The Obama Administration
I worked in the primary and general election campaigns to help elect President Obama. I still think he is far superior to his Republican predecessor George Bush.
But I am beginning to sort of fall out of love with Obama. It is starting to seem like he may have strong Republican leanings.
Barack you need to remember why you got elected. Many people liked John McCain, he was just a little too old, and his choice of Governor Palin as the vice presidential candidate finally did him in. McCain was viewed as ethical. He was not perfect, but he had worked a lifetime to try and stop the back door bribery of politicians that in America is called campaign contributions.
Mr. Obama, number one you were elected to stop the war(s). Not just to move the soldiers over to Afghanistan from Iraq, but to end the fighting and bring the troops home. Then greatly reduce the spending on the military. And number two you were elected because people thought you could actually succeed at getting universal health care implemented.
Your latest bank bailout is simply Bush administration recycling. It is a huge government handout to rich people. You have put the brakes on re-implementing progressive taxation, i.e., increasing income taxes for people making more than $250,000 per year. You talked great about how terrible and obscene the bonuses were to the AIG crooks, but you didn’t want much of anything actually done about it. Actions speak louder than words Mr. President.
Take the average nationwide salary of school teachers. Then make all income that is ten times this amount taxable at 80%. All income. With no exceptions, deductions, tax credits, loop holes, etc. Like the alternative minimum tax is. All income that is greater than 10 times what the average school teacher makes would be taxed at 80%. This would solve the budget deficit and the pay for both universal health care and properly fund social security.
This latest bailout plan is just a big expensive Band-Aid for the banks and the financial system. It seems that you don’t have the strength of character to actually tackle and solve the problems caused by all these years of deregulation. Start listening more to the Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman and less to all the ex-Wall Street guys.
On all issues you seem to want to take the middle of the road position. When Galileo said that the earth circles around the sun, and the Christian church said that everything revolved around the earth, taking the middle ground would have been just plain stupid. One party was 100% right and the other was 100% wrong. Many of the issues facing you are like this. The middle ground is not the correct answer.
There has not been any conversation about completely stopping the aggressive gambling, derivatives, credit default swaps, securitizing of mortgages and credit card debt, and the various exotic leveraging techniques that got the economy in such trouble. To use the proper word: Fraud. In fact you appear perfectly happy to not rock the boat very much. The chancellor in Germany is saying that we have now spent enough money pump priming and bailing out the rich, and that now is the time to start talking about improving the regulations and the enforcement. But I am not hearing much of this kind of talk come out of the Obama administration.
President Obama, you appear to be intimidated by the rich crooks on Wall Street. Maybe growing up as a half black, half white kid, raised by a single mother has made you seek acceptance too much. Maybe you just want to be loved by everyone.
It looks like all your talk of universal health care has now been reduced to computerizing the record keeping of some of the doctors and hospitals. Maybe somewhat, a little teeny tiny bit reducing the cost of health care in America. Thanks to some big government subsidies.
More than once your administration has talked about the Social Security problem and the consideration of possibly privatizing social security. This is 100% Republican talk. This would be absolute lunacy. Bush had already begun the process of reducing the troops in Iraq. Mostly because the democratically elected government of Iraq has begun kicking us out. You are just following up on Bush.
You have indeed come out forcefully against torture. And you are closing Guantanamo and the other secret CIA prisons. That is good. Especially if you begin supporting accountability for those people who did it in the past.
You will not be a two-term president Barack. It is unfortunate, but the die has been cast. The Republicans hate you, and increasingly your own supporters from the left are beginning to see you as nothing more than sweet-talking sell out. Just accept that you will only have one term as president and get your ass in gear. Stop trying to make all the people happy. You are only succeeding in making everyone dislike you.
Top Priority: Implement 100% government paid universal health care even if it means stopping all other work until this is completed.
Number Two Priority: Get Wall Street back under control. Stop the tax reduction on rich people. Implement progressive taxation again.
If you can just get these two things accomplished you will be a great success. If you tackle a hundred different things and fail at most of them, you will be seen as nothing more than a big talking, cigarette smoking, sell out lawyer.
I sure hope this is not the way that it all works out. That would be such a pity. Really.
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