No Time to Give Up in the Fiscal Fight
Nov 30, 2012
If I keep reading the advice of those who are saying we should give Barack Obama what he wants, let him take the American economy into the quicksand and make him own it, I am going to be tempted to agree.
So I’m going to stop reading such things.
With respect to those who offer that strategy, it is flawed on multiple levels. It may not work, it would confuse people about what conservatism is and what it does, and it would slam the brakes on our most valuable passion right now-- the desire to save what we can of America during this perilous second Obama term.
So, if you are in the mood, this is a call to battle.
The Obama win and the GOP Senate failures were like a tranquilizer dart to the neck, draining the will of millions of conservatives, and plenty of Republicans in Congress.
But we are starting to slowly awaken, and if we play our cards right, we can stand on core values and still look at ourselves in the mirror, win or lose.
I understand the appeal of an argument that says, “Okay, Mr. President. You won. You want this ship? Steer it into the rocks and we’ll be there to fix it afterward. Maybe then people will hear what we have to say.”
Except maybe they will, maybe they won’t. The notion of the public flocking to Republicans for rescue is a hard sell. Didn’t we kind of think they would do it this year?
Americans generally believe spending is out of control. We did not like the stimulus. We still don’t like Obamacare. November 6 was the perfect opportunity to turn to Republicans for relief from all three headaches.
It didn’t happen.
So now we think we’ll enjoy a popularity burst for throwing up our hands when the going gets tough?
And here’s the tricky thing: what if we let the Obama agenda roll and the expected disasters do not exactly happen?
Make no mistake, I know this second term is the worst news our economy could get. We should not be surprised to see America swirl even more deeply into the fiscal toilet.
But what if our system displays its occasional pesky resilience, and unemployment stays right where it is, or maybe only a tick or two worse? What if the stock market goes up another 3000 points by the 2014 elections? Markets rebounded strongly in 2009 and 2010 even as the fangs of Obama’s policies sank in.
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