May 08 2009
The Imperial Obama
It is common for newbie administrations to come into town with grand ideas of how they can control and change America. It usually only takes a few bruising encounters with reality to adjust their thinking.
But Imperial Obama administration has no credible opposition and fawning and compliant news media (what is left of it). So this group is not getting their necessary dose of humility. Without that attitude adjustment, the Emperor and his team are actually blackmailing state lawmakers into compliance to their wishes:
The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.
Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.Â
The federal government has no legal right to dictate to the states how to run their states. I seriously doubt the provisions in the so called stimulus bill allow the Feds to pull money back like this. Sounds to be a stretch constitutionally.Â
With that said, if I was a CA lawmaker I would go ‘all in’ and dare Emperor Obama to pull the money from a key electoral state like CA. The political fallout would be swift and enormous. Stand pat CA, the Emperor will fail if he tries to make good on his threat. Time to reign in the newbies in DC.
I thought Montana had enacted a law that all guns made and ammo made in the state was NOT subject to fed regulation. I understood that this could be the beginning of overturning all the gov’t intrusion since Wilson…per Judge Napolitano, if I understood correctly. And Texas is preparing STRONG states rights legislation…and OK did today, no?
BAM!!
Arnold will cave to the pressure and there will be more. I know “the christine” is in bed with him in the state of Washington. I’ve never seen anthing like this and people are oblivious, don’t care or don’t have a clue.
AJ, no, I wouldn’t remember the Carter years. I’m 26, so I never lived through them (fortunately).
marksbbr,
Well, sadly you’re going to get a taste of them.
I was a teen when Carter was in the office but I still remember high interest rates, high taxes, oil embargo, oil industry in the dumps, etc.
It was a really bad time.
Good thing Reagan and Jack Kemp came after Carter and turned the economy around.
This time, I am not that sure that there would be another Reagan and Jack Kemp to turn this economy around. Obama’s running up the deficit faster than any US President and will run it up even more next year, and so on.
Sometimes we need a president with this kind of a majority to jolt the young into the realities so that they will learn this the hard way and consider their future votes. It’ll make them fiscally conservative faster than their entire lives.
I remember President Carter very well. When running for office, he wanted to ‘stimulate the economy’ because unemployment was so high. (Around 8% I think)
He would remind us constantly about how Democrats like ‘change’.
Well, we did get change. The inflation was as bad as it has ever been in this country.
I suspect that the ‘change’ we will be seeing in the next few years will be somewhat like we saw 1977-1980. President Obama has one major economic advantage over President Carter. When President Carter took office, interest rates were already around 7% or 8%. Today, they are much lower.
I am not much of an economist, but I expect that the economy will rebound like it did in 1977 and 1978 when the government increased spending. I also expect the inflation and interest rates to shoot up not long after that. It may take any extra year or two because the rates are so much lower today.
It’s important to keep in mind, also, that during the later Carter years, we were not even technically in a recession. That’s how bad things got. And, if Carter was good for one thing, it was low debt. We were relatively debt free.
Oh no, the course we’re on doesn’t go to a good place. But, hey, everybody will be more “equal”.
Unfortunately, the threat is far, far higher this time. It won’t an Iranian Hostage Crisis, it’ll be an Iranian Terrorist Nuke. And the butcher’s bill will run in the hundreds of thousands.
cochino, I hope you are being sarcastic. National debt as a function of GDP was abut 30% during Carter’s administration. Reagan ran it up to about 65%. It is currently about 80% and climbing.
crosspatch,
I wasn’t being sarcastic in my post. The national debt as a percentage of GDP during the Carter years had to be the lowest the country had seen post-1920s (although someone would have to check that- I’m not). I think being the lowest in a 90-year period qualifies as “relatively” debt free. That’s really all I want to say about Carter, as I regard him almost entirely a disaster as a President and it pains me to defend him (even in the form of a left-handed compliment).