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People weren’t paying attention. Those are the people now surprised that President Obama is still stridently campaigning instead of doing the real work of governing.
Even some who voted for him last month are puzzled as he threatens to take the nation off the fiscal cliff if Republicans don’t give him the tax hikes he demands now and puts off entitlement reform until later. He even wants to increase spending.
I’ve talked to people who supported him, and their surprise is surprising.
“I thought he was going to move toward the center after the election,” one stunned Obama backer told me. Another said he believed the president’s positions were opening gambits and he would compromise. “It’s the first round,” he insisted.
Both are smart, accomplished men, but I’m baffled that they didn’t see this coming. Where, exactly, is the evidence that Obama is willing or able to work with people who disagree with him? Tick, tock, time’s up — there isn’t any evidence, because he’s not.
Again and again, the first term revealed Obama’s idea of bipartisanship: Dissenters are unpatriotic and must surrender. Compromise is a one-way street for him.
As polarizing and ineffective as that approach was, he was rewarded with four more years. A different man might see that as a mulligan — a second chance to get it right.
Not Obama. His behavior now is even more troubling.
That he’s willing to risk sending the economy back into recession and killing even more jobs leads me to believe his second term will be far more radical than the first. A stranger to humility, he thinks re-election confers a blank check.
His demand that spending cuts and entitlement reform be put off, while Republicans give him the tax hikes and the stimulus he wants, suggests he’s not serious about facing the mountain of debt. In that case, no progress is possible as the nation hurtles toward disaster.
The fear is reinforced with his sudden bid to have sole and permanent authority to raise the debt limit. As it stands, Congress’ power to set the ceiling serves as a practical check and balance.
His effort to eliminate it is something that happens in a banana republic. Is that where Obama wants to take America?
Sadly, many Americans believe the answer is yes. A friend wrote to express that view forcefully:
“Obama has deliberately destroyed the world’s best medical system. He is deliberately destroying the world’s strongest economy and currency. He has destroyed the world’s best political system by governing by executive order. He has started destroying the world’s best military.”
I don’t accept the idea that the president is intentionally trying to destroy America, but I do believe his policies are weakening it.
Still, it remains possible for Obama to rally a solid majority of the country and Congress. He would need only to govern as the most important leader, but not the only leader, in our representative democracy.
He would need to do what only a president can: Guide the nation forward by shaping a broad, bipartisan consensus of public support for key policies.
Instead, Obama is opting to overreach, recklessly and without purpose beyond imposing his own ideology. Lots of trouble, but no good, is the only possible outcome.
Profligate, toll-hiking PA taking us for ride
Happy Toll Hike Day, New York and New Jersey. Or as they say at the Port Authority, here come the suckers.
The $1 increase taking effect today will drive the rush-hour cash price up to $13 at the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge, and other crossings will also see increases. Although E-ZPass users get discounts, tolls will rise again in each of the next three years. By then, the Port will have raised prices in five of six years.
As with all government taxes and fees, the tolls, beyond what drivers actually pay, invisibly will push the cost of living here higher. Businesses pass on the burden to customers, raising the cost of gasoline, clothes and a bottle of beer.
The Port Authority is a prime example of how officials’ poor decisions and mistakes hurt the economy. As writer Nicole Gelinas shows in the fall issue of the City Journal, the bi-state agency’s profligate ways caused such a crisis that toll hikes are needed to keep it afloat.
Noting that the PA borrowed $7.7 billion to rebuild parts of the World Trade Center site, Gelinas says tolls and airport fees are being diverted to fund the debt, meaning the money “won’t be available for the transportation projects that New York badly needs.”
She also reports that the agency spends an average of $143,000 a year in salary and benefits for each of its 7,000 employees, and that health and pension costs rose by more than 30 percent in five years. The city, by comparison, spends $110,000 a year per employee.
Although Gelinas did find small silver linings, she accuses a line of governors, including Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, of blaming Port officials for the screw-ups they encouraged or ignored. “They should look in the mirror,” she writes.
Indeed.
‘Cheap’ date
With another cheesy offer to sell his time to a donor willing to help pay off Hillary’s 2008 campaign debt, Bill Clinton proves two things.
First, he must be a lonely man to conjure companionship this way. Second, the Clintons are wealthy cheapskates.
The leftover tab from Hillary’s presidential bid is $73,000, according to Politico. The Clintons are millionaires many times over, yet they want other people to pay their bills.
Hillary burned through $100 million of donations in 2008 and still had a debt of $25 million that President Obama helped retire in exchange for Bubba’s support.
Yet the begging goes on: “There is nothing I enjoy more than good conversation with good people, which is why I’ve enjoyed it so much whenever we’ve brought one of Hillary’s strongest supporters to New York to spend the day with me,” Bubba gushed in an e-mail.
Here’s a thought: Why don’t the Clintons just write a personal check to settle their debts? The money would buy them a shred of dignity.
Your ‘Sandy’ tax dollars at waste
Reacting to a Wall Street Journal report that the city was paying for hundreds of vacant hotel rooms for nearly a month, some costing $300 a night, Mayor Bloomberg defended the practice. Hurricane Sandy victims are in other rooms, he told reporters, and the city might need more space.
“It’s a de minimis amount of money but it just shows a proactive approach,” the mayor added.
Perhaps, but look at the cost, which Washington ultimately will cover, as a taxpayer.
A New York family that pays, say, $10,000 a year in federal taxes, works hard for that money. Yet their taxes were blown entirely on empty hotel rooms.
Tax hikes? No thanks.
Boning up on perversity
Headline on Drudge: “Woman charged for sex with human skeleton.”
So, how much was she charged?