At least, since 2003, conservatives have been criticizing President Bush for failing to hold the line on domestic spending. He didn’t a veto a single bill until 2006, never challenging the spendthrift budgets Congress passed.
With Obama proposing trillions in new spending, those who are voting against the “last eight years” will be getting more, much more (much, much more) of the same in an Obama Administration. One of the great ironies of this campaign.
In his post on Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania, Michael Barone considers another intereseting irony of this campaign. Barone attribues that lead to the Democrat’s strength in the Philadelphia suburbs where affluent voters are turning away from the GOP because of the “recent decline in household wealth” due to tumbling house prices. “The irony here is that voters motivated by anger at the decline in their wealth seem about to elect a president who has promised to embark on wealth-destroying policies.”
Pennsylvanians are voting their anger not their economic interests.
As we enter the last week of this campaign, we’ll find whether voters come to understand Obama’s economic agenda. That’s why I still have hope that McCain can win. While Americans aren’t happy with the fiscal record of the past eight years, they don’t want it amplified.
We don’t want an ever larger, federal government and a more tightly regulated economy (as Obama has promised). We prefer free markets. And the Democrat, in Jennifer Rubin’s words, “certainly exhibits no affection for or understanding of the benefits of market capitalism.”
Will voters comes to understand that by November 4 or have they decided they want change, without realizing what that change entails?
The publication of Obama’s 2001 discussion of how to bring about redistributive change confirms that his comment to “Joe the Plumber” about spreading the wealth reflects his general economic philosophy. His proposed tax “cut” to 95% of households when 44% don’t pay any federal income tax is a manifestation of this philosophy.
Such policies are a surefire way to stifle economic growth.
In many ways, given that both Bush and Obama favor ever higher levels of domestic spending, the primary difference between the Democrat candidate’s economic policies and those of the much maligned Republican incumbent is that the Democrat plans to increase taxes on the most productive members of our society.
So we’d get Bush’s spending policies minus the incentives he provided for productivity. Kind of like providing a recipe for repeating the last eight years, but without the economic growth.
The Obama Regime could yet be successful, but in order to do so, he will have to restrain his Marxist tendencies and govern moderately. There is no indication that he, or the Democrats in Congress, are likely to do either.
Because the country is still broadly center-right, an over-reach by the Democrat left could provide an opportunity to rebuild the Republican party and the conservative coalition. If we can restrain Obama’s fascist tendencies — and that’s a mighty big if — it might be better in the long run to rip this socialist band-aid off all at once instead of slow-bleeding through four years of a McCain-Democrat congress. And I want to emphasize Might be.
Is November 5th too soon to start building Sarah’s Army, to begin thinking about how to take back the Congress, or at least win back lost ground, in 2010… and then the White House in 2012? That’s where I am. I’ve written my November 5 blog-post as a call to arms, and am preparing a letter to Mrs. Palin offering unlimited support… provided she wants support from a circus clown like me.
Is Obama a pragmatist, who won’t hesitate to ignore his left-wing base (knowing they have nowhere else to go), as Clinton did in order to secure poll ratings and re-election? Or is Obama a New Party, Jeremiah Wright socialist as suggested by his pre-2008 track record and speeches?
Will Obama abandon Iraq to the enemies of human freedom? And will he raise taxes in a recession, sending the country into a new Depression? Or will he explain reality to his moonbat base, giving them a “come to Jesus” moment on both issues?
Or will McCain-Palin win after all? Stay tuned for hindsight, coming your way in 2012.
Most politicians will sell out what they don’t really care about to protect what they do. I always suspected McCain would sell out conservatives on judges and taxes in order to get his way with the Democrat Congress on Amnesty and Iraq policy.
I suspect Obama does not know how to compromise. He has never had to in the past, and with a filibuster-proof senate majority, he will not have to. This is why I think he will over-reach.
Barney Frank is already touting a Keynesian pump mega-priming to flood the economy with welfare deficit spending. The Democrats really believe that the government can spend the treasury down and tax people into prosperity.
Why, oh why, wouldn’t that work for people in foreclosure? If you can’t afford your bills, why not go on a spending spree and cause your income to rise and your indebtedness to disappear?
A “President” Obama will team with Frank/Pelosi/Reid to replace the tax code, punish corporations they think they don’t like, strip the military, pull the troops out but maintain the war spending for welfare goodies.
The House and the Senate are full of Democrat Party long knives who secretly (for now) are plotting to eat Obama’s lunch. First, they will trade their support for massive amounts of pork and personal gain. But eventually, they will “Carterize” him.
We will have a rough economy and job loss all of which they will continually blame on Bush/Cheney. How long the MSM will track with that theme is anyone’s guess.
Liberals do not see their speech as threatened since they control the MSM. Anyone who has ever watched “The View” even once has seen the mainstream liberal concept of reality. There are plenty of viewers who cheer “The View” girls on while wishing they didn’t have to listen to the stupid conservative one. An Obama speech code will punish controversy and disagreement.
It is hard to know if Obama believes all the bunk he babbles or is conditioned to making his sycophants drool. But eventually, the “hoi-polloi” who have swallowed his Kool-Aid will discover that things got worse and they didn’t get squat. At that point, Obama will have to take responsibility, which he is genetically incapable of doing.
As soon as Obama bleeds, the Democrat party sharks he swims with will attack in a feeding frenzy.
The huge state retirement funds and university endowment funds will begin to bleed and tuitions will rise and states will have to raise taxes and people will begin to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I met a guy in New Zealand who had moved there from South Africa. (He “escaped” the economy of South Africa.) He had a store in a dying town where he was “selling” beach pebbles on which he had painted flowers, slogans and faces. The New Zealand government subsidized this guy’s business, living expenses, etc. as an artist who was helping the economy of a basically dead town. It is the most remarkable socialism scam I have ever encountered. His lifestyle was not very high, but it was enormously secure.
How many welfare piglets are willing to line up at the sow in the United States? Bread and circuses have never kept people free. We are on the brink of Oligarchy and Acorn is signing up piglets at record rates.
Did I just get spam filtered again?
As soon as Obama bleeds, the Democrat party sharks he swims with will attack in a feeding frenzy.
Not sure if this will happen. But I do wonder what Hillary will do. Is she going to go along with the Obamassiah, or is she already plotting his downfall?
Obama is in bed – to a rather greater degree than McCain – with the Goldman-Sachs type of Wall Street special interests who love being bailed out at the expense of the world’s honest business people:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/28/video-cbs-follows-obamas-money/
I’m not sure how that affects my question at #2. After all, some German business people felt the need to get in bed with Hitler, as he rose.
I can’t wait (/sarc) to see how the Democrats react when foreigners suddenly and finally stop buying into the scam, simultaneously crashing the dollar and sending our interest rates through the roof.
V the K: Obama would dazzle the Congressional superstars for only so long. The type-A personalities will stay low-key only so long as he is useful. But an Obama White House will eventually step on enough Congressional toes to cause a rift. There is always a natural tension between the Executive and Legislative Branches, even when they are in the same family. Republicans rolled over for Bush on huge government spending. But Congressional Democrats will eventually take a bite out of Obama. Obama does not really lead. He blathers. At some point, he will direct blame at the Congress in order to shed his own responsibility. I am predicting that when that begins, he will bunker down and get defensive. Barney, Pelosi, Schumer, Leahy, Boxer, Feinstein, Dingall, Conyers, Clinton, and sundry crooks and liars are going to swarm the power vacuum he has created. They did it to Truman. They did it to Johnson and they certainly did it to Carter. Clinton lucked out by being able to cuddle up to a Republican Congress. But Obama will have two Democrat trains heading down the track at each other. I predict he will fall off the tracks first.
Hopefully, McCain will pull off a victory and all my speculation will be for naught.
McCain finally adopts the _Atlas Shrugged_ type of populism he needs to win:
As the Powerline guys say: A Winning Message, But Is It Too Late?
Hmmmm, I’ve seen far too much Democrat wagon-circling to believe that. Or perhaps I misunderstand you.