The president wants to have a serious discussion with those who oppose socialism; my conversation with him would be a short one.
by Michael Naragon
In St. Louis, on his 100th day in office, Barack Obama finally acknowledged the existence of those who opposed him. . . then he misrepresented their intent.
“You see folks waving tea bags around,” the president began. “Let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we’re going to stabilize social security.”
Rather than assume Obama’s offer is akin to his promises to put all bills online for review by the taxpayers, or his promise to cut wasteful pork projects, or his promise to keep lobbyists out of the executive office, I will take him at his word.
“We are going to have to tighten our belts,” Obama said Wednesday, “but we’re going to have to do it in an intelligent way. And we’ve got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families.” So my task, if I understand the president correctly, is to devise a plan to cut health care costs, stabilize social security, and do it intelligently. No problem.
The nation’s problem in 2009 is simple: government. The country’s budget could be streamlined dramatically if we removed several departments entirely and restored the federal government to its Constitutional limits.
Remove the IRS, repeal the 16th Amendment, eliminate corporate and capital gains taxes, and institute a fairer tax system, such as the Fair Tax or Flat Tax. This would keep the evil “wealthy” from using deductions to hide their income, and prices would come down across the board with the corporate taxes eliminated.
Remove the Department of Education and return complete control of schools to the states and, even better, the local systems, parents, and students that use them.
Use your powers of persuasion to convince Congress to pass a school choice act that would allow “working” families the same educational choices as the Obama family.
Enact a gradual cut of both Medicare and Social Security while, at the same time, instituting a law that reforms the tort system to eliminate frivolous law suits. Instead of putting a cap on the salaries of CEOs, place a cap on the percentage of a settlement that can go to an attorney. This would reduce medical and insurance costs considerably for ordinary Americans. In the spirit of compromise, I would even concede a tax incentive for doctors who reduce their rates or provide care for low-income patients.
Refuse to sign any bill that includes earmarks of any kind, as you promised you would do during the campaign. Don’t skirt the issue by saying “infrastructure” add-ons are not really earmarks. Be tough on Congress and shut the door on any reckless spending of Americans’ money.
“We’re not suddenly saying the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy,” Obama continued in St. Louis. “We tried that formula for eight years. It didn’t work, and I don’t intend to go back to that.”
Hmmm. So Obama is really saying he would rather install a formula that includes more government, higher taxes on the “wealthy” producers across the nation, and less individual freedom. The “wealthy” apparently aren’t considered part of the “working” class. Too busy sailing on their yachts and going to Tea Parties, no doubt.
“Let’s not play games and pretend that the reason [for the Tea Party movement] is because of the Recovery Act,” Obama added. “Because that’s just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got.”
I taught math for a number of years, and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard 800,000,000,000 referred to as a “fraction.” That was the sort of number we put into scientific notation because it was too large to deal with.
Say, here’s an idea, Mr. President: put all of your spending and budgetary figures into scientific notation. That way your stimulus only cost 8 x 10^11. Looks much more manageable, and it doesn’t scream, “The beginning of the end of the U.S. economy!”
And if the president truly believes the Tea Party movement was not a protest against government spending, he may not be quite the genius the media gives him credit for. I can only speak from my experience, but in Atlanta, where over 15,000 people jammed the streets surrounding the capital, the signs and sentiment were clearly focused on our ballooning federal government.
However, I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree for the time being. Perhaps my change for America is not something socialists or Marxists would believe in. Or maybe “Yes We Can” was only intended to precede “Bankrupt the Nation!” or “Recreate the Soviet State!” See? The last one even rhymes.
