Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Misgovernment Campaign

In Roanoke, Virginia recently, the President explained to an enthusiastic crowd that his Republican opponents' "basic theory is, if wealthy investors are doing well then everybody does well.  So if we spend trillions of dollars on more tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, that that's somehow going to create jobs, even if we have to pay for it by gutting education and gutting job-training programs and gutting transportation projects, and maybe even seeing middle-class folks have a higher tax burden."
Some call this electoral snake oil an example of Obama's economic illiteracy  -- dutifully noting that, historically, lower taxes raise more revenues to cover what Democrats like to call "investments" in education, job training, transportation, etc. Others identify it as proof of Obama's essential hostility to success, economic freedom and the market economy. Some simply call it lies. Regardless -- however ignorant, destructive or mendacious Obama's campaign pronouncements are, at least they are only words. Much worse are the cynical policies he has adopted to discomfit his opponents and aid his re-election.
The Republic has survived, and probably can continue to survive liars, misguided ideologues and incompetents in high office, but Obama does not stop at flawed logic or false assertion. He has shown himself so irresponsible and so heedless of the best interests of our economy, social fabric, and security that he has unleashed recently a wave of destructive policies and administrative practices aimed at manipulating and mobilizing the frightened, the dispirited, the resentful and the ignorant to help return him to office. Overheated campaign rhetoric may vanish after Election Day like noxious fumes, but the corrosive effects of Obama's cynical campaigning through exploiting his executive authority will remain. He is with  these measures fostering distrust and  hardening divisions  among us,  and raising the friction  levels and political cost that  will attend any  effort  to reverse his  policies, thereby  making the job of  recovery and restoration that much  more difficult even  if we do  finally rid ourselves of him.

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