For Barack Obama, A Crack in the Veneer

For Barack Obama, the rubber of reality may finally be hitting the road. While his popularity is still high, his policies are not. No matter how you slice it, America is a center right country, and Americans aren’t liking what they are seeing.

The clearest evidence is being seen in California. The eighth largest economy in the world is in trouble with people and businesses deserting the state daily. It is $23 Billion, with a “B”, in debt. The public employees unions are running the state, and are strangling it. Some municipal firefighters make a wage and benefit package of up to $175,000.00/year, with many being able to reach full salary retirement after 20 years. One municipality recently filed for bankruptcy. The mayor said they were paying for 2 full time fire departments at the same time…one working…one retired. This mentality permeates the entire state. When the governor and legislature recently tried to cut wages to state funded home health care workers, President Obama threatened to cut off federal funds to the state.

In a stunning defeat for tax and spend liberal politics, California defeated five of six state sponsored revenue propositions. The measures were defeated in every county, including San Francisco. The only measure to pass was the one stating the obvious: lawmakers are now forbidden to give themselves raises when the state is in deficit.

California has no choice now but to go hat in hand to the Federal government for bailout money. That is lose/lose for an Obama administration whose natural tendencies would be to go along with it. Do you want your tax money bailing out state paid for studies observing the mating life otters? Sooner or later, the gravy train runs out of gravy.

Obama’s promise to tax only the wealthy rings hollow when the burden is shifted to the states, and the states have to raise taxes on everything and everybody. There is no free lunch.

Obama is also being hit with his ideological position on Gitmo. WE DON’T WANT THE TERRORISTS HERE IN THE UNITED STATES. Not even the Democratic legislators who whined and sobbed about Gitmo abuse want these dudes in their states. Start with the practical. Anyone at all familiar with the American prison system knows these guys are getting much better treatment where they are now than in any American prison within a state system. Would they get better treatment in Leavenworth of Sing-Sing?

But more importantly, it will give these guys more legitimate access to our court system, with the nation running the risk of the courts actually releasing these bad people onto our streets while costing the country millions upon millions of dollars in legal fees. That doesn’t even begin to the address the issue of whose minds these nut cases would affect within the prison population. Do you want an American prisoner released into our cities with criminal tendencies juiced up by these Muslim whackos? Not me!!

Finally, Americans will soon tire of government run anything. The specter of Washington deciding everything from what kind of car we should drive, to the temperature we keep our thermostats, to what we eat, to the type of house we should live in, to whether or not we should be entitled to an MRI, will grow old, and is growing old, real fast. Americans don’t like paying more for less, and that is true across every socio-economic class. And when the government gets involved, that is the usual result. Government only knows how to take.

So President Obama, go ahead and bail out California, take over General Motors and Chrysler; try telling a mourning family they can’t get certain medical procedures for mom or dad or grandma and grandpa or a child; increase the rate of late term abortions; force minority families out of private schools that your own children attend in the District by cutting vouchers; and let some terrorists out onto the streets of our great country…and let me know how that works out for you!