BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com
A very high-level and important person that you may know personally or have heard of said that this is the answer President Obama gave when he was asked why he did not introduce the Bowles-Simpson (let’s call it ‘BS’ for brevity’s sake) recommendations as a bill in the US Congress.
Just who is the President here and who are the minions serving whom?
President Obama might have had the best of intentions when he officially signed the document creating the BS Commission by Executive Order 13531. We’ll give him credit for that at least, although at the time, we speculated on January 29, 2010 that this commission would fail just like the other 18 before it.
But when the BS Commission failed to pass the recommendations by the required 14 votes out of the 18 members present in late 2010, President Obama still had it within his power to be the Chief Executive of this great nation of ours and ask the Democrat Majority in the Senate to introduce the BS recommendations and force a vote on the floor of the US Senate and then the US House.
It could have been one of the great debates of our time. A full-blown debate on what the proper size of our federal government should be; arguments about who should pay more taxes and who should not and an exposition of the grave dangers we are now facing should we fail to arrest the debt accumulation monster that is still multiplying and helps make this period of time one of the top 5 ‘financial follies’ of the past 800 years according to Harvard Professor of economic history, Kenneth Rogoff.
Alas, President Obama blinked. And blinked again and again and again over this past year. He has blinked so many times at taking real action to reduce this deficit that you really have to wonder if he is up to it at all.
The so-called ‘Gang of Six’ in the US Senate tried to take basic elements of the BS Bill and get them passed to no avail in 2011 as well.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner deserves special commendation for his courage to advance this approach. We wonder if it is because he is a businessman that he actually ‘understands’ the gravity of our current debt situation and trend lines whereas perhaps the other incumbents who are trial lawyers or not business-oriented simply cannot fathom or grasp anything it seems.
But we now have it on good sources and corroborated by two people we respect and trust that President Barack Obama actually said the following words, in some fashion or another, when asked why he didn’t just get someone to introduce the BS Bill regardless of whether the Commission passed it or not with the requisite number of votes: ‘The Chicago guys (meaning his political advisor David Axelrod, among others) told me that if I did that (introduced the BS Bill), I would not win re-election in 2012.’
Honest to God Above. Our current sitting US President, the highest office and honor in the land, admitted that he lacked the courage to help save our Republic because his ‘Chicago guys’ told him not to touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: That is exactly what we elect our Presidents to do! And if they don’t lead, why keep them in the office? Why is he listening more to David Axelrod and David Plouffe than to what he must know is the ‘right thing’ to do in his heart which is to reduce these enormous deficits?
Ronald Reagan came into office as a ‘small government, lower tax, strong national defense’ President. He achieved 2 out of 3. (Guess which one he fell short on)
But when he was forced to make a decision, he ‘led’. He got bills introduced. He negotiated with Congress. He sent his congressional liaison teams to Capitol Hill to lobby for his position. He called reluctant Congressmen and Senators to urge them to ‘do the right thing for the country’. He signed bills that raised taxes 11 different times over his two terms in the Oval Office. Each time, he told Senate Majority Leader or Republican Leader Bob Michel in the House to ‘get 75-80% of what we want, maybe 65%, and then I’ll sign the bill and we will come back next year to get more of what we want.’
That is the way our democratic republic is supposed to work. A President and Congress can raise taxes….and then come back to repeal them the next year. They can raise spending…and then come back to repeal and reduce that spending the next session of Congress.
It is a fluid process. But it needs a strong President in the White House working with all sides in both the House and the Senate who is actually taking risks to ‘lead’ the entire nation to economic health, prosperity and freedom.
Today, in the news, we learned that President Obama has basically taken a complete ‘hands-off’ approach and said: ‘This is Congress’ problem. Call me when you get something done…but not when I am on vacation or playing golf somewhere nice and sunny’.
By openly admitting that he failed to do so because his ‘Chicago Guys’ told him not to, President Barack Obama has demonstrated he is unfit to run this great nation of ours, in our humble opinion.
Nothing personal. He actually seems like a nice guy to have a beer with or shoot some hoops with and we hope his daughters grow up to be wonderful mature women who do honor to their examples as young women growing up in the public glare.
But this is the tough job we elected him to in 2008. He has succumbed to political advisor pressure when all he had to do was look at the portraits of Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson around him in the White House and realize that he had a chance to do something important and wonderful and marvelous to help save this great Republic of ours.
He blinked. And now, we need to find someone else to take his place who will not ‘blink’ and who will take action.
Erskine Bowles ran for the US Senate twice and lost from the Great State of North Carolina. But he, as well as Alan Simpson have shown tremendous courage and stamina in this whole BS process.
How about this: ‘Erskine Bowles. For President. Of The United States of America. 2012.’
Democrats: There is your man to run against the Republican candidate whoever he might be. At least we will know that 2 people running for President in 2012 will be serious about solving our deficit/debt dilemma.
Instead of only 1.
Editor’s Note: Frank Hill is the Director of the Institute for the Public Trust in Charlotte, NC. He is former chief of staff to Congressman Alex McMillan of NC and also served on the staffs of former U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole and the House Budget Committee.