BY FRANK SALVATO – As the media pushes the cosmetic differences between the two presidential candidates, I have long said that this election is about a fundamental question: Do you want more government or less government? Today, after the release of President Obama’s interview with the Des Moines Register, I would add a second tier to that question, but a tier just as important. Do you want a poor country or a plentiful country? The choice you make at the ballot box will, indeed, answer both of these questions, so I pray to the Almighty above that you are not voting with your emotions, but with your brains.
In the Des Moines Register interview, President Obama said:
“So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent – at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit – but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business.
“It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our healthcare programs.
“And we can easily meet – “easily” is the wrong word – we can credibly meet the target that the Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction…Now, once we get that done, that takes a huge piece of business off the table.”
What? What did he say? Did he say that he was going to let both the Bush tax cuts expire and allow the sequester to take place? Indeed he did.
In September, the AP reported that the White House itself issued a report in which it said allowing the sequester to proceed would be catastrophic:
“A new White House report issued Friday warns that $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts at the start of the new year would be ‘deeply destructive’ to the military and core government responsibilities like patrolling US borders and air traffic control.
“The report says the automatic cuts, mandated by the failure of last year’s congressional deficit ‘supercommittee’ to strike a budget deal, would require an across-the-board cut of 9 percent to most Pentagon programs and an 8 percent cut in many domestic programs. The process of automatic cuts is called sequestration, and the administration has no flexibility in how to distribute the cuts, other than to exempt military personnel and war-fighting accounts.
“‘Sequestration would be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions,’ the report says.
“The cuts, combined with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, have been dubbed the ‘fiscal cliff.’ Economists warn that the one-two punch could drive the economy back into recession.”
Further, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – along with each and every non-political military mind in the nation – has stated that to allow the sequester to occur would be to purposefully endanger the capabilities of the US military:
“I think, what both Republicans and Democrats need to do, and the leaders on both sides, is to recognize that if sequester takes place it would be disastrous for our national defense and very frankly for a lot of very important domestic programs. They have a responsibility to come together, find the money necessary to de-trigger sequester. That’s what they ought to be working on now.”
Yet, with the release of the Des Moines Register interview with President Obama, it becomes clear that Mr. Obama’s second term agenda includes allowing the sequester to proceed in a misguided attempt to address “that big piece of business”; the deficit and the debt.
Truth be told, I don’t believe you are going to see many Progressives and Liberal Democrats crying over the decimation of the Pentagon’s budget. In fact, the degradation of the US military has been of paramount concern for the anti-war Progressive Left since they were breastfeeding. And Liberal Democrats see the reduced dollars spent on the constitutionally mandated abilities of the US military as dollars they will be able to eventually re-direct to social engineering programs; the same programs they bribe the federal treasury “trough feeders” with for votes.
If it was just the sequester that was being allowed to move forward (“Forward” is the slogan for the Obama campaign in 2012) we, as a nation, might – might – be able to weather the storm, but it isn’t just the sequester.
Mr. Obama intends – per his interview with the Des Moines Register, an interview he wanted to “keep off the record” – to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, which will raise taxes on everyone, not just the “hated” one-percenters. A clear understanding of just what the Bush tax cuts actually achieve bears that out.
To that end, banks will continue to deny loans to start-ups and small businesses, corporations with continue to hoard capital while refusing to expand operations and payrolls, and because of that unemployment (to borrow a phrase) “will necessarily skyrocket,” as more people lose their homes and savings; while more Americans get cheated out of the opportunity that our government is supposed to safeguard for its people.
On top of those two fiscal nuclear bombs, Mr. Obama wants to continue with the elimination of the temporary payroll tax reduction, which is tantamount to yet another tax increase on all – all – working Americans.
Add to that the incredible expenditure of Obamacare taking full affect in 2014 – an absolute should Mr. Obama win a second term and the Senate remain in Progressive and Liberal Democrat control – and you have a perfect fiscal storm that could very well transform the most vibrant economic engine the world has ever known into a bastard cousin of the Greek Socialist economic ruin.
No wonder Mr. Obama has set himself to attacking Mitt Romney instead of talking about his performance and future plans. His past performance has brought us to the fiscal cliff and his future plans put us at the bottom off the gully…mangled and broken…smoldering, no fuel left to combust.
So, the two questions that must – must – determine your vote on November 6, 2012 are these:
▪ Do you want larger and more intrusive government or a government that safeguards your rights so that you can embrace the opportunity that only liberty can afford?
▪ Do you want a government mandated and controlled economic “recovery” or a recovery fueled by the only economic engine to create – the only economic engine to create – a middle class; free market Capitalism?
My fellow Americans, we stand at a crossroads where to the Left we have a socially engineered nanny state that controls your dreams, and to the Right, the road back to equal opportunity for all and the true meaning of the American Dream; the American Dream our ancestors understood when they gave up everything to come to the United States.
The choice is yours. But as Benjamin Franklin said – and he couldn’t have been more foreseeing of this moment in time than it appears he was:
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
May God have mercy on those who vote to defeat liberty in deference to the hollow promises this man has made since being in the glaring light of the public’s trust. He has abused it…and we are lesser for having trusted him.