The
Obama Effect…. by Richard Frendt
The election of
Barak Obama will be felt in extreme ways across the country.
Blacks will understandably be ecstatic, as will other Democrats,
especially the Far Left. With
victory comes the spoils and I personally fear for the future of the country and
in particular for well-being of my children and grandchildren.
I could be wrong, perhaps there will be some restraint rise up against
the rising avalanche, or the country’s mood may change before the next
presidential election and the tide may be partially held back, but I am
pessimistic about this.
I am not thinking
in abstract terms, I have specific concerns about the new direction and
especially about the changes which will affect the lives of our citizens.
Just to be clear, I have compiled a list of specific, and for the most
part measurable, changes I predict will befall this nation and it’s citizens.
If you think this is hogwash, do me a small favor and keep this list.
Eight years from now, do an objective review of it.
If I’m still around, point out to me all my errors; it will make me
feel better.
Barak
Obama often says he will be beholden to no one when he takes office.
This, of course, is silly. He
will owe labor unions, teacher unions, trial lawyers, environmentalists, blacks,
and the middle and lower classes he made so many promises to.
He will not act differently than what he believes to placate them, but he
will feel obligated to charge ahead with their agendas.
The following are
my fears.
Personal
Freedoms
Eliminating the
Secret Ballot
There will be a
quick push to pass legislation favored by the unions to allow organizing
activities to be in the union’s favor. There
already is legislation pending that will allow unions to organize a company or
workplace by simply having employees sign a petition requesting it.
Secret ballot elections, currently required by the NLRB, will be done
away with. It will be justified as a
“fairness” issue, and people will simply rationalize away one of our most
fundament rights, to assist the unions.
Eliminating
Dissent
A new Fairness
Doctrine will be implemented to effectively shut down conservative talk radio.
The argument in favor will be cloaked in terms of “local content” or
other similar terms. It won’t
directly forbid talk radio; it will simply establish “fairness” principles
which will make it impractical for it to exist except in neutered forms.
Who can argue with fairness?
Gun Ownership
This will be
slower to develop than the above elements. It
will come through both a liberal court appointed by the Obama administration and
legislative efforts. Creeping
decisions on the type and amount of guns will be followed by a general banning
of concealed weapon permits, or severe new restrictions being imposed.
Inventing new
Rights
Health Care
Obama stated in
one of the debates Health Care is a Right. Once
the principle of a right is established, courts define the parameters of the
right. It will be the “right” of
anyone in this counry, legal citizens or illegal aliens, to receive the full
complement of this right.
This will be
compounded by the expanded government control of the health care system.
The only way to reduce costs will be to reduce payments to health care
providers. This has already been the
tactic in the Medicare program for the past ten years.
A great majority of doctors no longer accept new Medicare patients.
About half the Doctors entering the system each year are foreign born.
As their compensation declines further, less of them will want to come
here. Fewer
Societal Justice
Obama has
publicly stated that a major problem with the Constitution is that the Bill of
Rights is a list of “negative rights”; what the government may not do to
you. It should have “positive
rights”, what the government must do for you.
Economic sharing of the wealth is one of these.
It is reasonable to assume that he will appoint judges who agree with
this philosophy. We should expect
then, the question of “Black Reparations” to come to a head.
Will the Black community not demand it?
This president may be their only chance for generations to come; will
they just pass on this opportunity?
Obama will give
his moral support to this issue, but won’t make a push to legislate on this
item. It will not go away.
The liberal courts will eventually weigh-in on the subject, and who knows
how far they will go? When decisions
are based on fairness, the only way to forecast an outcome is to read the
minds of the omnipotent judges who will issue the decree.
This will likely not come to a head until after the Obama administration
has passed from power to avoid tarnishing his legacy.
Capital
Punishment
The same
conditions listed above will cause an end to capital punishment.
This disproportionately affects blacks, and it will disappear by the end
of his second term, but it will come about through the liberal court system.
Soon thereafter a clamor will arise to end Life Imprisonment as “cruel
and unusual punishment.” This is
not something I dreamed up, there is already a movement to support this concept,
and isn’t it equally “unfair” to the Black community?
I don’t believe this will come to pass for many years, but a liberal
court system will make inroads in some states for all but the most heinous
crimes.
Illegal
Immigrants.
Some type of
amnesty program will be implemented. Citizenship
will be granted to expand the Democratic base.
Social Security benefits will be granted for even the past illegal time
spent in this country. Part of this
will be legislated and then the new liberal courts will redefine the benefit
system based on their new interpretation of what government must do for you.
As Hispanics gain political power with their expanded “legal”
population, they will demand, and get, easier access to and immigration to the
Teacher’s
Rights
Obama has
promised increased pay for teachers. This
will surely be a commitment he must keep to the powerful Teacher’s
The teachers will
also demand “reforms” to “improve” the teaching of those they currently
don’t control. Home Schooling will
be greatly constrained by requirements that appear to be for the good of the
students, but are geared to the good of the teachers union.
Requirements for certified teachers, mandatory foreign language
instruction, or similar legal barriers will make Home Schooling very difficult
and will place Charter schools under extreme pressure.
Teachers will
then have unfettered access to the young minds to educate them in the
“fairness” of our new approach.
New pressure will
be brought to demand no “discriminatory” burdens such as personal I.D. or
proof of residence, which are employed by the states.
Fraud will be difficult if not impossible to detect.
It will encourage each side to cheat, thinking the other side surely is.
But who is more likely to cheat, the side which advocates for less I.D.,
or the side who advocates for more? Election
fraud seriously undermines democracy.
Social Security
Benefits
These benefits
will be preserved but will be means tested.
“Fairness” will require sacrifices on the part of the “upper
class.” Benefits will likely
be based on your total income at retirement, and will be graduated to decline as
you’re retirement income increases.
Maternity Rights
It is only fair
that paid leave become law. This
will be an early legislative push.. You
always get what you pay for, just as Aid to Dependent Children destroyed
families in the lower class (both blacks and whites); people will play the
system, as they always do.
Teachers
especially will “play the system.” If
a female teacher is planning a family, it will be to her advantage to have her
baby during the school year rather than during the summer months.
Some will take advantage of this and the costs to the public school
systems will rise.
Tax Policy
Tax Cuts
A tax cut for the
middle class will surely be delivered as promised.
We will then have nearly fifty percent of our population who pay no
income tax. Will this group be
likely to vote for someone who says we must cut back our spending and live
within our means, or will they want to just raise taxes on those who do pay, and
not worry about the possible consequences? At
some point, incentives to invest in this country will decline enough to be
problematic. Our economy will
decline and people will say it was inevitable, we all knew our Standard of
Living had to decline, in spite of nearly 250 years of evidence to the contrary.
Social
Security/Medicare Taxes.
They will rise
sharply on the “wealthy”. The
salary caps that limit taxes will be eliminated.
Tax rates for Medicare will rise for everyone.
Medicare Benefits may actually increase for some, at least theoretically.
We will all be entitled to a vast array of treatments, but you will just
have to wait your turn to receive them. This
will be a gradual decline and we won’t know what we’re missing.
We will just know that it is totally fair; all get equally poor
treatment, so it won’t seem so bad.
Windfall Profits
Taxes
Exxon/Mobile is
the poster boy for “excessive profits”.
It’s just not “fair” to make such large sums, even if they did go
through years of losses and meager profits.
The Oil industry will be the first, but surely not the last, to be
penalized for success. In this past
year of excess profits, Exxon/Mobile made about ten percent profit based on
revenues. Many companies and many
industries as a whole exceeded this amount.
I can only guess that something in excess of seven percent will be
determined to be “excessive.” It
hard not to imagine the huge destructive force this will have on investment in
this country, when investing in a foreign country will bring much more
opportunity for profit.
Capital Gains
Taxes
Obama has
promised to raise them even as most industrialized countries are lowering
theirs. He stated in a TV interview,
that the negative effect of this tax is not as important as being “fair.”
The consequences will be similar to the Windfall Profits Tax.
Foreign Policy
There will no
doubt be great relief around the world at Obama’s election.
We will quickly become as well liked as the French, and just as
effective. We will “negotiate
first” and come to agreements with our adversaries.
When they violate the agreement, we will negotiated a new agreement while
threatening harsh action, much like Jimmy Carter did.
In severe situations, we will fire a few missiles. Our approval by our
allies will be high unless they are one of the allies who were counting on our
resolve.
Trade Policy
The union lobby
will try to keep Obama’s feet to the fire on trade.
He will most likely renege on this promise, blaming Bush for tying his
hands (although
Still, it is
likely that some trade barriers will be put in place as the pressure to “save
jobs” increases. Some of the
pressure will come from Europe, (especially
Military Strength
Obama has
promised to increase the regular Army and Marines by nearly 100,000.
This has almost zero chance of happening as the liberal congress sees
other priorities. The huge budget
deficits ahead are much more likely to result in military reductions.
Our options to deal with serious situations will be reduced to Cruise
missile strikes in most cases, and our adversaries will understand that.
We will take a
highly visible role at the UN and will support the Global Poverty Act, which
calls for every developed nation to contribute 0.7% of its GDP annually, to
eradicate poverty. Obama currently
is cosponsoring legislation to start this process in the
Foreign Aid
Obama has pledged
to double Foreign Aid and this will cause lots of countries to like us
initially. After a few years,
countries will see it as their “right” to share our wealth and the benefit
to our image abroad will decline, especially if budget constraints force
cutbacks..
The commitments
made by Obama are breathtaking in scope. Substantial
increases are promised in infrastructure, science, medical research, health
care, education, college tuition, energy research and other areas.
There is not a single area of saving to be seen except ending the
Investors, banks
and creditor nations are going to begin to see this mushrooming debt as the next
“bubble” in our economy. Interest
rates will balloon and we will be forced to either dramatically cut spending or
dramatically increase taxes. My
guess is that the Military budget will be slashed in half and taxes will be
raised substantially across the board. It
seems unlikely Obama will abandon the promised giveaways to his constituents.
Utility
Costs
Obama
has pledged to pay for his Energy plan with fines collected from carbon
emitters. This means principally the
Midwest Utilities, where most of our electric power comes from coal fired power
plants. Our electric bills will rise
by up to 50% to pay these fines. The
utilities simply can’t absorb these costs.
Further, the new technologies, including wind and solar, will also cost
more than our present system. The
Obama approach compounds the cost of clean energy.
This is not speculation, both Obama and Biden have stated recently that
no new coal plants will be built in the
If we
undertake this approach on our own without
Some
may think we can simply regulate
In
several of the above discussions, the impact of Obama appointments to the
Federal Courts are noted. He has
stated the
The
predictions outlined above will not come about rapidly in most cases.
The first two or three years of the Obama administration will be widely
celebrated. The economic condition
of the country will improve based on the vast stimulus deficit spending.
Then interest rates will begin to balloon and the bubble will burst.
This will probably not come to a head until early in his second term
(almost a certainty).
The
political climate will change faster with legislation favoring unions, teachers,
trial lawyers, environmentalists, and illegal aliens, all moving quickly.
It is likely the Congress will move the legislation farther left than
even Obama has proposed. A telling
indicator of whether this is true will be the size of new stimulus package
passed. Obama has called for another
$60 billion but Democratic congressional leaders want $300 billion!
If Obama can’t hold the line on this item, it’s unlikely he will hold
it in any other area. If he caves,
his reason will be “that conditions have worsened,” and then conditions will
worsen. The disaster of his plans
will be even worse than we thought.
Some
of the predictions that result from court decisions will be long term, but we
will see “progress” toward them in four to ten years in most every case.
The tearing down of law and the building up of “class
justice/fairness” will spread slowly but
surely throughout the judicial system.
While
I’m pessimistic about the next decade or two, I have hope for