Don't give Obama so much credit

I read with interest David Adler's well written "My Turn" and felt compelled to address the subject, because many Americans will read something like this and get the impression that it is something President Obama would actually do - work toward avoiding the fiscal cliff. But it's not going to happen, and to suggest so continues to misjudge a man most Americans have misjudged from the very beginning of his arrival on the national stage. I predict he will not lift a finger to prevent the U.S. economy from further financial stress, and that David's excellent solution is not even a bullet point in any White House memo. If I am wrong, I will come clean snow out of David's driveway.

Reading David's article for me is like reading about a parallel universe in which the United States is being led by a man who has our interests in mind, who works to protect the financial system, and who wants to preserve American leadership. In that universe, the article makes perfect sense and you might nod your head and think "Yeah, that is what the President should do." After all, as David points out, it is exactly what great American Presidents have done many times.

However, that position completely misunderstands Barack Obama. He is not in office to strengthen America in ways that preserve the amazing country that 43 Presidents before him led. He is in office to do whatever it takes to shift America as far from our successful capitalism-driven unprecedented rise to global dominance as he can toward a government-driven descent into Socialism. Driven by a strong belief that the folks at the bottom of the economic ladder are there due to an unfair process that keeps them down and does not provide them opportunity, President Obama wants to give them the reins of power in this country. I honestly don't know what he thinks will power the U.S. economy in a new system where the wealthy job creators of our country are punished while the average citizen becomes a nation-shaper through organized shakedowns, but that is a debate for another time and place. Perhaps when the increasing sense of entitlement for these things being actively taught to the public collides with a sudden lack of them, the resulting massive labor strikes and public demonstrations (cough - Greece) will prompt that debate. But I get ahead of myself here and accidentally showed you President Obama's dream.

President Obama knows full well that the best thing for his agenda is for the country to drive full speed over the fiscal cliff as quickly as possible. First, it creates an immediate and clear climate of chaos which makes the public turn to its current leadership and support them in ANY effort to help them out. In that chaos, a guy like President Obama will be fairly begged by the public to act and the public will essentially give him a mandate to do whatever he wants. And boy does he want. But why quickly, you ask? Why does this need to happen fast?

Well, every single day the coffers of this great country are draining. They are draining the hundreds of years of built up resources we possess that should be financing a coordinated recovery, to maintain our global leadership, and to help our country recover from tragic events like Hurricane Sandy. But if instead, you want to massively restructure the economy of the U.S., you are far better off doing it now while the coffers are merely bleeding red, rather than when they are empty. Whatever nuances of running a successful economy are lost on President Obama (plenty, by the way), even he grasps that his revolution would be better off happening as quickly as possible. It will take money to set up a massive food distribution network, to build huge European-esque high rises for public housing, and to hire large numbers of Government employees to begin dictating every little aspect of our daily lives and he needs that money. Now. So slowing our approach to the cliff makes no sense in his world.

I predict President Obama will head to Hawaii for the Holidays. He will chuckle to himself how well things are coming along and marvel at his fortune that someone coined the phrase "fiscal cliff" because it gives the perfect punctuation mark for him to declare the situation out of control and step into the vacuum. Were it not for this turn of phrase dominating the media, he would have to carefully choose when it is time to make that key first move as the economy continued to slide lower without any particular guideposts for the American people to see arriving and panic over. In that situation, President Obama could have chosen poorly and mistimed his move. But the "cliff" metaphor is exactly what he needs - a perfect storm is in motion that favors his plan. A gift. This metaphorical place is something Americans of all types and kinds can clearly understand. And the sooner the headlines begin reading "WE'RE AT THE CLIFF!" the sooner massive change will begin.

And yes, I have wondered exactly who coined that phrase and whose side they are on. The perfect storm continues as the Republicans keep standing in front of the cannon to be blamed, and they appear oblivious. By resisting tax increases, they make themselves vulnerable to Democrats in front of cameras pointing at them and claiming they are obstructing attempts to avoid the cliff and the general public will buy it hook, line, and sinker because they cannot make the distinction. They need to let President Obama own this massive fiscal problem he created but I predict they will only realize it in the aftermath that will decimate the party. Check mate for President Obama.

The tragicomic aspect of this is that we are not actually at a cliff. The United States is still the most powerful economic entity on the planet and we have plenty of cash reserves. A proper plan by the White House to unfetter the country's powerful economic engines at this juncture would astonish even the most pessimistic among us at how quickly we would return to prosperity. Not only would that generate focused energy here at home, but at the first sparks of activity in the U..S economy the entire world would be falling all over themselves to throw money into our economy because that's how global capital flows work. Right now, all the world's economies are languishing. So a glimmer of hope in the US economy which has a history of being a safe haven for investing and has a track record of initiating global recoveries would unleash buckets of investment.

But again I digress. David, I fervently hope that you are right and that I am wrong. I know for sure that you are right in one way - your position that strong American Presidents with our interests in mind have indeed insisted that aimless and ineffective Congressional and Senate bodies remain at their posts through the Holidays to find solutions. That is not what we have here. I believe we have a President who would like to tell these two bodies of government to leave early for Christmas so that nothing will stand in his way. But because I am an optimistic American, I will carefully clean my shovel and tune up my snowblower. Because I would like nothing for Christmas so much as a date to come clean your driveway.

Doug Miller is a resident of Hayden.