Last Thursday President Obama had twelve Republican members of
the United States Senate to dinner at Washington’s Jefferson Hotel.
What had come over this man who, for more than four years, had
exhibited frequent disdain for Republicans in general and
Congressional Republicans in particular?
The reason escaped the “mainstream” media, but was not that hard
to see. For two weeks leading up to March 1 when the budget
sequester began he had preached daily the end of civilization as we
know it. Children would be deprived of food, old folks would be
thrown out in the snow, and so forth. Then, to make sure everyone
knew how painful it would be — thanks to Congressional Republican
intransigence — he arranged immediately to cancel White
House tours, using Secret Service staffing problems as an
alibi.
Alas, playing Dr. Doom didn’t work. The appeal of school
children to tour “our house” got wide coverage. Obama’s poll
numbers went down. There was no catastrophe. In fact, there was no
apparent change in daily life except the lack of White House
tours.
It was reported that Obama and his guests dined on lamb. In
fact, the main course was meat from a Trojan Horse. The
hastily-called dinner was not an unveiling of a new, cooperative
negotiating partner, but an element in a new strategy by the Old
Obama. By schmoozing with them, Obama hopes to sweet talk six into
voting for the Democrats’ Senate bill to undo the sequester. The
intention is, with just enough Republican Senate votes, to send a
bill to the House that contains either no entitlement reforms
(Social Security, Medicare) or, if any, ones so tiny as to be only
cosmetic. It will probably include provisions to cut “loopholes”
from the tax code, but without passing on the new revenue to
taxpayers in the form of reduced rates (a House Republican
promise). The funds will be used instead to continue Obama’s
profligate spending (such as for a program to create robotic
squirrels, as noted by Sen. Tom Coburn)
Then, when the House rejects the bill, Obama’s mouthpiece, Jay
Carney, will say with a straight face, “He did everything he could.
He worked with Republicans in the Senate, but the House just
wouldn’t let go of its protection of millionaire and billionaire
tax loopholes.” And Obama, himself, will once again level
daily barrages at Republicans. So much for the Trojan Horse
Dinner.
In short, the dinner was part of an Obama plan to position
himself on moral high ground when it come time to again cast blame.
Indeed, if the bill in question fails it will be followed by a
series of seemingly coincidental results of the sequester: long
security lines at airports, Head Start programs shut down, and
national parks closed. When this happens bear in mind who is in
charge of the federal government’s Executive Branch.
Barack Obama has done nothing to promote tax policies aimed at
producing economic growth and creating jobs. Instead of culling out
undue regulations, he has promoted ever more regulations and red
tape that reduce economic efficiency and prevent the nation from
taking advantage of the energy bonanza under our feet. Today,
the federal government soaks up the equivalent of 25 percent of the
nation’s Gross Domestic Product. That compares with the 18 percent
that is normal. The difference must come out of the private sector,
thus inhibiting its ability to create jobs.
In a zero-sum economy, for everyone who does well someone else
must do poorly. That is a notion the American Left has inherited
from the Marxists. Too bad Obama seems to have heard that message
and not the one John F. Kennedy left us, “A rising tide lifts all
boats.”
