Those who understand that America is now on the wrong track cannot reasonably vote for Obama in November, because he is absolutely unwilling to change, perhaps even ideologically incapable of changing, course. Evidence abounds.
First, consider his disastrous economic record and his rejection of any semblance of a course change. He and his economic advisers told us his stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. It didn't. He didn't consider for a second that his policies exacerbated the economic crisis. He blamed Bush and said that if anything, he - Obama - hadn't spent enough. He demanded more stimulus packages - high-speed rail, other infrastructure, American Jobs Act. He continued to grow government in a wide variety of areas; things continued to get worse. No sign of any significant economic recovery; we had the worst recovery in 50 years. No sign of unemployment relief. He didn't change course.
Despite his failed performance, he told us in 2009 that only the government could break this business cycle. He told us in Osawatomie, Kan., that the private sector couldn't lead us back to economic vitality on its own. Recently, he told us that successful entrepreneurs didn't build their businesses - or roads or bridges or whatever claptrap he pretended to have meant. He refuses to reconsider his flawed notions. Arrogance, as much as ignorance.
If you think that despite all this, Obama may have learned his lesson and will change course going forward, you are fooling yourself. Obama won't change his economic policies, because he is addicted to spending and to growing government on several levels. His economic philosophy, his ideology and his political survival demand that he stay the course.
He firmly believes that only government spending - Keynesian pump priming - can stimulate a moribund economy. He believes it to the point that he's willing to bankrupt the nation to do it. His philosophy countenances no other alternative methods of recovery, specifically letting the private sector breathe and recover on its own. That's the economic philosophy component.
He also knows that the most efficient way to redistribute wealth and otherwise reallocate resources from groups he believes less deserving to those he believes more deserving is through an increasingly progressive tax code and more government spending. That is, even if he shared the ordinary American's debt aversion and reasonable anxiety about our horrifying financial predicament, he wouldn't discontinue (hasn't discontinued) his pursuit of ever-greater taxing and spending, because to do so would be tantamount to abandoning his quest, his obsession to fundamentally transform America. That's the ideological component.
Finally, he fully realizes that even if he didn't firmly believe in expanding the welfare state - incentivizing states to expand their food stamp rolls, extending unemployment benefits, sabotaging welfare reform, increasing the percentage of people not paying income taxes and otherwise presiding over the unprecedented swelling of the welfare state and those dependent on government aid of one form or another - he would still be compelled to continue expanding it because he believes a great majority of his constituents depend on this expansion. He couldn't win re-election without doing so. That's the political component.
The same general themes hold true for Obama's extremist environmental agenda. His policies are enormously destructive to our coal, oil, nuclear energy and natural gas industries, but he shows no signs of letting up, even though these policies are also manifestly destroying American jobs and otherwise harming the economy. Why would he? He telegraphed his actions, and he's merely fulfilling his promise.
While sabotaging our reliable energy sources, he is also throwing as much federal money as he can at failed green energy projects, which are so ill-conceived that a reasonable person might conclude his goal is to waste money. Solyndra wasn't the only such failed enterprise, as we've shown. There were a dozen others, and despite these failures and the unconscionable waste, he has revealed nothing but a defiant determination to double down and spend more on other such projects. It's mind-blowing.
Likewise, he pursued Obamacare with maniacal intensity, even when the public clearly and emphatically registered its dissent. His response was more haranguing speeches to browbeat the recalcitrant, ignorant masses into seeing his superior wisdom. Even after the stated purposes for his grand design have been shown to be fundamentally flawed - it's going to bend the cost curve up, not down, and dramatically so, and it's going to leave 30 million people uninsured - he is more determined than ever to implement it against the people's will.
I am just getting warmed up here; I haven't even discussed his politics of division or his wars on business, our defenses and the Constitution. The bottom line is this: If you like Obama's record, vote for him, because you're only going to get more of it - way more if he wins and thinks he has a mandate.
