In every literary, historical or cinematic masterpiece, times must grow darkest before the sunrise and deliverance. We are living in such an age: ObamaCare, the Solyndra and Fast and Furious scandals, “lead from behind” foreign policy, demonization of business, crony capitalism, distrust of oil and gas producers and so on.
Why, then, do I see blue sky and a break in the present storms? For several reasons.
First, American exceptionalism. Our Constitution remains singular and ensures a stable form of government of the sort absent in Russia, China, the Islamic world and even (or especially) the European Union — and it will ensure us a stability abjectly absent elsewhere.
Second, even President Obama can’t stop the oil and gas industries. Their brilliant new technologies and entrepreneurialism may well turn us into a fuel depot like Saudi Arabia, doubling our proven oil and gas reserves. Soon, someone is going to see that our natural gas can power millions of cars, freeing our foreign policy from Gulf authoritarians. We’re poised for an oil boom not seen since the age of Texas and Oklahoma wildcatting.
With more exploration, we’d soon save hundreds of billions of dollars in imported fuel costs, stop subsidizing our enemies, perhaps help lower energy prices worldwide, create millions of jobs and allow solar batteries and alternative energies to become more efficient and cost competitive.
Third, private enterprise is hoarding cash — uncertain about the costs of ObamaCare, fearing more regulations and higher taxes, stung by harassing bluster and convinced that cautious consumers are simply not buying. Yet, the country is growing and still needs homes, food and energy.
Americans remain more self-reliant than our competitors. We aren’t a shrinking nation with the demographic crises of a Europe or Russia. Soon, the mounting pressure will be released by a change in government, and we will see a recovery that should have occurred more than two years ago — only more enhanced due to its delay.
When Obama leaves office, there will be a sense of psychological release in the business community that will lead to a far greater stimulus than printing more money.
Fourth, the catharsis that will accompany the end of this administration will last for some time. The next time Keynesians lecture us on more borrowing and spending, Americans will ask, “So we need to borrow at least $5 trillion within three years? Keep interest rates at near zero? Vastly inflate the money supply? Extend unemployment insurance to more than 100 weeks? Exceed 50 million on food stamps?”
That change of mood will lead the way to necessary reform: greater revenue from tax simplification, tax reduction and greater tax compliance, less regulation, entitlement reform and budgetary discipline.
Fifth, we tried “multilateralism.” We asked permission from the Arab League to intervene in Libya. We treated enemies and friends alike as neutrals. It didn’t work. Israel is still a democracy; its neighbors still aren’t. Europe’s leaders still accuse Obama as much as they did George W. Bush. Putin is still Putin, and China still is China.
Soon, we’ll return to a quiet sense of American exceptionalism, but more so, given that the naysayers have had their say. Proper appreciation of US global power and moral international citizenship likewise will restore confidence.
Finally, the US military has only improved in the last decade. It secured Iraq against all odds. Its Predator drones have outpaced the new terrorism. The domestic critique of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols has been rendered mere partisanship by the Obama embrace or expansion of nearly every element that was once demonized. Obama’s unintended legacy is to legitimize Guantanamo, Iraq, renditions, tribunals, preventative detention, the PATRIOT Act and so on.
Soon, we’ll feel a sense of relief that we haven’t experienced in a long while. Sadder but wiser, Americans will soon be turned loose with a vigor unseen in decades.
Adapted from pajamasmedia.com