By Patrick J. Buchanan
President Obama is in a dilemma from which there appears to be no easy or early escape.
Democrats are the Party of Government. They feed it, and it feeds them. The larger government grows, the more agencies that are created, the more bureaucrats who are hired, the more people who become beneficiaries, the more deeply entrenched in power the Party of Government becomes.
At the local, state and federal level, there are 19 million to 20 million government employees. And if one takes only Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and earned income tax credits, we are talking of scores of millions who depend on government checks for the necessities of their daily life.
These vast armies of voters — these tens of millions of government employees and scores of millions of government beneficiaries — are the big battalions of the Party of Government. They provide implacable resistance to any party that pledges to cut or curtail government. For they are fighting for their livelihood. And here is where Obama’s dilemma arises.
The progressives thought that with the takeover of both houses of Congress by veto-proof Democratic majorities, and the election of the most progressive of the candidates in the Democratic primaries save Dennis Kucinich, a new Progressive Era was at hand.
Another New Deal, another Great Society. And early passage of a stimulus package of $787 billion, nearly 6 percent of the entire economy packed into a single bill, seemed to confirm that happy days were here again.
But, at the same time, the federal takeover of AIG, General Motors and Chrysler and the bailouts of Fannie, Freddie and the Wall Street banks were igniting a Perot-style prairie fire that manifested itself in Tea Party rallies in the spring and town-hall protests in August.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi denounced these folks as “evil-mongers” engaged in the “un-American” activity of shouting down Democrats — though, when college radicals do it to conservatives, it is called “heckling” and the conservatives are instructed that they “just do not understand the First Amendment.”
Came November, Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey showed that the grass-roots rebellion was real and broad-based. This was confirmed by Scott Brown’s astonishing upset in Massachusetts, where a state Obama won by 26 points went Republican by 6 points, with Brown capturing a Senate seat held by the Kennedy brothers since 1952. Talk about a fire bell in the night.
Obama’s dilemma, evident in his State of the Union, is that the progressives, who were indispensable to his victories over Hillary, now feel betrayed, especially with apparent abandonment of health insurance reform, while conservative Democrats and independents, who were indispensable in giving Obama his November victory, are angry and alienated and disposed to vote Republican to stop what they see as America’s plunge into socialism.
The non-negotiable demands of these two essential elements of Obama’s coalition are in irreconcilable conflict. Obama tried to mollify both in his address to Congress by emphasizing aspects of his agenda that appeal to each. Thus the progressives were promised an end to the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, while Tea Party and town-hall activists got a partial freeze on federal spending and promises of nuclear power, clean coal and offshore drilling.
Obama’s problem: He can end up satisfying no one and angering everyone. John McCain has already denounced Obama’s call for open homosexuality in the military, a position that will resonate with Middle America, while House Democrats are appalled the Pentagon will be exempt from budget caps imposed on social programs.
Arthur Laffer has pointed up the burgeoning crisis Obama and the progressives confront. Today, state, local and federal government spending consumes 38 percent of the gross domestic product. Federal spending alone is 27 percent.
“If you total what the government takes in the income tax, corporate tax, Social Security taxes, capital gains taxes,” says Laffer, “all of that adds up to $2.2 trillion in tax receipts, and they spent $3.5 trillion.”
In 2009, we had a deficit of $1.4 trillion, 10 percent of GDP. The most conservative estimate for this year is a deficit of $1.35 trillion, more than 9 percent of GDP.
Two questions.
With the public debt surging as a share of GDP, and talk of a debt default by the United States, how can Obama create or expand the social programs as progressives demand? And with the deficit running above 9 percent of GDP, how — even if the economy starts to grow — can you close this without raising taxes from 18 percent of GDP to 22 percent or 23 percent? That would be an added tax hike of $560 billion to $700 billion — a year.
That kind of hit on the private sector could kill a recovery, just as Herbert Hoover and FDR did in the early 1930s.
Obama has a problem — and so do we.
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At this point, I think we should concentrate on findig an excellent magician who can legitimately pull a rabbit out of a hat. With a jobless recovery forecast and with those who may find work at greatly reduced wages, there is no way we can meet our obligations or consider more tax on individuals and families. To placate either side with the chump change of gay rights or promise of implementing off shore drilling is a far cry from the intensity of the real problems we face in the financial future of our country. Yet, that’s all Obama can do.
Pat, you asked two questions….I’ve got one too. What the hell did we do to deserve this mess????!!!!
Fran, You asked what we did to deserve this? The answer is in the first line of your comment. Americans voted for a guy they thought would pull a rabbit out of a hat. As a matter of fact that’s what he did about thirty times in the State of the Union speech on Wednesday night. But really, the number one problem facing us today is that we don’t know if we are coming or going. That is why we blindly elect the fools that we do. Fed. paper number 2 tells us that we are a united people with one language and one religion. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; yet we chase after every god but the God of our fathers. Threby running away from wisdom that we so badly need.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union had granted to the Continental Congress the power to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted.
And, with this as a model, Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants to the United States Congress the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
It became apparent to the people well after the borrow-and-spend deficit spending programs of the socialist Democrats in the 60s set uncontrollable deficit spending into motion for decades to come, that constraints would have to be imposed to reel-in this too oft-abused power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
But the Balanced Budget Referendum, the proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which would require a balance in the projected revenues and expenditures of the United States government failed by one vote to be ratified by the states.
The MSM deserves MUCH of the blame for using their power to instill the belief in the people that its elected representatives could in-fact be trusted to do the right thing regarding fiscal responsibility, and this ammendment was not needed…
Well, much water has run under the bridge since the last attempt at an ammendment to the US Constitution that would REQUIRE BY DECREE responsible fiscal policy by the US Congress…
Can another Balanced Budget Referendum be set into motion and APPROVED by the states this time around, after it has become abundantly clear that the US Congress CANNOT exercise fiscal responsibilty while executing their duties, or will the people have to convene a Constitutional Convention in order to restore sanity to the US budget process???
My guess is Constitutional Convention.
Why do you always point out these social programs that don’t amount to that much when looking at the entire federal budget? When compared with the defense dollars, this is a chunk of change. But, my sore point is the Dept. of Education. What was Carter thinking? And, why didn’t Reagan demolish it? As an educator, turning over State educational governance to the Feds, who have no business in this is a travesty – they have no Constitutional right to do this, the States own this one.
Another “New Deal” or “Great Society” will never be seen with the party of nothingness – the Dems. The Dems will never be the party of FDR or LBJ/JFK ever again, as the GOP of present will never replicate the likes of the era of Goldwater. It is over for both parties.
A federal takeover of any company in trouble is against all capitalist laissez-faire economic principles. Both Repubs and Dems have violated this principle. In fact, many dollars raised for R & D are government provided, right out of our tax dollars, and this has been promulgated by both parties.
And, maybe we should have more people raising their voices promoting their First Amendment rights. Not enough people in the middle class are really speaking out crying “foul.” The middle class is either too busy making ends meet or being distracted by political rhetoric or by the folly of television. They may also feel that their voices will not be heard so they’ve given up trying, and this will be the demise of the democracy, or whatever we have left of it.
Obama’s coalition seems to be in conflict, but Obama seems to be playing the same types of games of old. Instead of dealing with “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” a total distraction, let’s say he deals properly with the economy, the imbalance of trade, the deficit (of which the last admin. successfully caued), the two wars that we need not be in, and the energy problems. Let’s say he triages problems and does the right thing trying to help people in the U.S., and this goes doubly for the Congress. His message is being heard and people are receiving it to be what it is – more of the same rhetoric of old.
In terms of taxes, Laffer’s numbers are frightening. However, if income tax is hiked for the impoverished or middle classes, their spending ability and ability to survive will be more problematic than ever. What about stopping the loopholes of corporations? And, the debt would not surge if we got out of Godforsaken military conflicts. We are in a state of perpetual war, which is making money for certain entities, but is taken tax dollars to constantly fund it. Why pick on the social programs, which are not really substantially hitting the budget, but other large ticket items that are impacting us? Let’s stop these bailouts. This are misspent funds – allocation gone awry and Obama is not helping and neither is the Congress.
Run for President Pat, or find us someone like Ron Paul that makes more sense than these two antiquated parties present.
I forgot to mention that nuclear power is NOT the way to go. If we cannot safely dispose of the waste with half lives of millions of years, we should NOT be using it. Obama is off here again.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U18R20100201?type=politicsNews
What the hell is Obama doing? Why is he upping forces and readiness levels? Is he prepping for an attack?
If he lets Netanyahu violate either Saudi or Iraqi airspace we will face full open revolt in Iraq. The Shia coalition will fall apart and the Shi’ite govt. will brand us Zionist agents and order us removed.
Answer to the first question: By creating additional demand for the social programs. This is done by destroying businesses (jobs) in this country and shipping them to India and China. The social programs will be funded by fiat money (funny money created from nothing — and the chicks are free — by the foreign private banking cartel.
Answer to the second question: You can’t. Destroying private enterprise and the American economy is the whole point of this social(ist) program!
Pat describes the Catch-22 that Obama didn’t see. The Dems won supermajorities only because of the economic meltdown, not because anybody likes Nancy Pelosi. With these once-in-a-lifetime supermajorities, Obama thought it was now-or-never for massive healthcare. But the very meltdown that gave him supermajorities made massive healthcare impossible. He misfired on the stimulus bill and that was all the spending voters would stand for. So Obamacare was never more than a hallucination.
Speaking of hallucinogens, I’ve been comparing Pat’s attacks along with Spiro Agnew on the Viet Nam War opposition to Team Obama’s clumsy attack on the Tea Party protestors. (1) Though the Nixon attack team skewered the street-level protestors as suffering from drug-induced brain distortions, they aimed their most wicked shots at the opposition elite. By contrast, Pelosi fired her most brutal attacks on the Town Hall citizens. Team Nixon was clever in their hatchetwork; the great humorist Art Buchwald had to disavow that he was ghost-writing Agnew’s speeches. By contrast, Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, etc. were club-footed, ridiculous and thuggish: the Town Hallers are ‘evil unAmerican racist Nazis.’
(2) Team Nixon was on target. Team Obama’s aim is off, whining about Rush Limbaugh, racism, Sarah Palin, Death Panels, never addressing the real root of the opposition: the Twilight Zone spending levels. Team Obama and the Left miss the mark. When protestors call them Bolsheviks, they laugh it off as old Red Scare nationalism. No, it’s about the failed 5-year Economic Plans. It’s not about the USSR as Evil Empire, it’s about the USSR as loser, the bloated economic failure that collapsed.