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THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW - November 9, 2010
Has History Passed Obama By?
by: Pat Buchanan
Barack Obama's dream of being a transformational president
who alters the course of his country died 48 hours ago.
The message America sent Obama and the men and women
America sent to Congress to replace his allies impel
one to ask: Why would he want a second term?
Why would the most liberal president since FDR wish to
preside over the major surgery on the social safety net
that must be done in the era of austerity we have entered?
The liberal hour is over. Why would the Party of Government
not prefer that Republicans do the painful work of paring
back programs for which Democrats have fought since the
New Deal?
The media have begun a drumbeat to demand that the new
speaker, John Boehner, compromise with Obama for the good
of the country.
Are these people delusional?
Republicans were brought to power because they were the
Party of No. Boehner takes the gavel from Nancy Pelosi
because he led the fight to kill the Obama stimulus,
Obamacare, card check, amnesty, cap-and-trade and Barney
Frank's financial reform.
Boehner's beliefs are closer to the Tea Party than to
Obama. He owes his speakership to the Tea Party. His
political interests dictate allying with the Tea Party
and moving even further away from Obama.
Why would Boehner lead his caucus into a suicide pact with
Obama when, in Boehner's eyes, the national interest and
his own interests point in the other direction?
The left has yet to grasp that the nation has repudiating
it as well as Obama. America has shifted to the right,
which again raises the question of Obama's relevance. Why
would our most liberal president since FDR want to lead
the nation into an age of austerity?
Here is retiring GOP Sen. Judd Gregg, the fiscal
conservative that Barack Obama most wanted in his Cabinet.
"This nation is on a course where if we don't... get...
fiscal policy (under control), we're Greece. We're a
banana republic."
"(T)he Tea Party is in the mainstream of where political
thought is right now," said Gregg. "We've had a radical
explosion in the size of government in the last two years:
You've gone from 20 percent of GDP to 24 percent of GDP
headed toward 28 percent of GDP. That has to be brought
under control or... we're going to bankrupt the country."
Conservatives, Republicans, Tea Partiers all agree with
Gregg.
But how does Obama, whose deficits have added more to the
debt in two years than Bush added in eight, convert and
become a deficit hawk?
Consider Social Security, which all agree must be made
solvent.
There are two ways. One is to raise the wage base on which
Social Security taxes are imposed and raise the 6.2 percent
payroll tax on both employers and employees. But these are
major tax increases. And the GOP and Tea Party will fix
bayonets to fight them.
The other way is to raise the retirement age to 70 and re-
index Social Security COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments)
to prices, not wages, reducing future benefits for baby
boomers and generations X and Y.
Will Pelosi's battered liberals go along with reducing
Social Security benefits if Obama proposes it? Or would
that tear what is left of his tattered coalition to pieces?
To cut spending to 20 percent of GDP from 24 would require
annual slashes of $600 billion, eliminating a sixth of the
budget.
Will Democrats go along with that magnitude of cuts in
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemploy-
ment benefits, earned income tax credits, infrastructure,
Pell grants and welfare?
Will Republicans go along with cuts of that size for the
Iraq and Afghan wars, new weapons systems, closing of bases
and withdrawal of troops from Korea, Japan or Europe? To
get 4 percent of GDP out of defense would require putting
the Pentagon on furlough.
Bottom line: The new Republican House has the numbers and
will to block new taxes and fund both wars and the rising
defense budget. And the president has the veto power to
block severe cuts in social programs, which his bloodied
forces will demand that he do.
Were this a parliamentary system, Obama would be out of
power, as the nation voted to reject his party and reverse
the course of the country.
In Britain, under Prime Minister David Cameron, the
austerity the people voted for is being imposed. In
Virginia and New Jersey, where Govs. Bob McDonnell
and Chris Christie were elected in 2009 to change the
direction of state government, this is happening.
In Washington, however, where Obama's agenda and party
were repudiated by the nation, they still retain the
power to prevent the nation from going where America
voted to go.
The center has disintegrated. The result: a deadlock of
democracy, with neither party responsible and neither
accountable, as we drift toward the falls.
Greece, here we come.
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