Warren Court Wasn’t Radical Enough
Lest we forget, President Barack Obama wants to redistribute income and wealth. He regrets that the Warren Supreme Court didn’t do enough in reinterpreting the Constitution to require forced redistribution:
Nothing suggests he has changed his view on this; he just can’t say it so plainly now. This is understood better by Joe the Plumber than by most citizens. For the Obama Administration, the purpose of taxation is less to raise revenue for the government and more to control behavior and redistribute wealth. It's about government control of the private sector through direct ownership or taxes and regulations, making resources available for redistribution as desired.
We’ll Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse
CNS News reports on the Inspector General’s investigation of TARP bailouts. It was found that the government made it clear to the nine largest banks that they had no choice but to accept bailout money and allow the government to take equity positions in their banks. The pressure put on banks by Fed and Treasury officials was reported at the time, but the IG report confirms and details it.
“The inspector general’s report also found that federal officials, including then-Secretary [Henry] Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and current-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner all viewed the plan as an offer the banks could not refuse.
“‘Officials at Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and other federal regulators felt strongly that the nine institutions should not be permitted to reject the government’s capital infusions,’ the report says.” [1]
Also, banks and other companies that received bailout funds or were taken over by the government will be under the watchful eye of the “pay czar” to make sure executive pay is what Obama thinks it should be.
Automakers GM and Chrysler received bailout funds of at least $110 billion and the government converted their debt to equity. The federal government is now the majority owner of GM, and they arranged for Obama’s pals the United Auto Workers union to own a majority share of Chrysler. This apparently is legal only because no one could stop it. For all the “help,” both companies went through bankruptcy, with the Administration guiding the proceedings. So much for checks and balances.
Spending into Oblivion
But these may be just fairly minor items in the big Obama plan. With the multi-trillion-dollar deficits being created, and the truly mind-boggling takeovers involved in Obamacare and cap and trade, the private sector will be severely squeezed, and companies that are not actually taken over will be taxed and regulated to the point of de facto government control. Many will go out of business or relocate overseas. These are the things that will lead to a depression.
Obama’s obvious plan is to weaken the U.S. economy to make it easier for him to control. People who are unemployed and companies that are on the verge of collapse will tend to look to government for help. And the “help” they get will bring, if not bankruptcy, even more government control. The “rich” will be taxed more aggressively, and this will exacerbate the current economic problems and create more. We will soon be experiencing massive inflation as more spending comes on stream.
A prosperous people are harder to control than a dependent people. Once a majority of voters are government-dependent non-payers of income tax, Obama hopes to have majority support for ever-increasing taxation of those who do pay, thus redistributing their wealth to the non-earners, and especially, to the government. “Immigration reform” will help him with this, since it should add millions of new Democratic votes. Never mind that all this reduces revenues to the government, increases the deficit even more, generally ruins the economy, and brings more human misery. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?
Anyone Can See the Dangers; Obama Accepts Them
I said it’s an obvious plan. Anyone who successfully completed Economics 101 should be able to see that increased deficits and increased taxes cannot bring prosperity to our economy in its current condition. The problem was characterized by over-spending and high deficits. It can’t be solved by the same measures.
This is known and understood by the Administration. The goal is not prosperity but dependency. Obama thinks America has been too prosperous for too long and deserves a humbling dressing down. And he’s just the guy to bring it. It’s either that or he is truly clueless. I don’t think he’s clueless. His plan is consistent: Stop the initiatives and programs that really could help. Like domestic energy production, lower taxes, less regulation, less control over everything in sight.
Foreign Policy Can Wait
Obamacare, the Olympics and various domestic considerations appear to be the reason the president cannot get to a decision on Afghanistan in a reasonable amount of time. As recently as August, Afghanistan was a “necessary” war, and we needed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming again a haven for al-Qaeda terrorists with the Taliban in power. Now, that’s just one option among several.
So far, Obama’s top foreign policy accomplishments include closer friendships with Ortega, Chavez and others, apologizing for America numerous times, trying to get Honduras’ deposed president back in power, and giving up on the Poland-Czech missile defense to curry favor with Putin.
The main focus has to be on domestic policy and Obama’s great fascist program of nanny-state regulation, statist corporatism, and the traditional liberal tax-and-spend, but on a greater scale. He may be a lot nicer than the Big Brother of Orwell’s 1984, but he still wants government to be the center of America’s world, running as much of it as possible. Given the history of government running things domestically, it’s not a promising prospect.
[1] Matt Cover, “Inspector General: Treasury Secretary Forced Banks to Surrender Ownership Interest to Government,” 10/05/09, CNS News.com, at http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55017
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