Obama’s 4-letter defense should be a 10-letter word

Commentary by Kay B. Day

Tax Day protests in 2009 reflecting growing Main Street anger about accountability with taxpayer dollars. Conservatives applauded the protests. Neoliberals derided the protests. Both overlooked the greater lesson—the emergence of a political philosophy aligned directly with Main Street rather than with either major political party.[Screen shot/CNN broadcast, April, 2008]It’s become a guessing game in our household—every time the president is on TV, how long it will take him to blame all the nation’s problems on Bush. We’ve come to dub Obama and the Democrats blaming President George W. Bush the ‘inheritance defense.’ It makes sense as political strategy—it’s called passing the buck, even when you, in fine oratorical fashion, say, “The buck stops with me.”

Main Street is unimpressed. We’ve been unimpressed for awhile—Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Tea Party alike. At the moment there are 4 distinct ideologies in play and anyone who believes one of those groups will automatically buy into the platforms of another is deluding himself. And as long as we buy into excuses and the blame game, we will not advance solutions for the problems we face.

Bush 43’s presidency has been filleted, dissected, and chewed like cud by any number of conservative, neoliberal and other critics. Bush had little time to assemble his cabinet, because of the Democrat legal maneuvering the party is famous for. His transition was anything but friendly; it’s widely known that outgoing politicos and employees were not eager to offer a smooth path for the new president in 2001.

And despite President Bill Clinton’s Muslim-friendly policies, fanatics attacked our country by implementing a plan assembled on his watch. None of our presidents has been able to see you can’t appease the fanatics by catering to moderates.

Moderate Muslims are in the same boat we Christians and Jews are, whether we admit it or not. And the fanatics hated us—they especially hate moderate Muslims, by the way—long before Bush came onto the field, whether we admit it or not.

The economic platform Obama ran on has imploded. The meltdown did not originate with Bush and nor did it originate with a single party. In my opinion, it is far more complicated than our government will admit. I believe the meltdown is partly a result of a financial assault on our economy—record levels of fraud in Medicare and the mortgage industry are an example. Where are the details, by the way, on all those toxic assets?

Obama and his finance gurus can tackle the economy all they want. But this administration, with its tendency to grow government in a manner a farmer grows a pumpkin in hopes of having the largest in the world for the record books, is not going to inspire confidence in those who have money to invest. The result will be the opposite—money will flee America to balmier, more tax and labor-friendly shores.

The Democrats have no real solutions—the healthcare bill they want to pass is anything but real reform. The Republicans’ solution for seniors—the Medicare Prescription Drug Act—did help all retirees but it is also a big line item in another long list of expensive line items in the federal budget. I have often said it makes no sense for Democrats to condemn that Act while trying to pass a bill that will surpass the costs of the other one. And as we all know, Medicaid costs threaten to sink the states.

 As we all know, our borders remain insecure and the result is dismal—skyrocketing costs in education and healthcare spending as well as impacts on crime which, despite claims to the contrary, no one can specifically pinpoint because reportage of your immigration status is, like many other reported matters (for federal entitlements for example), self-reported when there’s a count at hand.

The president’s biggest problem and probably one reason for his declining approval ratings rest on the biggest promise he made—change. He played that word like a fine fiddle during every campaign speech and he hinged the greatest “hope” for change on the economy. But the president is, at heart—I say this respectfully—a dedicated leftwinger.

If I had to sum up the president’s political position in one easy sentence, I would say this: Obama believes government is the solution to all man’s ills.

Such ideology often produces ludicrous outcomes. Consider the use of our tax dollars on items like $475,000 to open a Chuck E. Cheese in Lima—one of corporate welfare’s finer moments. Another: $279 million in government grants in 2009 to A123 Systems, a company that GE, the fifth largest company in the world, has invested $70 million in. More corporate welfare.*

Democrats who love to assail the GOP with accusations of corporate cronyism should do some in-house soul searching before hurling stones in that big glass mansion.

Obama’s solution—that government can make you healthy, wealthy and perhaps even wise—is the real barrier to change. He should give thought to dropping that 4-letter word he relies on so diligently.

The real problem for us, exacerbated by leaders’ habit of grouping us into niches according to the color of our skin, the creed of our faith or our sexual preference, rests on a 10-letter word. That word is a noun in need of radical reform—government. 

Until one of our parties becomes brave enough to admit that and address it by cutting spending, by streamlining government, by adhering to the Constitution and by respecting U.S. sovereignty, and by respecting personal liberty, there will be a president standing before us using a 4-letter word as an excuse rather than seeking solutions to the real problem.

There’s a big 10-letter word staring us all in the face.

 [*Figures on the taxpayer-subsidized Chuck E. Cheese and on government welfare for A123 are from Waste Watch published by Citizens Against Government Waste (Winter, 2009; pg. 5 and pg. 12).]