Obama's Neo-Nationalism II

  

The Calls For "New Nationalism"

With all of this in mind, let us turn to Teddy's "New Nationalism" and Obama's "New-New Nationalism" speeches:

"The absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.  The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise.  We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercise with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. 
 

Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading the army to victory.  So it is with us.  We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community.  We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.  This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.
     

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.  Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered – not gambling in stocks, but service rendered.  The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means.  Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."

- Theodore Roosevelt, "The New Nationalism," 31 August 1910, pp 17-19

In other words, uniform taxes, equal protection of the laws, and full property rights do not apply to those people with "fortunes that are swollen," all of which would have met with the overwhelming approval of Edward Bellamy, Herbert Croly, and Albert Parsons.

"It's only right that we ask everyone to pay their fair share," President Obama has declared, while calling for higher taxes on the group he refers to as "millionaires and billionaires." Redistribution is the key concept -- Obama again and again demands that the United States take and redistribute wealth from one group of Americans to another, which is antithetical to the spirit and words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  The Constitution mandates that "all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."  The Declaration of Independence entrenches the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens. And once slavery was abolished, the Fourteenth Amendment required that no state deny "equal protection of the laws" to "any person" -- including those with "swollen" fortunes.

Where does this emphasis on redistribution come from? Certainly not from the Founders.

In fact, the Founders, and the American leaders of the 1800s, disdained the income tax - flat or progressive. In 1872, President Grant rid the nation of the Civil War income tax.  Two decades later, the Supreme Court struck down another attempt at an income tax. If we must have taxes, the Founders urged, let them be consumption taxes--a luxury tax on imports, for example, or a vice tax on whiskey.

"The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources." He added, "If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product in the treasury is not so great.…This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them." 

- Alexander Hamilton (!!!), Federalist 21

If the government taxes whiskey, tobacco, or imported French wine at too high a rate, Hamilton essentially, argued, people will drink less and smoke less--and revenue will go down.  According to Hamilton, the greed of politicians was subject to this "natural limitation."  Thus, a system of tariffs and excise taxes formed the basis of United States' revenue collection from Presidents Washington to Teddy Roosevelt.  With the advent of the Progressives in power, however, the need for more money to "save the world" and create a "Homo Perfectus" propelled the push for the income tax.

"And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. 'Our country,' he said, '…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.'" 

- Barack Obama, Oswatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011

But, real democracy means one man, one vote.  Democracy means that the weight of a rich man's vote should not be greater or smaller than that of a poor man.  Real democracy means that citizens should have equal rights and equal protection under the law.  Under New Nationalism, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.  As long as a rich man is going to be treated unequally under the law vis-à-vis the tax code, why shouldn't he lobby the government for alleviation of his burden?  Wouldn't you?


Also, in a democracy or a Republic with a free market -- or even in social democracies -- there is no manner in which to guarantee the opportunity to "show the best that there is in him."  Equal opportunity under the law can be guaranteed, but equal opportunity in an economic system requires action on the part of each individual.  For Progressives, this is simply unacceptable.  The government must insulate millions of people from the vicissitudes of life and the consequences of their own choices and actions, it is argued.

"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules."

- Barack Obama, Oswatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011

Many of us remember Obama's impromptu exchange with "Joe the Plumber,"Joseph Wurzelbacher.   For me, it was the 2008 Presidential election's equivalent of "Where were you when JFK got shot?"  I do remember.  It was a Sunday afternoon and I had just returned from Le Goulue, a French cafe on Madison.  Before I returned to writing a brief, I recall that I turned on the television to see the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, say this to a Middle Class American in Flyover Country:

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too… I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

- Democratic Presidential nominee, Barack Obama, 12 October 2008

At first, I told myself that he couldn't have possibly said what I thought that he said.  Surely, he realised what he was saying and he couldn't be so stupid as to make such a statement less than a month before the election.  I looked for the clip online a few minutes later and played it again.  Sure enough, he did say it and, more importantly, he knew exactly what he was saying.   The MSM, Democrats, Progressives and Obama supporters, but I repeat myself, did everything that they could to control the damage, including making crack comments that the Founders were into redistribution and what Obama said in no way could be interpreted as Marxist thought.   But, of course, it was.

To understand what Obama said in Ohio on the day and what he said again in Osawatomie, you have to focus on one word:  Fair.  "Fair," "fairness," "fairly," etc., are all subjective terms, so when Obama says this:

"...everyone gets a fair shot..."

You might be forgiven if you believe he is espousing the traditional belief in this country that "All men are created equal under the law," but if we are to judge the equality of men through an arbitrary prism of fairness, then "What is a fair shot?" and "Are some shots fairer than others?" and "Should the government step into give one individual a "fairer" shot than another?" become something completely foreign to those that hold such traditional and, evidently antiquated, beliefs.  He is arguing that Lady Justice should not be blind.

Autistic children should win against mean-mean-meanie Big Pharma whether or not there is a connection between vaccines and autism.  Why?  Because one party is sympathetic and "oppressed" through a handicap and the other is a rich, evil corporation that "somehow, somewhere, if we look hard enough -- with one eye closed, the other squinted, and hanging upside down from a tree branch -- we might find some correlation between the drug and the condition even if none has nor will ever exist.   This sort of thought was an anathema to the Founding Fathers, who had seen men punished for the actions of another or their transient association with someone or something that has been condemned by the mob of a majority.  Such notion would be shocking to the men and women, who declared their independence from England.

The idea that reward should be given to the "right" people at the expense of the "bad" people, rather, was one that an individual would have expected to hear from Maximilian Robespierre, not George Washington.  During the French Revolution, the Committee on Public Safety issued its infamous “22 Prairial” decree, which dispensed with even the pretence of a trial before execution.  No longer would the accused be entitled to lawyers or be asked any questions—unless it was for the purpose of uncovering co-conspirators. Juries were instructed to decide cases on “moral proof,” not “positive proof.” Basically, an accusation and/or an association was proof of guilt.  In our example of the autistic child, the "moral proof" would deem him the victim of the pharmaceutical company regardless of whether the latter played any role whatsoever.

As a warning to Progressives or others that trade in the politics of envy and scapegoating, keep in mind that, within 48 days of the passage of the 22 Prairial, its author, Georges Auguste Couthon, and its sponsor before the Committee, Robespierre, would both lose their heads to "the National Razor."

"...when everyone does their fair share..."

Sounds good ... at first, but read it again.  Who is to decide what the fair share of the burden per individual is to be?  Since not everyone is Tiger Woods, should the government step in and give handicaps of 27 to them in order to "level the playing field"?  Yes, what you are thinking is exactly what he is saying.  Affirmative action throughout society, along with punitive burdens for some and no toil for others because "it just isn't fair.  Some people are more intelligent, more studious, more responsible, more privileged, etc., so they SHOULD bear more of the burden in society than the people, who choose not to better themselves, it is argued.


If the government decides what is a fair share of the work or burden, then what is fair for Individual A may or may not be fair for Individual B.  Nevertheless, under the law, both burdens would be considered "fair."  If the law were to say that the top 10% should be stripped of wealth in order for 90% of society not to pay anything, many would say that this is an equitable resolution since one group has so much more than the other.  You might agree, but you can't say that everyone is paying their fair share when the majority is paying nothing.

I think that this part of the sentence is Obama stepping periously close to “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."   What I do think distinguishes Obama from Marx here is that the former isn't really talking about "need."  He is talking about "want."

Envy and resentment are not rooted in "need."  They are rooted in "want." 

The poor in the US live unbelievably well (if you earn more than $34,000 in income, including government benefits, every year, then you ARE the 1% when compared to the rest of the world).  So, even though no one goes hungry, illiterate, and without access to medical care in this country, not everyone has cellular service and broadband; therefore, they want and Obama will give.  To them, it is irrelevant that neither is necessary to survive.  It only matters that they don't have and someone else does; thus, the rich must pay for the poor to have what they want.

"...when everyone plays by the same rules..."

This is the joke.  Can anyone honestly say that we play by the same rules in this country?  The white male, who graduates in the top 10% of his college class and aces his LSAT, may or may not get into the University of Michigan School of Law because of the school's diversity policy.   Has he a "fair shot"?  Has he done his "fair share" by studying hard or is his "fair share" to bear the burden of the prejudices of the long dead and not be allowed to attend law school because of "institutional racism"?   Has he "played by the same rules"?  Yes, but no one said that the rules have to treat everyone fairly or equally.

Is it "fair" to repeal the Bush tax cuts on the 2 top brackets while maintaining them for the remainder of taxpayers?   According to Obama, it is.  A dominant theme in most of Obama's speeches is the lie that our fiscal problems would vanish if only the wealthiest Americans were asked "to pay a little more" and, make no mistake, it is a prevarication of the first order.   The reason is simple:  There are not enough "evil rich" to pay for the poor, a safety net, and to "build a strong, middle class."

"Osawatomie" was the name chosen by the Weather Underground for its newsletter, which praised Communists like Mao and Ho Chi Minh.  So in keeping with the flotsam and jetsam spewed in Obama's buddy, William Ayers' publication, let's pretend that, instead of proposing to raise the top income tax rate well north of 40%, Obama decided to go all-out Communist and tax the wealthy at 100%.   Would this bring about the nirvana of which Obama brays continuously?  Hardly.

Consider the income tax statistics for the year 2008 as compiled by the Internal Revenue Service.  The top 1% of taxpayers -- those with salaries, dividends and capital gains roughly above about $380,000 -- paid 38% of taxes.  But, if the tax policy had been to confiscate ALL of the taxable income earned by the "millionaires and billionaires," whom Obama has chosen, frozen, and targeted for special Alinksy-type treatment, the yield from that total haul would be a mere $938 billion, which is not even a quarter of the money that the Obama administration spends annually (25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record) and much less than the amount it wants to spend in the next decade per the President's own budget.  Total confiscation would leave you still with $3.1 trillion deficit instead of a $1.5 trillion deficit.

Since the "millionaires and billionaires" aren't going to do it for Mr Obama, say we apply the 100% income tax rate to the top 10%, or everyone with income over $114,000, including joint filers. Yes, that's five times Mr Obama's 2% promise, but, hey, Promises!  Promises! The IRS data are broken down at $100,000, yet taxing all income above that level throws up only $3.4 trillion and remember, the top 10% already pay 69% of all total income taxes, while the top 5% pay more than all of the other 95%.  We would STILL have a deficit AND you can bank this:  Next year, you will not find many individuals earning more than $100,000.

I recognise that 2008 was a bad year for the economy and thus for tax receipts, as the income of the "evil rich" is always more volatile and susceptible to fluctuations in the economy.  So, let's do the same with 2005 income (Ahem, it was a banner year of amazing tax receipts due to the Bush tax cuts that Obama loathes and blames for every ill ever to plague mankind).  In 2005, the top 5% earned over $145,000.  If all the income of people earning over $200,000 was taxed at 100% a/k/a confiscation, it would yield about $1.89 trillion, enough revenue to cover the 2012 bill for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- but not the same bill in 2014 or 2020 since the costs of these entitlements alone are expected to grow exponentially and rapidly.  In short, the "evil rich" aren't nearly rich enough to finance the welfare state ambitions of Obama and that's before Obamacare even kicks into gear.

So who else is there to tax? Well, in 2008, there was about $5.65 trillion in total taxable income from all individual taxpayers, and most of that came from Middle Class income taxpayers.  The chart below shows the distribution, and the big hump in the center is where Democrats are inevitably headed for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks.

"Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent — 1 percent. That is the height of unfairness." 

- Barack Obama, Osawatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011

When asked for evidence supporting the claim that "some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%," the White House could offer nothing more than a clip of a conversation on Bloomberg TV, in which correspondent Gigi Stone made this assertion during a discussion about the tax strategies that the very wealthy use to avoid paying taxes.  The TV clip was promoted by the left-leaning Web site Think Progress, but Stone cited an article which made no such claim.  In fact, the evidence proves the opposite of Mr Obama's claim. 

In 2008, of the top 400 taxpayers, 30 paid an average tax rate of between zero and 10%, 59 paid an average tax rate of 30-35%, while 238 paid a marginal tax rate of 35% and above. Of the top 400 taxpayers, only 17 had a marginal rate of 0-26%.  The average tax paid by the individuals in this group was nearly $50 million.

There are roughly 1,210 billionaires in the world.  Their total net wealth is approximately $4.5 trillion.  If Obama took all their money - including that of the non-Americans, he could fund his government for approximately 1.3 years.

“I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory. Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts in history, and what did they get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class...."

- Barack Obama, Osawatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011 

As Peter Ferrara noted, here is what really happened:

"Those Bush tax cuts quickly ended the 2001 recession, despite the contractionary economic impacts of 9/11, and the economy continued to grow for another 73 months. After the rate cuts were all fully implemented in 2003, the economy created 7.8 million new jobs and the unemployment rate fell from over 6% to 4.4%. Real economic growth over the next 3 years doubled from the average for the prior 3 years, to 3.5%.

In response to the rate cuts, business investment spending, which had declined for 9 straight quarters, reversed and increased 6.7% per quarter. That is where the jobs came from. Manufacturing output soared to its highest level in 20 years. The stock market revived, creating almost $7 trillion in new shareholder wealth. From 2003 to 2007, the S&P 500 almost doubled. Capital gains tax revenues had doubled by 2005, despite Bush's 25% cut in the capital gains rate.

The deficit in the last budget adopted by Republican Congressional majorities was $161 billion for fiscal 2007. Today that deficit is nearly 10 times as much. Total federal revenues under Bush soared by nearly 30%, from $1.991 trillion in 2001 to $2.568 trillion in 2007. The day the Democrat Congressional majorities took office, January 3, 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.6%. George Bush's economic policies, "the failed policies of the past" in Obama's rhetoric, had set a record of 52 straight months of job creation."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth has been slower under Obama than under Bush: 40,500 jobs a month versus 68,000 jobs per month.

Mr Obama likes to argue that the "massive deficits" are the result of the Bush tax cuts and that returning to the Clinton tax rates, at least, for the wealthy would solve the fiscal problems.  As we have seen, the "evil rich" aren't rich enough to fund his grandiose government, but his claims about the cause of the deficits is equally ridiculous.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Bush and Obama tax cuts are responsible for less than 24% of the deficits accumulated in the last decade.  Data provided by the CBO shows that  the largest cause of deficits was increased spending, which accounted for 36.5% of the decline in the fiscal position of the United States over the last decade and entitlements are responsible for the rest.

More importantly, President Obama seeks to retain 70% of the Bush tax cuts, along with his payroll tax cut.   When will he start taking responsibility for the deficits that he not only has generated, but will create?  If the Bush tax cuts caused the deficits, then isn't Obama responsible for 70% of future deficits, at minimum, should he retain most of them?

Further, according to the Washington Post, "it is best to ignore raw numbers but instead focus on the size of the tax cut as a percentage of national income. Under that measure, the John F Kennedy tax cut of 1964 (-1.90%) and the Ronald Reagan tax cut of 1981 (-1.40%) were larger than Bush’s 2001 tax cut (-0.80%)."

Another idiosyncrasy that Obama has is to impute illegality to lawful behaviour.  He will rail against the use, by corporations and "rich people," of loopholes and deductions, as though such is a crime.  Let us be reminded of the famous axiom of Judge Learned Hand:

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury.  There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.  Over and over again, the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.  Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands." 

- Judge Learned Hand, Gregory v. Helvering, 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff'd, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935)

According to Obama, it is also fair to raises taxes on the top 2 brackets while further lowering payroll taxes, which pay current Social Security benefits and are the consideration that this generation of workers makes in order to receive such benefits when they retire.

Do Obama and Democrats even realise the consequences of their position?  They are turning Social Security, etc., into welfare programmes, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Progressives that created Social Security were vehemently against, and is undermining the precarious financial condition of them.

What is going to happen when politicians want to allow the payroll tax cut to expire?  Will they be allowed to do so by a public that likes claiming that it is paying now for their retirement later, but, in reality, aren't paying at all or doing so in a de minimis fashion?

The "evil rich" do not have the money to fund Social Security and Medicare even if they are taxed at 100% much less just removing the cap on $106,800.  Without the payroll taxes collected from all workers, Social Security and Medicare will generate even greater deficits than now and there will be reluctance by politicians to end the tax cut because, as Democrats have argued, it would raise taxes on the marginalised Middle Class.  Thus, Democrats will continue to choose to undermine the very social safety net that they profess to champion.  When will they be forced (by the bond market and demographics) to tell Americans that they will have no Social Security and Medicare in the future?

"Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules ..." 

- Barack Obama, Oswatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011

This statement is quite possibly the biggest lie that Obama has ever uttered. "Even before Obama was elected, under those "failed policies of the past," the top 1% of income earners in 2007 paid 40% of federal income taxes (up from 17.6% when Reagan entered office), while the CBO just reported that they earned 17% of the income in 2007. Moreover, that 40% of federal income taxes paid by the top 1% was more than paid by the bottom 95% combined, according to official IRS data. While the top 1% paid 40% of federal income taxes, the bottom 40% paid no federal income taxes as a group on net. Today, 47% pay no federal income taxes."

Far from letting the "evil rich" off the hook, Obama has seen to it that the nation's job creators, investors and small businesses will face massive tax increases in 2013 when the Bush tax cuts expire and the Obamacare tax rises go into effect.  In that year, the top marginal rate will rise to 43.4% and the 2 rates will rise to by nearly 20%, the capital gains rate will skyrocket by 60%, the tax on dividends will triple, and the Medicare payroll tax on disfavoured taxpayers will increase by 62%.  While Mr Obama and Democrats continue to repeat the 2008 mantra about returning to the Clinton tax rates, the tax rates on the top two brackets will far exceed those rates in 2013.

As I have previously written, the United States has, according to the OECD, the most progressive individual income tax system in the world and the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialised world at close to 40% on average, including state corporate rates.  Further, as I have noted, the corporate tax rate in Communist China is only 25%.  The average corporate tax rate in Socialist EU is even less on average and the rate in Progressive Canada is 16.5% and will be 15% next year.

"Now, it's a simple theory. And we have to admit, it's one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That's in America's DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It's not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the 50s and 60s. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory."

- Barack Obama, Oswatomie, Kansas, 6 December 2011

One would be tempted to call Mr Obama a liar here, but it is much more likely the case that this statement is just another example of his complete ignorance and idiocy when it comes to economics and economic history.  Previously, I have explained the economics of the Roaring 20s, which were called that for a reason.  These would be the years 1921-1929, when on account of a tax cut put together in 1921, the economy boomed at 4.8% per year as unemployment and inflation (the latter recently on a 100% run) both collapsed.  You can read more about it here.  I have also explained how, "If You Want Obamavilles, Repeat What Hoover Did" and you can read that piece here.  I will say this:

Between 1945 and 1960, there were 5 recessions - many more than occur in a normal cycle. February through October 1945, November 1948 through October 1949, July 1953 through May 1954, August 1957 through April 1958, and April 1960 through February 1961.  The trough of the recession at the end of World War II was 1947, when the Republican majority in Congress conspired to win a tax cut over President Truman’s veto. Result: a 6-year run of 4.8% growth.

When the recession came in 1953, Eisenhower refused calls for another tax cut and, as a result, there were 3 recessions during his administration and, when Eisenhower left office in January of 1961, he had presided over 8 years of an anemic 2.4% annual, average growth rate.   In large part, that sluggish growth was due to high tax rates, not just on the wealthy, but on the middle class as well.  In fact, increasing tax rates on the wealthy led to increases in tax rates on middle-class incomes.

Vice-President Richard Nixon paid a price for what Obama called this "incredible postwar boom."  He lost to John F Kennedy, who -- all together now -- CUT TAXES.

After Kennedy's tax cut, which according to the Washington Post was the largest in history, the great 1960s boom ensued, with an average growth GDP growth rate of 4.9% between 1961 to 1969.  Furthermore, between 1962 and 1969, investment grew at an annual rate of 6.1% far higher than the 3% annual rate for 1959-1962 and the 2.3% rate for 1969-1972, after the JFK tax reforms had been repealed.  Real GNP grew 4.5% during the 1960s, higher than the 2.4% growth rate seen from 1952-1960.
 
So, what has NEVER worked is Keynesian economics.  What is not working now is Obamanomics.   What has continued to fail us now is that Obama's own policies, the exact opposite of what has worked in the past in every detail, have failed to produce any timely real recovery from the last recession. Prior to this last recession and since the Great Depression, recessions in the United States have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest being only 16 months.  Further, all data proves that the deeper the recession in the United States, the more robust the recovery ... that is, until now.  Here we are, 48 months after the commencement of the most recent recession and there is no sign of any real recovery.  Rather than a record recovery, we have record poverty, record food stamp usage, record child homelessness, record depressed prices in the housing market, record extended unemployment, and near records in fear of big government, distrust of our leaders and political system, and disapproval in the direction in which the country is heading.

Instead of changing course and adopting pro-growth and economic freedom policies, Obama pledges to give us more of what we do not want:  A New Nationalism.   For what it is worth, Theodore Roosevelt can be forgiven to a degree for falling for National Socialism / Socialism /Progressivism.  After all, collectivism hadn't killed nearly 200 million people yet.  Obama should know better, but classic narcissists believe that they can succeed where all others have failed.




To be continued shortly....



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