Texas Insider

2:29 pm CST - July 19, 2010

Posted under Opinion

18 Months of Obamaism Will Undo Much of Reaganism

The real prize is 2012.

In the political marketplace, there’s now a run on Obama shares. The left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House.

I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama. Consider what he has already achieved.

Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do he knows must await his next 500 days — those that come after reelection.

Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.

Second, there is major financial reform, which passed Congress on Thursday. Economists argue whether it will prevent meltdowns and bailouts as promised. But there is no argument that it will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace. Its 2,300 pages will create at least 243 new regulations that will affect not only, as many assume, the big banks but just about everyone, including, as noted in one summary (the Wall Street Journal), “storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus.”

Third is the near $1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending bill in U.S. history. And that’s not even counting nationalizing the student loan program, regulating carbon emissions by Environmental Protection Agency fiat, and still-fitful attempts to pass cap-and-trade through Congress.

But Obama’s most far-reaching accomplishment is his structural alteration of the U.S. budget. The stimulus, the vast expansion of domestic spending, the creation of ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see are not easily reversed.

These are not mere temporary countercyclical measures. They are structural deficits because, as everyone from Obama on down admits, the real money is in entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid.

But Obamacare freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement — and no longer available for deficit reduction.

The result? There just isn’t enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases — most likely a European-style value-added tax. Just as President Ronald Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama’s wild spending — and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief — will necessitate huge tax increases.

The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were highly ideological, grandly ambitious and often underappreciated by their own side.

In his early years, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: “For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over” — and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo — the list is long.

The critics don’t understand the big picture. Obama’s transformational agenda is a play in two acts.Act One is over. The stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform have exhausted his first-term mandate. It will bear no more heavy lifting. And the Democrats will pay the price for ideological overreaching by losing one or both houses, whether de facto or de jure.

The rest of the first term will be spent consolidating these gains (writing the regulations, for example) and preparing for Act Two.

The next burst of ideological energy — massive regulation of the energy economy, federalizing higher education and “comprehensive” immigration reform (i.e., amnesty) — will require a second mandate, meaning reelection in 2012.

That’s why there’s so much tension between Obama and congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters little. If Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will probably have an easier time in 2012, just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as the foil for his 1996 reelection campaign.

The real prize is 2012. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.

8 Comments

CWJensen
2:52 pm CST
July 19, 2010

WEAK response from the present group of REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS has allowed much of this CRAP so far.
We need to put as many new faces without the DC virus in congress in 2010 watch everyone very closely and replace anyone that still has the ELITIST disease in 2012.
We are in this for the LONG HAUL.
George W Bush was a eunuch in his second term because he lost the support of the conservatives in the party and though he could appeal to Demon Rats that just played him.
Obama CANNOT use Conservatives that remember they were elected to roll back Obama’s Socialist agenda.
First we clean their house and part of ours and in 2012 we clean what wasn’t cleaned in 2010.
The day after the election we start painting targets on the RHINO’S who are no better than the Vichy French in WWII.
We are in a war for the existence of American freedom against an entrenched enemy that has infiltrated our government.

SJK
5:53 pm CST
July 19, 2010

Mr Krauthammer says that if the Republicans take the House in 2010, Obama willl have an easier time in 2012! We the people must make sure that “easier time” doesn’t happen! All these fools (RHINOS included) MUST be held accountable for the tryanny they committed and destruction they have done to theis country and the American people! NEVER FORGET what these scoudrels have done and are stilll doing. Hopefully, God willing, in NOVEMBER 2010 when we take the HOUSE and hopefully the SENATE we can defund, derail, repeal and neutralize Obama’s fundamental transformation of this country! If we have majoeities in the House of the Senate……..are you thinking what I’m thinking? IMPEACHMENT of him and ALL the others that aided and abetted him in his dirty “unconstituional” deeds!

alicia
9:29 pm CST
July 19, 2010

Upon reading Mr. Krauthammer’s article, I was initially disconsolate, but NO! I do not accept the gloomy forecast! He said nothing of defunding, repealing, and eliminating the regulations imposed on us. Those are key to our survival.

2008 was our political Pearl Harbor. The American people are enraged, and involved as never before, from school districts on up.

In November, we will elect conservative servants of the people. We will hold their feet to the fire. We will remain vigilant. Yes, that wicked man is a very good campaigner; but, as the economy begins to recover (probably just in time for 2012,) by virtue of conservatives saving the day, the Republican Party had better, then, pound home the message that it was our conservatives who did the good deed, NOT the predator.

I’d love to see the man impeached, but eliminating the ghastly mountain of legislation comes first. Focus must be maintained. Else, we could find ourselves in a protracted fight over impeachment, with the clock ticking, and nothing done to relieve us of the ruinous laws and regulations.

CWJensen
11:46 am CST
July 19, 2010

MR KRAUTHAMMER is a realist. Anyone who knows him realizes why.
He is NOT accustomed blowing sunshine where it does NOT shine.
I also am a Realist and Y’all better LISTEN carefully to What he says.
Electing a majority in the Congress will DO NOT GOOD unless the RHINO’S become real Conservatives.
The day after the ELECTION we need to TREAT it as a DEFEAT and start campaigning for REAL HONEST to GOD Conservative candidates to replace every RHINO and LIBERAL left in CONGRESS.
A victory in name only is like calling the two liberal witches from Maine and Scott Brown Conservatives.

CWJensen
11:51 am CST
July 19, 2010

Just in Case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Krauthammer

Christian Archer
2:26 pm CST
July 19, 2010

CW, thanks for the link about Charles Krauthammer. The following is a cut and paste under the Ideology section of his biography.
“Krauthammer is generally considered a conservative; he has also been called a neoconservative.However, on domestic issues, Krauthammer is a supporter of legalized abortion;[28][29][30] an opponent of the death penalty; an intelligent design critic and an advocate for the scientific consensus on evolution, calling the religion-science controversy a “false conflict;” a supporter of embryonic stem cell research using embryos discarded by fertility clinics with restrictions in its applications; and a longtime advocate of radically higher energy taxes to induce conservation.” There are several things about him I don’t like. Now I know I have to be careful when I read him. I don’t care how many accolades he has acquired through the years, he has many issues on which Christians and conservatives will not agree.

CWJensen
9:05 pm CST
July 19, 2010

Mr Krauthhammer was paralyzed as a first year med student. That’s Reality.
The statements he makes in this article are realistic.
I did NOT ask anyone to VOTE for the man to represent them.
I DO NOT have to like someone in order to learn from them.
Everyone you meet you learn from or are a fool for not.

Maggie
10:33 pm CST
July 19, 2010

Wikipedia can’t even get Hannity’s middle name right – everything with a grain of salt