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President Obama’s Policies:unintended consequences or are they?
All of the recent polls show favorable numbers for President Obama as a person. He appears to be a very nice individual with a wonderful family. What isn’t being reported is that while his popularity is high so too are the numbers reflecting a distrust of his policies.
Our country is in serious financial shape and is looking towards Washington for guidance and direction. When everything started down a long slippery slope, Obama was touting the idea that Wall Street has nothing but rich individuals that are responsible for the financial fiasco. This rich versus the common man syndrome sounds eerily familiar to what a dictator was espousing in Germany in order to gain power in the late 30’s. It worked then and it appears to be working now. For an understanding of this just look at the recent G-20 Summit held in England. What you had was a great deal of protesters who broke windows on banks and occupied their offices. Of course the rich caused the problems. Didn’t they?
Everything seemed to have come to a head with the bonuses paid to executives of American International Group. According to The Washington Post on-line (May 13, 2009) the Federal Reserve Bank of New York knew about the details of the bonus structure “more than five months before the firestorm erupted.” I can certainly understand why some might be upset with what was happening but based on contractual arrangements the government should not have attempted to intervene. The idea that AIG was paying bonuses made for a fantastic headline and gave political ammunition to Obama. The question is why shouldn’t contracts be honored? Just remember that if Obama can bring heat to one organization he can bring it to yours. In an article “AIG bonus blackmail and resignations” (http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/03/aig_bonus_blackmail/; March 26, 2009) provides part of a letter from one of the bonus receiving executives.
“I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.”
How many of you would work for an annual salary of $1? Were these managers let down? You bet you. According to Earmon Javers (Politico; 4/3/2009) wrote that the president stated “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks” when talking to a group of CEOs of various financial institutions as they tried explaining their high salaries. His administration did very little to stop the “pitchforks” when bus loads of people went on a tour of AIG homes sponsored by ACORN.
One must remember that Washington set the stage for an economic meltdown through the idea of a sub-prime mortgage. The idea that everyone has a right to own a home is, frankly, a bit flawed. Not everyone can afford to live in a $300,000 home. Many of our elected officials totally ignored the “hand writing on the wall” of a coming disaster. In 2004 a small group of courageous Congressmen and women attempted to change the course only to be out voted by people like Senator Harry Reid who basically said that there was nothing to worry about.
Since everyone is up in arms about AIG and other organizations receiving bonuses, let’s not forget that, as stated earlier, Congress started this mess and as I understand it, many of their staff members received a bonus and that all members of Congress received a pay raise. Why isn’t the public outraged? In my opinion, there are only two possible explanations. Either we are a bunch of sheep or the media did not do their job in reporting this. What do you think?
With the age of the Internet and fast transportation the world is shrinking. No longer can we simply compete at home but we must have a global presence. In order to do that we must hire the best of the best and they are not going to work for low salaries. If Obama and his dictatorial style continues (defining pay and compensation) many more firms will cease to exist as we know them. These bright individuals will start working for “boutique shops” where they can be justly rewarded for their labors.
In order to be competitive we must hire the best. This is why the NFL spends a great deal of money on top quality athletes for the hopes of winning the Super Bowl.
In this country you can go as far as your dreams take you. You too can be rewarded for your hard work. Anyone can become rich if they so choose.
After the brow beating that AIG took next came the firing of a CEO, the supposed takeover of banks, the strong governmental recommendation that a car company merge with Fiat, the prevention of early stimulus loan pay offs, handing controlling interest of a company to UAW membership, etc. all in the realm of righting the financial community and getting people back to work. The question is, what part of the Constitution gives the president the authority to carry out such actions? All of these plans are being formulated without debate and/or public input.
Seems like the time President Obama spends traveling the country he is doing it for one purpose and that is to get re-elected. All of his stops seem to have the same campaign feel and flavor that we saw last year. When he travels overseas this is nothing more than an apologetic tour. I never thought that I would see the day when a President would cower at the feet of a dictator like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Sure we have made some mistakes but we are still the greatest nation on earth. Our free enterprise system, constitution and our general way of life make a lot of people and nations extremely envious of the United States. They may hate us one day then something happens and who do they turn too? Other nations are mad and blame us for the market meltdown. I have a clue for you. Many international markets already had difficulty before our problems erupted. An easy way to think about his trips abroad is that if I were to come to your house and you were to bad mouth my family, we would have a serious and heated exchange then I would leave. We Americans are a family and don’t have anything to be apologetic for. He didn’t have a heated discussion nor did he leave-he just apologized.
With the release of information about our interrogation techniques did nothing but put our own intelligence community at risk to say nothing of the lives of the men and women in uniform who have been called to serve in war. Sometimes the need for the public to be informed can go a bit too far when it comes to national security. He could have quietly ended a controversial program without announcing it to the world which also emboldens our enemies. Of course I forgot that Obama feels we are no longer fighting a war on terrorism. I guess that he did not read the 9-11 report. He is showing his extreme inexperience when dealing with foreign policy. In particular he wants to sit around the proverbial campfire with the very people who have sworn to kill us and wipe us off the face of the earth. Oh! Did he tell you that we are not a Christian nation either. More apologizes.
One of Obama’s early campaign promises was to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Eric Holder went on a tour of Europe to try to persuade our European allies to take some of the “enemy combatants.” This, of course, was a big flop even though they were extremely vocal about the detention facility. Again, why should we apologize? Our European partners do not want anything to do with accepting detainees. So now what is he to do? Is he going to bring them to the continental United States? I doubt that there are any congressmen that want them in their back yard with access to our court system. Once again this shows his complete lack of understanding the big picture and the role that Guantanamo serves
President Obama and members of his administration have repeatedly stated that Guantanamo is a recruiting tool for terrorist. This could be nothing further from the truth. The real tool for recruitment is a successful operation. Another way of putting this is that they have killed many people as they did on 9-11. When we are successful in infiltrating their networks, stopping their funding lines, intercepting communications, putting them behind bars (all part of the Patriot Act) and killing them severely hampers terrorist recruiting efforts. As a side note. Many on the left are against the Patriot Act even though there hasn’t been an attack in this country since 9-11.
What about his plan to nationalize the health care system? Obama has stated that he is not out to run or nationalize any organization but rather to compliment employer insurance programs. His intent is to model the system after Medicare. Let me get this straight-he wants to model a national program after a system that is poorly run and out of money. In the same breath, there is talk of taking the tax credit away from businesses that provides medical insurance. So when and if this were to happen there would be more people entered into a dysfunctional and broke system because businesses would no longer provide medical insurance. Who is going to pay for it? Obama just doesn’t get it.
Congress had a great idea about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In order to pay for this program they increased the Federal tax on tobacco. This is a great idea from a public health standpoint. The rise in tax will cause many to quit. If people quit tobacco the government will not take in as much as they expected to cover the cost of SCHIP. Incidentally, many city and state governments are outlawing smoking in public venues. Again, the question must be asked. When the revenue dwindles, who will pick up the additional cost? You will in some other form of tax. Only this tax would probably be applied so that even non-tobacco users would be hit.
The stimulus package was touted as providing immediate relief. So far, as I understand, only about 6% has been spent. All or almost all of this has been spent on governmental programs. Obama has continually stated that he will either save or create four million new jobs. How can you quantify the word “save?” You can’t! It is an unrealistic statement that cannot be measured. Unfortunately, this “used car” sales rhetoric is what many citizens are buying into. (I need to apologize to used car salesmen) On the other hand he can create the jobs. However, most all of them will be in government not the public sector. A president cannot create jobs in the private sector he can only provide the atmosphere in which to do it. So far he seems reluctant to take a different approach. For instance, I would go out on the limb and state that if he were to abandon his coming tax policies for corporations who do business overseas, cut the capital gains tax, and provide a short term “no tax” policy for corporations that these same corporations would begin hiring and putting people back to work. Corporations would again be lucrative-the stock market would re-bound and many individual retirement accounts would be salvaged along with more income for the federal government through individual income tax (even at a low percentage). By taking these simple measures would be a win win situation and Washington would not have to print more money thus keeping down our national debt so our future generations would not have to pay the price of liberal stupidity. Right now it appears that they (Government) are throwing money down a “sink hole” or rather the proverbial “money pit.”
Nearly every day there seems to be a new or revised policy coming out of Washington that there is so much more that could be written here. The big question that should be asked is how much of your income are YOU, the tax payer willing to “donate” to Washington?
I had heard this fable many years ago and think that it might sum up the impact of government intrusion. I am sure that there are other variations.
A farmer in Russia was walking to town during a very cold winter morning. Along the path he sees a bird just lying on the ground. He picks the bird up and notices that it is still alive. He puts the bird under his coat and continues the trek towards town. He finally gets to town and wants to go in a store. Unfortunately, there is a no animal sign posted. He wonders what he should do. He looks around notices a huge fresh manure pile. The farmer digs a small hole at the top and places the bird in it and covers him up to his neck. After a short period of time; the bird warms and starts to sing. On the outskirts of town a wolf hears the singing bird and comes in to investigate and eventually eats the bird. There are three morals to this story. First; who ever puts you in is not necessarily your enemy. Whoever takes you out is not necessarily your friend. But above all when you are up to your neck do not sing. All of us should view the wolf as government. All they want to do is devour everything that we have and will have in future years. Obama is out for himself and bigger government. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing telling you that he will listen but then does what he was planning to do all along.
About the Author
Masters Degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Organization Change and Development.
Former Army Officer Trained in Operations and Force Development and counter-Terrorism.
Presently employed with a State Department of Health.
Elected to serve on the Board of Trustees (representing active members) of a State Public Retirement Fund that was awarded 2008 Plan Sponsor of the Year in the Public Sector/Defined Benefit category by Plansponsor magazine.
In addition to being employed with a health department, I understand the health system from the side of the patient. My son died of cancer at the age of 10 and my wife was diagnosed at the same time with cancer and will have to undergo chemotherapy for the rest of her life-so I have a vested interest in an efficient and effective health care system.
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