quotable

"Once abolish God and the government becomes the God." -G.K. Chesterton

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

When Success Means Failure (and Failure Means Success)



When Rush Limbaugh expressed his desire last year for Obama to fail, I admit I was taken aback. The rhetoric seemed harsh, a display of sour grapes after a brutal election year that had conservatives scrambling. But not anymore. Now I find myself waking up every day hoping Obama will fail. Why? Because after a year in office, the evidence is in. I've seen what he considers his successes and it's devastating.


Oddly enough, it's where Obama and the Democrats think they've succeeded that they've failed the most. The budgets they have passed have been dreadful, increasing discretionary spending by 84% in just over a year. They've quadrupled the deficit. Their stimulus bill stole money from the private sector to shore up union and government jobs that are a drain on state budgets. It also failed to create new jobs, as 4 million Americans (and counting) found themselves out of work during the president's first 12 months in office.


Now, in order to deal with the never-ending, unsustainable debt, tax increases are being discussed. This is the worst time to hit Americans with a decrease in take home pay, when consumers are already reluctant to spend and higher interest rates are on the horizon.


Passing Obama's government takeover of health care will only make things worse. It's a massive entitlement program that will increase deficits, raise taxes, and make health care more expensive. Ultimately, health insurance rates will go up, not down, based on massive government regulation.


This isn't theory. This is fact based on analysis of current state's insurance rates, which I wrote about here. Guess which state had the most expensive rates? Massachusetts - the only current state with government run health care.


Obama and Democrats consider their inability to pass this monstrosity a failure of the administration. Given the failure of their successful legislation, I'd say that's actually a success. Same goes for the EPA regulating carbon as a "pollutant" and the decision to try KSM and other enemy combatants with full constitutional rights in a civilian criminal trial. These are all first year successes for Obama, his policies have prevailed, but they are highly unpopular and damaging the future of this country. In fact, they are so bad that he must spend countless hours convincing an unconvinced public that he is smarter than all of us. Damn the results.


When you have to campaign as hard as this president does to seduce people into believing his passed legislation is "working", the truth becomes evident. If Obama's successes are such failures, we should all hope he has less of them. Rush was right. The president might have graded his first year in office a B+, but we'd all be better off next year if he gave himself an F.

1 comment:

  1. I must say, you hit the nail on the head again.....and the nail is just about driven home I would think. I agree, this man spends more time trying to 'convince' than trying to 'fix'. Seriously, can we not take a look at the past, and see what made this such a powerful country, a power house for industry and manufacturing. We use to create wealth, and now we spend wealth.....well, individuals still create wealth, per se, which really, it's all kind faux pas when you think about it, a piece of paper with some presidents face on it, and we call that wealth, I mean, it's kind of absurd when you think about it. The private sector creates wealth, and the public sector squanders it. It's really frustrating to know that there are sooooooo many people that come here, from foreign countries, make their money, get their education, etc, and then leave.
    Sorry, I'm getting off track from your article, but I'll tie it in with this.....in the sense that people leave (which takes there wealth with them, a prime example: private companies leaving for tax reasons, etc) precisely because we have a president like this, who increases our debt, increases spending, taxes, and on and on it goes. Wake up mr. president and congress. We, people and our government, can make things so complex, when we don't need to, it's quite simple actually. It does not take person with a harvard degree to figure this out, it really doesn't. I, along with millions, and I mean millions of Americans, cannot understand why (really we do understand why, because of lining the pockets of politicians, lobbyists, etc.) why these economic issues are not being resolved. I am past the point of frustration.
    I do Building Automation work, and when we have to 'fix' or 'trouble shoot' a problem, we figure out what the problem is, and then solve it, one step at a time, starting with the basic steps and then go from there. I would think that the same premise would hold for our economic woes, we start with the basics, cut government spending in half, reduce taxes to a minimal, remove wasteful regulation/paperwork on industry, increase export tariffs where we need to, etc. But what do I know, I'm just a 'dumb American' eh mr. president. And yes there is a reason why I don't use proper grammar in not capitalizing mr. president.....because there is no respect for him, and we are suppose to respect the office that he represents, but I can't even do that anymore....it's a shame.

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