Is Obama Intentionally Destroying our Economy [Reader Post]

I was asked that question recently by a friend in California via email, and I admit, this was something I have pondered a lot. Rush Limbaugh believes that Obama is intentionally destroying our economic system, so that, the largest structure, government, can simply pick up the pieces and take over, once our nation collapses.

There is one big problem with this theory: maybe it is true and maybe it is false, but this approach is unlikely to convince an independent, who is sitting on the fence, unsure about what is going on.

Calling Obama a Communist or a Marxist or likening him to Hitler will elicit the same response. First of all, he is certainly not a Marxist, although he has some Marxist ideas and leanings, and I seriously doubt that the President is going to start putting Jews into interment camps. Sure, he might abandon Israel, but that is no different than Carter.

Even calling Obama a socialist is not a convincing approach. First of all, there is a large segment of our population who actually believe that there is social and economic justice to be found in some sort of a socialist system, simply because there are huge numbers of people who are not very smart about history—or, even current events. Our president probably is, more than anything else, a European-style socialist, but this label simply is much less damaging than the reality of our becoming a European-style, socialist democracy.

My point here is, you may still think Obama is a Marxist and has this great plan to destroy the United States through making our economy collapse, but I would not use these ideas to speak to those who are on the fence about his presidency.

Instead, I would focus on what is clearly true: President Obama has never run anything before in his life. He has not had a large business, a small business, or even a lemonade stand. So, when it comes to running the most powerful corporation in the world—the United States—he is simply ill-equipped to do so. Now that is an easy argument to make to someone else.

Furthermore, President Obama is fundamentally fixed on big government solutions. If something breaks, if something isn’t right, if there is some inequity in the nation, this is something to be solved by more taxes, by more governmental agencies, and more governmental control. And he will promise that, all he will have to do is tax the rich a couple more dollars—they can afford it—and everything will be all better, because his administration will act “carefully and decisively to fix the problem.”

By this time in Obama’s presidency, if someone is willing to discuss politics with you rationally, and knows something, then those are two easy points to make (1) Obama has no experience and (2) he defaults to a big government solution. It is not difficult to show anyone with an open mind, this is what is going on.

Our economy was in recession, and the President sold us on a stimulus bill plan which was about 6X larger than any stimulus bill that had ever been passed previously, and at no time in our history has a stimulus bill ever clearly jump-started the economy.

He promised that unemployment would go no higher than 8.5%, and then come back down again; he told us that both conservative and liberal economists believed that this was a good approach to the problem (conservative economists which I read were very much against the bill), and the end result was a bill which spent $800 billion with no measurable positive results (apart from his people getting out there and saying, after the fact, “Well, the recession would have been much worse”).

If you want to go further into this particular bill, blue districts received about twice the money that red districts received, and yet, there is no discernable difference in the economic impact between red and blue districts.

This pattern has continued throughout the past year + of his presidency. He took of GM motors, he proposed to tell Chrysler how to survive their problems, and, in the recent healthcare bill, he took over the entire student loan industry, which will put tens of thousands of people out of work.

The pattern is the same: he exudes great confidence about things which he knows nothing about; he has no experience in these areas which he proposes to fix, and his incompetence is clearly seen in the results.

Another example is Obama’s mortgage program, where $75 billion was to be spend by the government in order to help 3–4 million good Americans stay in their homes. This was known as the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Again, more and more federal bureaucracies, lots of money spend, a big government solution, and the end result? Less than 20% of those Obama promised to help got help. Furthermore, we do not know the long-term results of those who were helped. Will they actually stay in their houses, or, a few months or years down the road, will they end up defaulting again?

The passing of the recent healthcare bill is the same. Because of some women who was wearing her dead sister’s old dentures and other such sad stories, President Obama proposes to take over the healthcare system, put over 100 new government agencies in charge of it, and spend billions of dollars, and yet somehow, almost magically, he promises that healthcare will become more affordable to all, more people will have healthcare insurance, that this will reduce the deficit, and healthcare will be made all better. More government, more government spending by a man who knows nearly nothing about running anything.

So, among your conservative friends, it might be enjoyable to shoot the bull, and discuss what President Obama envisions for America and whether or not he wants to bring our country down. Does he worship at the altar of Karl Marx? Might be fun to argue over a glass of wine. I would not suggest that this is a good approach when speaking to others who are not like-minded.

What is clear, and not hard to argue to anyone with an open mind is, the President has no executive experience, but he favors big government solutions and dramatic spending by the government, but without clear, positive results. About 60–70% of our population understands that you do not put somewhat with no experience in the pilot’s cockpit. That percentage would prefer less government, not more. That percentage would prefer less government spending, not more. It is this overwhelming percentage who will change history by electing a new Congress and, in less than 3 years, a new president.