The President’s Last Stand: Using Scare Tactics to Fight Scare Tactics

President Obama has taken to some familiar territory in order to push his suffering health care agenda.  The president has returned to the campaign trail. 

It’s no wonder why he has chosen this venue.  This is where the President is most successful, and it is the last place where he had true success.  The campaign trail is a stage, and the stage is dressed by his people.  The audience is filled with his fans.

They clap and cheer.  It’s all very inspiring.  It resembles nothing to the likes of which is Capital Hill.  Nothing is what it seems there.  All of the pats on the back, and the “atta boys” Mr. Obama received while campaigning have turned to knives. 

The professionals on Capital Hill are calculating in their hunt.  They slip the knife in slowly.  You can’t even feel it.  The president is quickly figuring out that every deal requires another deal.  And that deal has to clear someone else who is looking for, yes, another deal.

The question remains though, why is the President fighting so vehemently for this health care reform?  The plan, by all accounts, is not great.  In fact it’s quite poor.  There are too many questions left unanswered in the 1500 page bill.  But the pink elephant in the room is the cost.

The President promises the populous that the 900 billion dollar bill will not raise taxes.  Opposing economist counter by saying that the plan will cost 2.5 trillion dollars and will indeed raise taxes.

Who to believe? Who to believe?  It seems pretty obvious that if we are already operating in a deficit, then any additional spending will yield one of two results.  One is a larger deficit.  The other is to raise taxes to pay for the increase. 

The President is telling his alluring crowds that they shouldn’t pay attention to the fear mongering from the right.  And, oh by the way, if this health care bill doesn’t pass it will mean the end of America.  The President doesn’t want you to be scared by the Republicans, he wants you to be terrified by not toeing the Democratic party line.

President Obama is a smart man.  Surely he can see the flawed logic in this plan.  So we return to our previous question. Why is the President fighting so hard for this?

The answer is because nothing less than the remainder of his presidency hangs in the balance.  It is not because the President feels this is the right thing to do.  It is not because that great, big, giant heart of his is bleeding for the 6% of the American population this will help. 

It is because everything else he has tried has failed.  Cap and Trade crashed and burned; the GM debacle is proving to be just that, a debacle; a carbon tax so huge that it would have bankrupted more companies than could have paid it, and so on.

Every plan the President puts forth will cost an enormous amount of money.  It is well known that when the government spends money, it is taxes that pay for it.  So it stands to reason that the more spending, the more taxes, yes?

Basically, this is his last stand.  This is the one thing that at least has a chance of passing, and Mr. Obama will certainly give it his all. 

Americans are skeptical about health care reform however.  According to Reuters, “Many Americans are wary of the need for reform…polls have shown they do not believe they would benefit from a government program to ensure that all citizens have affordable insurance coverage, and worry that it would boost the burgeoning U.S. budget deficit and raise their taxes.”

What’s worse is that the people protesting the issue have trumped the Democratic leadership.  They have beaten them at their own game.  At the latest rally against health care on the Mall in Washington, a sign being held stated, “It doesn’t matter what this sign says, you will call it racist.”

By preempting the race issue, they are taking it off of the table.  The race card is no longer an ace in the hole, but rather a lowly deuce.  And that deuce is staring at a full house of intelligent protesters.  Middle class people who are feeling threatened, and are fighting back.

If he loses this issue, his competency will come into question.  Mind you, his competency needs to be questioned.  The type of thinking that is being spewed out of Washington is pervasive.  It is so radical that Democrats with a conscious are opposing their own party. 

Losing the health care issue will put the mid term elections in jeopardy for the President.  It is important to understand that if the Republicans can win back just one seat it will cut the legs out from under the President and the Democratic strong hold.  More than one seat would be seen as a landslide.

At that point the president would have little or no creditability.  In one fell swoop the Democrats would be run out of Washington on a rail.  The man with all of the answers will be left with nothing but questions. 

The American people don’t mind change.  But they want the changes to make sense, and they want the changes to benefit the country as a whole.  Hope and change cannot take the form of dollars and cents. 

Everyone who voted for the President felt really good about themselves.  They thought they did the right thing.  That is until the right thing showed up with a bill.  As it turns out the right thing, as defined by today’s Washington, isn’t cheap, and it doesn’t make much cents either.

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Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN1246707220090912?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11617