When Obama promised “hope and change” as a candidate, I think he had in mind a new paradigm, one of restructuring America’s economic system in his image rather than triggering economic growth, though he wanted the electorate to believe that growth was his focus. The economy had turned south by the time Obama was trumpeting that platitude, largely caused by liberal affordable-housing policies — the very type of program Obama would promote in office.
The dismal state of the economy played into Obama’s hands, but I dare say he would have pushed for “hope and change” regardless of economic conditions. He presented himself as the whole package — a quasi-deity who would transform the entire country, slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.
But how has Obama done if we measure his promise of hope and change in purely economic terms? Despite his tired efforts to scapegoat former President George W. Bush and the global markets, this is his economy. It is demonstrably worse in every imaginable category. He has given us change — destructive change. He has given us hope, but only that the nightmare he has engineered will soon be over.
It’s more apparent every day that he was not talking about improving the economic misery index when he promised hope and change. To be properly interpreted, “hope and change” must be considered along with Obama’s pledge to fundamentally change America, and his allusions to “spreading the wealth around.” He had in mind changing the “social contract” between America and its people.
Just look at the recent viral video of Elizabeth Warren, his former financial reform adviser, who essentially tells us that America’s economic winners have been successful on the backs of the poor. Part of the “social contract,” says Warren, is to “take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” Can you hear echoes of Obama’s “spread the wealth around” here?
Like Obama, Warren doesn’t believe capitalism is a fair or moral system.
Before he commandeered $820 billion for his stimulus package, Obama assured us it would go to shovel-ready jobs and get people back to work again. It was only after the fact that he cynically laughed in our faces about the unavailability of such jobs. He’s doing the same thing all over again with his new jobs bill.
Despite his promise that he would strictly account for all stimulus money, Obama threw gobs of it away to ACORN-like political allies, to unions and to corrupt environmental money pits like Solyndra.
There was no private-sector economic multiplier effect for any of Obama’s stimulus expenditures. The only multiplier effect in this and his other spending bills was in the public sector. Obama furtively tucked into these bills many perpetually sustaining federal programs that will remain with us, continue to grow and further choke the private sector.
Thus, if you measure Obama’s promise of hope and change against his true intention, he might well be succeeding. As one who believes that America’s free market is unfair, he has gone a long way toward undermining that structure — and he’s not even close to being finished. He has taken from the producers and redistributed to those his administration deems worthy of the transfer payments.
Obama may not be deliberately destroying the U.S. economy, but he is implementing policies that are allowing the central planners to pick the winners and losers and, in the process, smothering the private sector and wrecking our fiscal future.
Examiner Columnist David Limbaugh is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate (www.creatorsyndicate.com).
