Rush is Right, Obama Wrong

Tomorrow (Thursday), I'll discuss Obama's disastrous plunge into class warfare. Yes, many people love to hate "the rich" (whether they're really rich or not). But consider this: Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently spoke out against soaking the rich. He explained that high-tax, high-cost New York has eight million resident. But a mere 40,000 of the eight million provide 63% of the city's revenue. What if one-eighth of those people -- 5,000 -- moved out of the city? It would do real harm to city services. What if one-fourth of them -- 10,000 -- moved out, which they certainly have the resources to do? It would cripple the city's ability to meet the needs of its people. Is Obama aware of such situations? He hasn't shown any sign yet that he is. Sarah Palin does understand such realities, and that's one reason she'd be a much better President than Obama.

Below: "Obama's success would be America's failure." That's why we don't want him to succeed.

Barack Obama has no understanding of how the American economy works. How could he? The man has spent his entire life going to left-wing academic institutions, "organizing" communities, and running for ever-higher offices. If you want to know what's wrong with the economy and what must be done to fix it, don't go to Obama's web site. Instead, come here, where I'll offer simple explanations of what is going on and how we can help improve the situation.

A last word (for now) on Rush Limbaugh's amazing speech to CPAC: What Rush reminds us is that we don't have to "make nice" with people who try to smear Sarah Palin -- or who sling mud at Limbaugh. Being nice to deceitful, dishonest people ensures they will never get any better. We may not change their minds, but we can at least make them uncomfortable.

Frankly, in his LONG address Rush did not say offensive things. His goal was to defend responsible democracy and the American way of life. The accusations he made about Obama's socialist -- or vote-buying -- agenda happen to be true.

Some of our Republican leaders are good people -- John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, even Michael Steele -- but they aren't forceful enough. As Limbaugh indicated, when it comes to simple matters of right-and-wrong, "bipartisanship" is not the answer.

When a public policy is bad, compromising on it doesn't make it "half-bad." When Obama is taking steps that harm charities and the housing market, we don't need a bipartisan compromise. When people tell us comforting lies, we need to tell the truth to the best of our ability.

Also, when investors feel gloomy about the stock market's prospects, we need to reveal the negative effects of Obama's efforts to increase the tax rate on capital gains and reduce people's capacity to invest. Finally, when Rush says that's what Obama's doing, is he being "mean" -- or is he just reciting some obvious truths?

We don't want to punish the most productive people in the economy and reward the least productive. Doing so harms the country. That's why many of us, including Rush, don't want Obama to succeed.

In fact, Obama's success would be America's failure. We don't want to become like Britain and France, with slow growth, high unemployment, and a social welfare scheme that reduces opportunity.

Barack Obama likes to talk a lot about Abraham Lincoln and, lately, Franklin D. Roosevelt. One historical individual Obama has never mentioned -- but should -- is Benjamin Franklin.

What's the best way to gain great wealth? Is it to speculate wildly on Wall Street, assuming that the market will always go up -- as you've noticed, it doesn't? Or is it to buy more house than you can afford, believing that the market will always trend upward and you can sell it at a handsome profit. Not anymore.

Benjamin Franklin took a more modest approach, one we might describe not as "get rich quick," but rather as "Get rich . . . slowly."

He said, "The road to wealth, if you desire it [who doesn't?], is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality. That is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both."

In the U.S., tens of millions of people have gotten wealthy by doing exactly what Franklin advised. (In contrast, Obama got rich through two massive book deals for autobiographical volumes that were strong on hope and short on real accomplishments.) His wife got a rich person's salary primarily because she was married to an influential legislator.

Currently, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to get rich with a book deal of his own. If all else fails, as it did for Blagojevich if not for Obama, then write a book.

For normal people, it pays to follow Ben Franklin's advice, sagacious as he always was.

[Tomorrow: What Obama doesn't know about the economy could fill a book -- one he presumably won't ever write.]

Obama's Economics: An American Disaster

Below, one of the growing number of protestors greeting Obama as he flies around the country on Air Force One . . . preaching the gospel of energy conservation.

As the signs in the columns below show, Americans are rising up en masse to tell Obama, "Yes, we're mad at h-ll, and we're not going to take it any more." Put a sign in your front yard, and bring it to protest Obama whenever he's in your neck of the woods. Let him know he can't destroy the American Way of Life.

On Monday a.m., I'll be writing more about why Obama, as President, is an idiot.

In his speech on the housing "crisis" (yes, Barack, we know it's bad), a frightened and flustered Obama used one word 26 times. That word was "crisis." After the first and second use of word, every time someone repeats it in a presentation, it loses its capacity to register in a listener's mind. By the 20th or so usage, a "crisis" had become nothing special. It's the equivalent of the little boy crying "wolf" 20 times. (His speecwriter gets this advice free-of-charge.)

Known (wrongly) as a great speaker, Obama is in fact a terrible one. When he doesn't have a TelePrompter, he's as articulate as a drunk at closing time. Now that he can't sell "hope" and "change" anymore -- and no longer has George Bush to kick around -- he has almost nothing to say.

If the man has ever uttered one memorable line, we must have missed it.

Beyond that, although he's very bad at defining problems, he's even worse at presenting solutions. A hint for Barack: The solution to a problem where the federal government, the states, companies, and individuals have been wildly over-borrowing is not to intensify the borrowing. When the nation and its people are over-spending, the last thing we need is a stimulus (spending) bill.

Here are suggested lines for Obama's future speeches: "Spend your money wisely. Don't borrow money you can't pay back. And don't ever try to borrow and spend your way to prosperity."



Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said the Stimulus Bill means "America's best days are behind it."

Last night (Friday) on "The Lou Dobbs Show" Kitty Pilgrim interviewed a remarkable young woman, Amity Shlaes, who writes for the Wall Street Journal and is the author of a great book (critical of FDR) called "The Forgotten Man." I'm hoping somebody can find the link, because Amity was praising Rick Santelli and calling him (hopefully and prospectively) "(U.S.) Senator Santelli."

Today on FOX, Ben Stein talked about the Stimulus Bill as little more than an effort to pay off Democratic voters -- and to buy the votes of new ones. Failed institutions, like GM and Chrysler, get paid off endlessly because the unions supported Obama. However, the bailouts do great damage to the productive members of society, essentially punishing them for BEING productive. They -- we -- don't get "bailed out."

To our credit, we don't want to be bailed out. We don't want to engage in what McCain called "generational warfare," where our children and grandchildren pay the bill so that we can pretend we're better off than in fact we are.

By all means, let's help people who -- through no fault of their own -- are in trouble. But let's not help those who have no intention of helping themselves. Remember, our country's motto is "In God we trust" -- and not "gimme, gimme, gimme." A society where no one is allowed to fail eventually becomes one where no one is able to succeed.

We sometimes hear how "complicated" the economic situation is, but that is just plain false. As people like Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin know, life and economics are fairly simple.
For example, you don't buy a house -- or have a lifestyle -- that you can't afford. You make sacrifices. You don't assume that the economy will never take a nosedive. You don't expect that someone else is going to pay your bills. You don't spend every last cent you have coming in. You don't have children and then assume that "society" (i.e., the taxpayers) is going to pay for their upbringing.

Does Obama understand such basic facts of life? Why should he? He's "The Affirmative Action Kid." Yes, he talks about his "student loans," but he went to an expensive prep school in Hawaii and then to three of the costliest schools in America -- Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard.

What percentage of his educational costs did Barack Obama pay? Of course, he hasn't released such facts -- nor will he ever. A good assumption is that he paid a relatively small amount.
From all the evidence, other people financed Barack Obama's education. He got mostly a free ride. It was an early version of his economic policy, where Other People's Money is made available to help out Obama and his chosen few.

It all fits the definition of socialism, which is not so much an economic policy as a vote-buying scheme. What happens when the productive members of society get tired of financing the unproductive? Unfortunately, it looks as if we're all going to find out the answer to that question . . . in the form of diminished economic growth, reduced opportunities, and skyrocketing inflation.