Posted by
Bill Crawford on Friday, February 27, 2009 12:24:26 PM
I spent the last days musing about the happier worlds of sport because they were front and center, and because I needed some time to absorb the consequences of Obama's speech Tuesday- and his follow ups to the media since.
The mainstream media is now focused on his "ambitious" agenda. Even the likes of Broder and Herbert don't know if he can pull all of this off, but they are obviously hoping he can.
I am not just hoping Obama will fall flat on his face. I will be forced to work for exactly that politically. This is the "change" that he made a point of not fleshing out on the campaign trail, because he knew he would never hold on to the bulk of the swing voters.
He is still trying to couch this all in centrist terms. He isn't personally for big government. After the expansion, he is going to draw it all back down and "cut the deficit in half by the end of his term". Half of what? He doesn't say. Even if it is more lawyer speak and it is half of the WWII level percentage of GDP debt he wants to create, that is STILL a disaster. Oh wait, there is more: "My team has gone through the budget line by line, and already found $2 trillion in savings". Did he tell you that over half of his "savings" is new and higher taxes?
He is still sticking to his story that "95%" of taxpayers won't have their taxes raised "a dime". That is, as long as they aren't paying utilities, or what do you think happens when companies start trading carbon credits? Or helping their mortgage companies fund the people who would be foreclosed even if a reasonable mortgage could be negotiated for them?
Health care? He is skipping the pretenses of expanding Medicare and Medicaid eligibility and creating incentives for employers to dump their health care plans into government care. We are going full-ought for "universal" health care. He still swears this isn't 'single payer', but who is left here to believe that?
There still is no plan for the second coming of TARP, except that the money will be spent.
He is planning to raise taxes on the $250,000+ class. That's a quarter mil per HOUSEHOLD, you suburbanites and small business owners. Those of you who still think that job creation and capital formation still starts with those people should know that the best alternative left for job creation will be through the government. That's the way it is across the Atlantic now.
He is planning to withdraw from Iraq in two years and reap the savings. But he is leaving 50,000 troops there and expanding troop levels in the Afghanistan theater. What is he going to cut? Weapon procurement? Spare parts? You try and figure that one out.
He is planning to let the Bush tax cuts die, and he will find the focus group semantics to not have to call it a tax increase- part of which will have to fall on some of his magic "95%" of taxpayers.
He is trying to turn us into Europe. Has anybody noticed that Europe has been an economic sludge for decades? That the average unemployment rate there has been stuck at 10%+ forever? That the prized jobs coming out of college in Germany and France are in the government?
Is that what you all want?
Over my politically dead body. This man is out of his mind.
We elected the most inexperienced, most liberal member of the Senate into the White House, because enough people wanted "change". If you don't like the color of your house and you have your children pepper it with paint guns until you can't see the original color any more, that qualifies as "change". But is it the right thing to do?
Guaranteed debt and faith in promises from a Chicago community activist. I'm sorry, folks. That's not good enough.