up the tab. The best that we can hope for is that this profligate spending will not continue beyond Obama’s presidential term, thereby increasing even more the burden on future generations.

Obama’s promise to cut taxes for the middle and lower economic classes may indeed take place, but only for a very short time, for there is absolutely no way that the entire burden could be picked up and covered by the detested “rich” people making over $250,000 a year, even if they were taxed at a 100% tax rate. It is a scam, but one that most Americans refuse to acknowledge or even recognize. Bernie Madoff is facing a long prison term for his ponzi scheme, while Barack Obama is getting media accolades. The only real difference is that Obama and his congressional accomplices probably will not become as rich.  

The second article is by Nancy Thorner, and is entitled Democrats' Stealth Approach to Universal Health Care. In a blatant move to head off any Republican opposition to Universal health Care, Democrats are including a nominal $600 billion (the real number is closer to $1.2 trillion, according to Thorner) in the $3.5 trillion 2010 budget which is being nailed together as this article is being written. Ms. Thorner writes,

A government that is unwilling to address the issue of the Social Security and Medicare systems going bankrupt is willing and even eager to add yet another entitlement program to our national repertoire, with no thought for the consequences. If George Bush and Dick Cheney are prosecuted for waterboarding a couple of terrorists, imagine the fun that a future Republican Justice Department will  have with Obama, Reid, and Pelosi intentionally (or negligently, if they are lucky) leading the U.S. into insolvency. Sometimes what goes around comes around, in spades. 

While Universal Health Care will add to the tax burden of future generations, there is no guarantee whatsoever that individual’s health care costs will be significantly reduced. Much more important to our children’s and grandchildren’s quality of life, however, will be the results that are obtained any time government takes over a previously competitive industry, i.e., loss of efficiencies. Thorner explains:

This is not mere speculation. We have already seen medical professionals either leaving the profession or refusing to take on Medicare patients, for example. 

It now appears that socialized health care in America is no longer a matter of “if” but “when”. However, health care is just one aspect of how life in America will be different. It may be that its economic impact will be the most significant and noticeable. The vignette that is going around the internet says it all; “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free.” For some strange reason, however, far too many Americans are of the opinion that while paying what is perceived to be high health insurance premiums is bad, paying for forced coverage through higher taxation is acceptable. 

Even more threatening than socialized health care is the Obama Administration’s intervention into other portions of the free market economy through control of its banks and industries under the guise of economic recovery. Like a virus attacking a person’s immune system, all that one can hope for is that the disease is contained before it consumes the entire body. For Obama’s puppet masters, George Soros and MoveOn.org, along with others, there is no thought of being stopped before the entire capitalist economy in America is destroyed and replaced with a socialist system in which the government controls everything. Covering themselves with the disingenuous cloak of “social justice”, they promote mediocrity and destroy personal ambition through class envy and income redistribution, so that only they themselves will stand alone at the top of the economic heap. That is their plan; that is their strategy. Anyone standing in their way will be squashed like a bothersome insect.  

We have already seen the first indications of their tyrannical methods. Obama’s lawyers have issued threats to financially destroy the private legal organizations that are questioning his constitutional eligibility to hold office. The Department of Homeland Security issued its well-known advisory to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations regarding potential unrest caused by “conservative extremists”, with a list of profiles that would include, if strictly interpreted, many if not most of those who attended the Tax Day Tea Parties. Obama has described his plans for the formation of a “domestic army” equivalent to and similarly funded as the U.S. military. He has initiated training for 20,000 returning Iraq War veterans, a number to be increased eventually to 80,000, to maintain order “in the event that the country’s economic situation leads to domestic unrest.”  Democrats in Congress are busily looking for ways to utilize the FCC’s regulatory powers to stifle conservative talk radio. Taken together, these signs are ominous. And they could be just the tip of the iceberg. 

I am not alone in my concern for future generations. Former history teacher, columnist, and current editor of the website Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller, recently wrote, 

In his book Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin describes what it is that is being threatened. He refers to traditional America’s “civil society” thusly:

Mark’s description is a direct contradiction to the direction that American society is taking. Current Liberal philosophy actively promotes the rights of groups at the expense of individuals, as exemplified by Hillary Clinton’s mantra of “It Takes a Village.”  Will Connor and Dylan become ants in a societal heap wherein individualism has no meaning? Will they be able to pursue their own interests as their parents, grandparents, and generations before were able to do? Or will all of their work and effort be solely directed to the benefit of “the village” and its leaders? There may be too many members of our society who have been “dumbed-down” and convinced that they are “victims” to ever allow a return to the freedoms and liberty that our founding fathers had in mind for us. That is why I worry about the future that is in store for my grandkids and yours.

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