Barack Obama’s rhetoric about the economy in recent days has been
a blizzard of excuses, euphemisms, denials, and scapegoating
attacks. Notice that Democrats are more upset that he is
caricaturing Las Vegas than Wall Street.
By telling people not to “blow” their money in casinos,
Obama is killing business there, they say. But what about
demonizing and discrediting bankers and “fat cat” employers? How
is that good for business and job seekers who depend upon them?
Obama’s sophomoric reliance on quasi-Marxist fragments, clichés,
and favored villains in the place of real economic thought
explain his ill-considered gibes at Nevada and New York.
Obama is hurting business all around, even for allies at
his unofficial headquarters, MSNBC. Keith Olbermann’s ratings,
according to reports, have plunged under the weight of anti-Obama
ennui.
“You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas,” says Obama. No,
you do it with him in D.C. What’s “greed” in
the private sector counts as “good government” in the public
sector. It is always more virtuous to waste other people’s money
than your own.
The mayor of Las Vegas calls Obama a “slow learner” now
that he taken two swipes at the city’s economy. Left-wing
ideologue would have been a more polite way of putting it.
Unfortunately, Obama’s problem goes beyond business-killing
comments to business-killing policies. Hire more people, he urges
businessmen while saddling them with new taxes and regulations.
He wants companies to “invest” and “grow” while telling Americans
to view them as polluting profit machines.
Forced by events to fake up an anti-Washington posture,
Obama reaches out for the usual gimmicks — the PAYGO bill,”
“spending freezes,” “earmark reform.” It all sounds about as
credible as Al Gore’s plans in the 1990s to “reinvent” the
federal government.
Unless Obama plans to adopt limited-government views, his
“cuts,” “freezes,” and “reductions” have zero meaning. Has he
suddenly seen the light? Does he now agree that the federal
government should restrict itself to those few essential tasks
beyond the capacity of state and local governments?
No, his view of the federal government is as unlimited and
glib as ever. He sees no relationship between deficits and his
party’s political philosophy. That excessive spending reflects
its excessive view of the federal government’s competence and
proper powers wouldn’t occur to him. Consequently, his idea of a
solution to deficits is taxing anything that moves. According to
the Washington Post, he wants to drop a $120 billion tax
on multinational corporations over the next decade and squeeze
another $300 billion from “high earners” by tinkering with
itemized deductions.
He automatically equates economic growth with government
growth. So the “spending freeze” has to be postponed until
“recovery measures” have worked. Under Obama’s thinking, there
are good deficits and bad deficits, good earmarks and bad
earmarks, and they all happen to dovetail with his “priorities”
of the moment.
The definition of words in D.C. grows ever more slippery. A
“cut” by any other name is still not a cut. Would the PAYGO bill,
for example, translate into reductions in the size of government?
No, just shifting and sloshing of government funds. As Obama
casually put it in a quote that appeared on cbsnews.com, the
“concept here is very simple. You want to start a new program? Go
ahead. But you’ve got to cut another one to pay for it. That’s
how we make sure we’re spending your money wisely.”
Wouldn’t it be wiser not to start that new program in the
first place? It is Obama’s glib “Go ahead” attitude that explains
the ease of deficit spending, and since he views taxation as an
instrument of wealth redistribution it is not “your money” but
the state’s.
As Obama tells Americans not to go to Las Vegas, he
presides over a city that more and more resembles it, with
schemes instead of slot machines and farcical politics instead of
shows.
