Why Obama Failed

May 22, 2012 10:41


[V]oting Obama out of office ought to be a no-brainer to anybody who’s not a committed and ideological Big Government socialist. Polls show a huge majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. But Obama gets almost none of the blame, and a majority like him. If you were on a sinking ship and the captain stood there saying, “No worries. It never sinks,” how much support would you give this captain?

 

by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.

 

In a recent campaign speech, Obama said: “See, the question is not whether things will get better — they always do… The question is whether together, we can muster the will — in our own lives, in our common institutions, in our politics — to bring about the changes we need.”

This is a revealing statement. It reveals the assumption of all liberals and socialists, Obama included, that the money will always be there. Will a wrecked economy improve? “They always do.” This implies that the economy will get better, no matter what the government does to it.

Tell this to people in Communist or former Communist countries. Or to people living under religious or fascist dictatorships. The government throttles these economies to no end. The only economic growth that ever takes place is to the benefit of the rulers — mainly because of places like the United States, from whom they can beg, borrow and steal.

It’s beyond foolish to assume the economy can get better no matter what. To think this is to assume that economic growth and wealth creation happen automatically. This explains the attitudes of liberals like Obama. They resent “the rich” and people who have more because they got “more than their share” of the inevitable wealth. There’s no concept that somebody works to create the wealth, and maintain wealth and profit once it’s there. This is the attitude of a spoiled adolescent or a moocher. It’s not an attitude we should find in a President of the United States.

Liberals passed ObamaCare on the assumption that the American economy will keep on growing as it always has. Three years into Obama’s term, and it’s still not happening. The government is totally bankrupt and the currency is imperiled by the unprecedented and almost unimaginable national debt. There’s no money to pay for Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, the most expensive parts of the government. This is before the demand for these programs rises due to the aging of the population over the coming two decades. And it’s before ObamaCare, which will put millions more Americans (ultimately everyone) on government insurance, the most expensive social program in human history.

How much debt are we supposed to sustain? Hundreds of millions of trillions? What’s higher than the trillions? Do our economists even know? On our current course of little to no economic growth, and exponential growth in government spending, we’re going to get there sooner than you think.

Obama has criticized the idea of “American exceptionalism.” American exceptionalism refers to the idea that Americans are somehow different, that Americans are somehow better than everyone else. But this is the very thing Obama implies when he says that the American economy will come back, no matter what. He’s suggesting that America is somehow above the stagnation, unemployment and ruin that befell all other socialist countries and nationalist economies throughout the world. It can’t happen here, right?

The American people are not paying attention. Slightly more than half are ready to vote for his reelection, in an economy that has actually worsened under his watch. No Republican president and probably no other Democratic president would ever have enjoyed such a free ride. Too many Americans are just not thinking.

I’m not suggesting that the opposition, Mitt Romney, is any inspiration. Of course he isn’t. But voting Obama out of office ought to be a no-brainer to anybody who’s not a committed and ideological Big Government socialist. Polls show a huge majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. But Obama gets almost none of the blame, and a majority like him. If you were on a sinking ship and the captain stood there saying, “No worries. It never sinks,” how much support would you give this captain? Or would you look for another leader, or perhaps take matters of survival into your own hands, instead?

Liberals like Obama are in a bind. They hate the rich and they hate wealth. But the definition of a growing economy is wealth production. In a thriving economy, of 4 or even 6-8 percent growth a year, you see (1) the rich getting richer and (2) the poor and middle class getting richer. These are the trends. In a declining or stagnating economy, the rich stay rich while the poor and the middle class get poorer. That’s what we see happening now. Obama points to the fact that the rich are still rich and says, “See? I told you so. The rich need to pay more taxes.” This will not change a thing, and will only make matters worse.

Taxes have to actually be lowered. Of course the rich will get the biggest tax cuts — because they already pay for most of what the government does! Economic freedom will raise the standard of living for everyone. Socialism and government interventionism don’t do a thing, other than hamper or reduce the strength of the economy. Obama’s policies tend to freeze everything in place. The rich don’t mind this too much, at first, but the poor and middle class are the first to feel it. They’re the ones who will feel the inflation. Government welfare programs cannot save them, because government welfare programs do not raise the standard of living and can never hope to cover the cost of lost economic growth by all this Big Government interventionism in the economy.

The absence of a “populist’ or “blue collar” revolution for free market capitalism shows just how ignorant most people are, and how woefully ignorant their teachers, talking head intellectuals, and professors have been. The current President, a former professor himself, is the worst one of them all.

Can the economy get better and can the debt crisis be reversed? Of course they can. But not through anything Obama has done, or is proposing. To start with, we have to reverse every single thing Obama has done in office. Then we have to start reversing all the other things previous governments — Republican and Democratic — have done to hamper or harm the economy. We have to stop this cycle of insanity whereby government intervenes, makes things worse, the people scream “do something!” and the government proceeds to make it even worse.

We don’t need a bloody revolution, and we don’t need to overthrow our system of government. But we do need to radically reverse and revise almost all of our government policies of the last century in particular. Obama was supposed to bring “change,” but in reality he brought more of the same. A lot more of it. If most Americans are so convinced that the country is headed in the wrong direction, why can’t they see Obama as part of the problem?

 

Dr. Hurd has a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Psychology, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA, November 1991. Degree awarded With Distinction. Master’s of Social Work (M.S.W.), Clinical, The University of Maryland at Baltimore, May 1988. Bachelor’s of Arts (B.A.), Psychology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, May 1985. Distinguished Psychology Student Award, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude. Dr. Hurd blogs at DrHurd.com



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