President Obama and the Red Haired Stepchild

President Obama is going to be campaigning in 2012 on the same ticket that won him an election in 2008:  “I am the anti-Bush.”  He is not going to be running as the father of this economy but that may be a tough paternity test to pass.  First of all he is going to have to deny the reality of our own history.  A big shaper of the Bush economy was the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  It plunged our economy, and by extension the world economy, into a tailspin.  Second was our inevitable war against the perpetrators of that attack and those who provided them with aid and comfort.  Considering how the Taliban in Afghanistan were systematically victimizing women for a decade before this, while the liberal feminists of this country sat on their fat opinions I would say that time was well past its prime.  That casual attitude toward Taliban atrocities, by the way, was the direct result of not wanting to rock President Clinton’s laid back boat; and that brings us to the second, but less obvious fact that the Democrats will try not to deal with.  The Clinton prosperity that the loyal opposition repeatedly points to as being, “squandered” by Bush was (like Clinton, himself) an illusory prosperity based on shallow, weak and temporary gains from the Ponzi scheme of bundled bad debt. 

            But, reality being what it is, we are stuck with a rising debt, a down-graded credit rating, an intransigent Congress, an administration concerned with re-election and its mewling toadies already concerned with marketing their anointed product according to the designated talking points.  Well, I may have come to Texas late, but I do know the meaning of the expression, “All hat and no cattle.”

            Let’s look at Obama’s favorite themes.  First, in his, “…eat your peas” moment he said that he had asked for a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, raise revenue by $1 trillion and cut spending over 10 years by $3 trillion.  If this was the deal he wanted, why didn’t he support the Erskine Bowles-Alan Simpson bill  in February which asked for virtually the same thing?  Second, let’s look at the ever popular corporate jet exemption (yes, I still think we should encourage purchase of same).  When pressed for details the White House said that they wanted to extend the depreciation for these jets from five to seven years but didn’t actually know how much that would save.  Again, we see a sad inattention to detail, but an overzealous attack on class warfare.  The third strike is the failure of Congress to pass a bill that would have repealed $21 billion in tax breaks for five big oil companies.  Obama wants to use that as a trump against the Republicans without explaining why, such a manifestly good and fair idea, didn’t pass the Democratically controlled House and Senate during the first two years of his administration.  Let’s see, maybe, because the revenue saved would have added up to only 1.5% of the $14 trillion debt ceiling.  They would have lost a favored club in their, “bash the rich” bag and had the truth of their deception made clear to all. 

            If you add up all the, “woulda, coulda, shoulda’s” for this administration, their sorry operatives in the Congress and apologists in the media you don’t need to do a DNA swab to know that this is their economy.  But it is also our economy, and that is a subject for another day. 

            Man up and keep the faith, and to my friends in Germany, Canada and India, welcome aboard!