Obama’s Second Act by Charles Krauthammer

A man who's judgement I've always respected...and the Republican Party leadership is stupid enough to screw the fall up, to again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama’s Second Act - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Charles Krauthammer

Obama’s Second Act

If he wins another term, he’ll only get worse.

In the political marketplace, there’s now a run on Obama shares. The Left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the Right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November, when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House.

I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama.

Consider what he has already achieved. Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care, and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.

Let us pray we have a strong enough majority in the Congress (thanks again women from Maine and Senator Brown) to starve this of funding or God forbid a decent judge says the obvious that Obamacare is blatantly unconstitutional.

Second, there is major financial reform, which passed Congress on Thursday. Economists argue whether it will prevent meltdowns and bailouts as promised. But there is no argument that it will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace. Its 2,300 pages will create at least 243 new regulations that will affect not only, as many assume, the big banks, but just about everyone — including, as noted in one summary (the Wall Street Journal), “storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, homebuyers and credit bureaus.”

Bank of America alone said this is cost them over 12 billion in a year...no that won't hurt the economy will it?

...These are not mere temporary countercyclical measures. They are structural deficits because, as everyone from Obama on down admits, the real money is in entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid. But Obamacare freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement — and no longer available for deficit reduction.

The result? There just isn’t enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases — most likely a European-style value-added tax. Just as President Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama’s wild spending — and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief — will necessitate huge tax increases.

I somewhat disagree here. I think we are approaching a dead horse. In several states (New York, California, etc) we have already reached the point a lot of people are just leaving. It's not worth working your ass off when you have to pay over 50% of your money before you see it. It's a concept leftist like B Hussein Obama just can't get. 15% of a buck is much more than 50% of nothing. He puts this crap on us a lot of people will say screw it, I'm not working or I'll do underground economy stuff. Back to my example of California and New York, the scary part is right now people have places to go (e.g. Texas and Florida). The socialists that run the country now get their way we will have no place to go.