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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

President Obama

When running for office, Senator Obama was supposed to be great at compromise. He was going to reach across to ‘the other side’ and get everyone to work together. This entire idea was not just to happen domestically. This was going to happen internationally as well as the U.S. opened itself to all and would get everyone working together to get along. This is NOT working out as planned.

While I cannot hold President Obama responsible for all of the international events that are going on today, I certain do hold him accountable for the lack of U.S. leadership in containing the unrest that is spreading throughout the Middle East. I feel that all of this ‘CHANGE’ is dangerous to not only the United States, but particularly to Israel. I believe that we are much closer to open war between Israel and Iran than ever before. Maybe I am wrong, but the ‘CHANGE’ approach concerning governments in the Middle East holds far more dangers to Israel and the United States than anyone else. And this is all international where President Obama’s CHANGE has less impact than domestic events.

I will use the example of the Health Care debate as a defining moment. This was passed and signed by President Obama despite the overwhelming majority of Americans being against passage of this bill. (70%, which is greater than the 2/3 majority required for a constitutional amendment.) This is a very poor example of our country’s leadership listening to the will of the people. With this as a guide, why do we need elections when our government knows better than we do? No wonder our country is so badly divided. In fact, it has not been this badly divided since the Civil War.

I saw Rachel Maddow talking about how succession is actually being discussed today. The last time around, it triggered the worst war in our history. Everywhere I look, I am seeing how our political leadership is not listening to each other. The fights over the budgets are as intense on the Federal and State levels as I have ever seen. We are not more united today than three years ago. In fact, we are far more polarized than I have seen since Vietnam. And today’s situation is worse because the polarization during Vietnam was mainly internal to the Democratic Party. Today, we are seeing the political battle between the two major parties.

President Obama claimed that he ‘saved’ our country from the brink of economic disaster when he signed the economic stimulus in 2009. The day after signing, he said that he walked outside and it was a nice day. The doomsday did not happen. Does he misunderstand what he is doing! Today, we are just beginning to see the real consequences of that act. Commodities are skyrocketing. Commodity price increases are generally early indicators of inflation. Many of us have been expecting something like this. Moody’s is considering downgrading it’s triple-A rating for U.S. treasury bonds. I am not the only person who is seeing these things. Sales of emergency supplies are running at record highs because so many others are also seeing this. President Obama did not save us from falling off a cliff. He has brought us to an economic one. The inflation that we saw back in the late 1970’s just may pale by comparison. We shall see, probably within the next 6 to 12 months. The other alternative is not much better. Draconian measures to curb spending that will significantly impact the economy in the short term. (This is the much better choice for the long term)

In any case, the United States is far more divided and polarized than I have ever seen before. As a conservative economist, I am alarmed at the potential consequences. So I expect a big political battle over spending and allocation of resources because I see us as having precious little to work with. As with dealing with unions, the Democrats appear to be completely unaware of the financial situation. So they fight back just as desperately, attempting to hold on to what they already have. This is a recipe for an all out battle, as we are seeing. Thank you, President Obama. The President who was going to bring us all together.

1 comment:

  1. You have used the 70% figure often in reference to the american people's lack of support for the health care law. Where do you get that number from? I have read it as well, but the poll I read was poorly worded. In fact, 33% of those who responded did not think the law went far enough and wanted a public option. I am interested in investigating further.

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