Our hearts, thoughts and prayers, from the Conservative Refocus family, go out very sadly to the family members of the Sandy Hook Disaster. Mere words can neither repair nor express what those families must be going through during this Christmas season.
Godspeed to all in great hope for the measured blessings of time and healing.
Conservative Refocus
By Barry Secrest
Why is it that an impending tax increase, which the Democrats have always sought, and which the Republicans have never wanted, has suddenly become anathema to the Liberals of America?
We have heard nothing but grumbling and bellicose whining, from the Liberals, ever since the Bush tax-cuts were passed into law on a bi-partisan basis back in the early 2000's. In fact, over 10 years of incessant whining and gnashing of teeth have ensued since Bush sought and Conservatives wholeheartedly approved a massive stimulus in the form of tax-cuts in the post 9/11 economic landscape, which immediately occurred in the wake of the paralyzing terrorist attacks on America.
So, if the tax cuts were so bad for America back then to the Democrats, and have been utterly ghastly for America up to the present day according to those same Democrats, then why are Obama, the Media and virtually every Left-Wing politico on the planet now calling the looming rate expiration "The Fiscal Cliff ?"
If, by using the left's latest imprimatur, that raising taxes only on the middle-class is horrible for America, then why is it that raising taxes on what the Left-Wing describes as "The Wealthy," equally as integral in order to improve the economy? It makes absolutely no sense on the face of it, based upon all that we know and everything that we have seen from the radical Left. The Left's premise that a tax increase targeting the wealthy to the tune of approximately $ 85 billion dollars will somehow improve either debt or deficit is an idea well beyond laughable when compared to a $16 trillion dollar debt.
Meanwhile the squishy Republicans have placed tail between leg while offering all sorts of ritual Mandrake root supplications to the mighty El Magnifico for his divine approval. From "revenues on the table" to the latest, "increased taxation on millionaires," Boehner has sought wildly for a sacrifice to throw into the pyre of Obama's Republican burnt offerings.
So, will these sacrificial gifts finally work to the Anointed One's appeasement?
Or, more likely, is this yet another bait and switch game being expertly played by Obama and the Democrats? The actual facts that are in play at present, speak to the simple truth that only in America, could a sitting Liberal President:
-Intentionally blow-off the passage of a US budget for three years in a row
-While spending $ 1.5 trillion more than the government earns each year
-Then blame the opposition party for potentially driving the nation over a fiscal cliff
-Due to that same party, the Republicans, insistence on putting an end to the spending madness
-By cutting the AA spending spree, while that same chief executive insists on now increasing taxes
-In order to cover his own insane spending which actually caused all of the chaos in the first place.
All of this, even while that same nation's media cheers the extraordinarily irresponsible chief executive on, as a hero for our time, while simultaneously denigrating the opposition party as being "rigidly ideological" for trying to tame this reckless fiscal train wreck in which we are all reluctant forced-paying passengers.
However, in that same vein, and as it regards America's increasingly helpless plight, the seminal questions for these interesting times in which we as Conservatives live, should be as follows:
1) Did the German engineer on the Hindenburg, who originally asserted that "using extremely flammable hydrogen as a buoyant was probably not a very good idea" feel satisfied when the ship burst into flames all around him?
No, or a reluctant Yes, dependent upon arrogant content of character...but in order to flesh out the argument a bit further, how about this one?
2) Did the ship designer who criticized the owner of the Titanic for removing over half of the safety boats because of deck clutter, feel any satisfaction as he gulped his last bit of air in any icy sea just before drowning?
No, once again or a qualified yes just before the reported euphoria, which frankly shouldn't count, occurs? And then there's this one to complete the idea in full:
3) Did the Japanese Imperial army General who lauded his Emperor's giddy excitement at declaring war on America, feel any regret when a nuclear bomb was detonated almost directly over the base he commanded?
Maybe? Or was it just extreme terror he felt?
I, personally, have often wondered that if we were to continue this economic idiocy now being perpetrated; how many Left-of Center people, to include Moderates, will look back on these particular times and feel a certain regret at how they were guilted or perhaps coached into authoring the demise of their own standard of living, not to mention that of their children and grandchildren? Or will it come on so slowly that only a few will be able to recount the actual events as they occurred? Think --2008 Financial Meltdown-- for the post-mortem point.
Or, will the media revisionists among us somehow continue to incrementally win out? One supposes, as each to his own, that a large number of Americans may sooner, rather than later, be experiencing those same feelings as those insinuated in the questions directly above, for better or for worse. However, it's almost funny to now observe the "garden variety Congressional Republican's" typical response to Obama's latest radical escapade which is called "the fiscal cliff" or "Cliffmas."
But then again, it's often even funnier to hear the even more troubled counter-responses to that first troubled response, of "we're willing to put revenue on the table" from either wing of the political spectrum. The main thematic to remember in all of this, whether you be either a true Conservative or a fiscal Conservative or even an accountant, is that once again and with regard to the Obama Regime, The Eeyore Paradigm authored over 18 months ago, on this site, still rules:
The Eeyore Paradigm
The attainment of measurable disappointment must be accompanied by at least some semblance of surpassing expectation.
The cacophony of oratory extremes, once everyone absorbed what the President initially had to say to kick-off the fiscal madness, immediately began to emerge in reaction to the President's opus prime on Fiscal inflexibility concerning the raising of taxes on a minority of the wealthy, but also as it was conjoined with his oppositions' response. So, what is Obama's extraordinarily unpragmatic '' plan to take care of both the debt and the fiscal cliff on which America now teeters?
Let's look at Obama's original proposal as delivered through Treasury secretary Timothy Geitner:
-$ 1.6 Trillion in tax increases over the next ten years
Note: That's about $160 billion per year overt en years, which is a now stale Obama/Liberal trick to make a cut or an increase sound good at first, but in reality, it means nothing in the long run. With a current spending level of $3.7 trillion annually, this is less than nothing, but it's also certainly not a cut, which should tell you everything that you need to know about the "fixes" which are sure not to follow.
This amount was actually $ 800 billion immediately prior to the election, by the way.
-$ 50 billion in immediate stimulus spending
Note: Ostensibly for infrastructure; been there done that, and the President has already admitted his earlier mistake of thinking that shovel-ready jobs are anywhere one lobs a stick.
Maybe Obama forgot or, more likely, he thought we forgot....
-Unemployment tax relief continuance of 5.65% versus 7.65%
Note: Indeed, so one of the fixes for a social security plan which is going broke is to further impair it with more cuts...that should work..."not"
-Deferral of looming Medicare physician reimbursements
Note: Right, defer the payments for care until Obamacare is fully in force, then the original deferral becomes law. Has anyone successfully tied this, at least in part, to the reasons for our health insurance premiums continually increasing?
And then there's the Obamanomic piece de résistance" :
-Elimination of congressional voting to increase the government's debt limit
Note: Thereby giving El Magnifico free rein to spend all that he wants whenever he wants? Oh, Congress should easily go along with that one, assuming they just want to become completely neutered, or under Boehner's leadership, is the term congressionally neutered simply an oxymoron?
- No specific spending cuts
Which appears to be the summary point in all of this protracted nonsense.
The Summary Response from the political peanut gallery
A miasma of distressed clucking ensued and has persevered, on both sides, which could most closely be approximated to the sound of the world's largest chicken coup being penetrated by a massive pack of hungry wolves . The din, becoming so terribly deafening, that one could hardly focus on anything of actual import.
But maybe that was the point.
It's not that these issues we are faced with are not so terribly dire, we have, in fact as Conservatives, been preaching this for over three long years now, and it's slowly working. Albeit, far more slowly than we originally had hoped, in the Right-Wing media. This particular fact can be observed in the final vote tally for Obama in 2012 as compared to 2008:
Obama 2012: 62.6 million
Obama 2008: 66.9 million
Better, but just not quite good enough....
At some point, one simply has to begin to wonder what those of us in America can do to get those others of us in America to see things for what they really are instead of what the media and the President tells them that it is. Or is that even remotely possible?
The simple fact is and always has been that the President will continue to follow his increasingly becoming obvious Cloward-Piven agenda, while the Republicans hesitantly follow along, without truly seeing nor understanding what it is that Obama's actually up to, right up and until the point that it's far too late.
A Transformational Refresher
The Cloward-Piven Agenda, which this site and a number of others have been pushing as an answer to the myriad questions surrounding Obama's strategory, is one so unthinkable and so utterly remarkable that many simply cannot put their arms around the fact that a sitting US President would dare to undertake its penultimate climax.
So, what is it again?
It's very simple in theory, and as we have seen over the past four years, not that hard to undertake as long as the chief instigator has a Congress of willing apparatchiks as the means toward an end, literally.
Cloward-Piven, a plan put together by a husband-wife team of Communists, is nothing more than a gradual overwhelming of the Capitalist system with welfare and entitlement spending largess, until that particular financial system under direct assault simply implodes under the weight of far too many funding demands.
Those financial demands would include current problematic areas such as these:
Forced Government Medical Care
The healthcare mandate, which is just now coming into effect under the "Affordable Healthcare Act" more commonly known as Obamacare, passed into law in April of 2011. Even before full implementation, the private sector has begun laying off and limiting employee numbers and hours in order to avoid the onerous mandated demands. "Affordable," as we have seen, has quickly become completely "Unaffordable" as health insurance premiums have increased at at an even faster rate due to a dwindling number of workers and more demands on insurers by the law's edicts.
The cost for Obamacare was recently rescored by the Congressional Budget Office, to a revised amount of over $ 195 Billion per year through 2022, which bears no actual resemblance to its original cost score savings of $ 2,500 per person in lesser premiums, at a savings to the government, according to Obama....
Food Stamps
Since late 2008 the number of Americans on food stamps has effectively doubled, from about 25 million then, to almost 50 million in late 2012. An increase of over 100%, costing the US Government well over $70 billion dollars per year. However, an even more telling fact is how the Obama Regime has been searching virtually every nook and cranny in the US and even Mexico, in order to find new recipients which promises to only strain the US government's ability to pay even further.
The Unemployment Benefits Extension
The unemployment benefits so far, have cost the US government over $ 434 billion just over the past four years. Just the 99 week extension, alone, has cost America over $ 44 billion through 2012. In 2008, and before, the cost of unemployment benefits was less than half of the current outlay. Congress is even now eyeballing a further extension of these benefits.
Medicaid
The cost of insuring those in or near poverty has bloomed to over $ 276 billion dollars in 2011 and promises to go even higher in 2012. Only one decade hence, the cost in 2011 hovered around $41 billion. The big question? How many individuals truly need this care as opposed to those who are merely gaming the system for a free ride?
Interest on the Debt
Back during the days of fiscal sanity, the US debt cost America only about 15% of our total budget. Fast forward to today, during the era of Obama's $ 6 trillion dollar debt spending program, and out total budgetary outlay, just on interest alone, totals a whopping 43% of the total budget. This figure by itself should be enough to scare the Bejesus out of most. But not the current crowd in control....
This is why when you here budgetary numbers being thrown about mentioning the saving of a trillion here or $2 trillion there, over a ten year period, throw it out as mere flotsam. Until we begin hearing numbers approaching $5 to$ 10 trillion, over the next decade, then no one within our government is truly serious about ameliorating deepening economic damage to America.
In fact, these are but just a few of the budgetary footnotes of what is now a massively blooming Statist bureacracy seemingly built upon an ideological strategy of over-spending rather than sound fiscal policies of restraint. If Obama's goals are not one of getting the beasts of spending under control, and at no time has the President come forth with any actual plan, then what are his actual aims?
Change We Simply Cannot Believe
The stated aim of Cloward-Piven is one of social engineering which was outwardly contrived to completely rid America of poverty by virtue of an annual salary for each individual American of $ 26,000 per year, and that was back in 1966. However, the engineering of such a plan naturally requires a complete subluxation of the current economic system, before the new one can be put in place.
However, a more basic aim for the installation of such a Socialist system would be one of paralyzing control. In fact, when the state pays most, if not all basic wages, then the economic system is one of simple collectivism or Communism rather than one of its lesser cousins, within the Socialism family of ideologies. Taken one step further, we have all heard the Obama dog whistle or code words which would seem to speak to a mindset predicated away from individual property ownership and individual empowerment and towards simple Statist collectivism. From Change We can Believe In to A Transformation of America, with all of the attacks on profit, business, and Capitalism in between.
Obama has allowed each of us, who listen very carefully, a glimpse into his ultimate goals for America, as long ago foreseen by Hayek in "The Road To Serfdom":
"We have in effect undertaken to dispense with the forces which produced unforeseen results and to replace the impersonal and anonymous mechanism of the market by collective and ‘conscious’ direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals.” Socialism, while presented as a means of assuring equality, does so through “restraint and servitude”, while “democracy seeks equality in liberty”. Planning, because coercive, is an inferior method of regulation, while the competition of a free market is superior “because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority”
If this, indeed, is not Obama's true aim then he should be forthcoming, virtually any day, with a plan for considerable spending cuts in tandem with some revenue increases, so that America can avert what will soon become an absolute financial disaster in a debt completely unserviceable.
However, don't hold your breath; The Eeyore Paradigm continues to rule when it comes to either Obama or America's new party of radical Socialist-Democrats at its core. The Leftists have just engaged the hyper-drive of fairness, social justice, and ultimate poverty if not serfdom, that is most assuredly in America's looming future.
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