California Conservative

Michael Barone has a message for President Obama. Saying that it isn’t what President Obama wants to hear is understatement. Here’s the message Mr. Barone wants President Obama to hear:

Put aside your plans, announced in your budget, for national health insurance, for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, for effectively abolishing the secret ballot in unionization elections. And, they might have added, for higher taxes on, and a reduction in, their charitable deductions to channel money away from charities and nonprofits and toward the government. Pay attention to the first thing on your platter and the nation’s, Buffett and Brooks and Galston say: the financial crisis.

While the American people elected President Obama, that doesn’t mean they approve of all of his policies. Quite the opposite, actually. They don’t agree with his Cap and Trade policy initiatives. They certainly don’t approve of President Obama’s irresponsible spending habits. Finally, they don’t like the thought of President Obama’s plans for universal health care.

Whether the American people said yes to President Obama’s policies on Election Night, it’s clear that they’re saying no now. That’s the only thing that matters right now.

President Obama has attempted to sell their agenda with this feeble argument:

The answer Obama has given, in advance, is that we can only solve our economic problems by advancing these other programs.

Here’s Mr. Barone’s reply to that flimsy argument:

None of the issues addressed in the Obama budget was in any way a cause of the financial crisis. We did not have a housing bubble collapse because we don’t have a national health insurance program. We don’t have toxic waste clogging the balance sheets of the banks and other financial institutions because of carbon emissions. The Bush tax cuts were not a proximate cause of the giant public debt being run up under the Toxic Assets Relief Program or the 2009 stimulus package.

That’s another spot on observation from a man who’s made a living making astute observations. President Obama would be wise to understand that Michael Barone understands the American electorate better than anyone, with the possible exceptions of Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz or Karl Rove.

While making these observations, Mr. Barone includes this history lesson for President Obama’s sake:

In his first months in office, Franklin Roosevelt concentrated on repairing a financial system that was in much worse shape than ours is today, with most banks closed. Roosevelt got most of them open and running again. It was a couple of years later that the programs we remember the New Deal for were passed, Social Security, the Wagner labor act, higher taxes on high earners. (Well, Roosevelt did sneak in repeal of Prohibition.) Even Roosevelt’s first expansion of welfare rolls, at the end of 1933, was abruptly cancelled when the snows melted in spring 1934.

Finally, the most important reason for President Obama to distance himself from the policies he’s currently advocating: Cap and Trade and universal health care. While these items energize his political base, they’re driving independent voters away in droves. That doesn’t mean that he’s driven them into the GOP camp…yet. It means, though, that that’s a distinct possibility, especially if he insists on pursuing this radical agenda. That’s his prerogative but it’s politically foolish, too.

Technorati Tags: Economy, President Obama, Cap And Trade, Health Care, Tax Increases, Financial Crisis, FDR, New Deal, Social Security, TARP II, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz, Election 2010