Rand Simberg at Pajamasmedia offers some insights into what Obama could have done differently that would have helped our economy climb out of the recession that would not have cost a dollar.
something he could have done — that would have cost nothing at all — would have been to not scare the bejesus out of business in the first place during his campaign.
Obama talked of increasing capital gains taxes for reasons of “fairness,” even if it actually hurt government revenue. He talked of “spreading the wealth around.” He gave soaring speeches exalting the glory of the state and public service, while the contributions of business and capitalism were ignored. He treated “profit” like a four-letter word and promised to “raise taxes on the rich.” He made economically insane and historically ignorant arguments blaming the meltdown of the financial system on “capitalists” and “deregulation.”
Obama persuaded many small business people to pull in their horns and make plans to keep a low profile (including laying people off) in order to avoid the wealth confiscation of the populist, socialist, economic storm they saw coming with his election.
Could he have actually done all these things? Well, with regard to his poisonous campaign, does anyone think that such rhetoric was necessary for him to win? Were Democrats not going to vote for him just because he wasn’t spouting enough egalitarian rhetoric? The public was so fed up with Republicans, and McCain ran such a terrible campaign, that Obama was going to win no matter what.
Though he might have caused trouble with his own party, Obama could have certainly forged a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats were he really the post-partisan, reach-across-the-aisle lightworker that we were promised in the campaign — a promise belied by his actual record in the Senate. It’s called triangulation, and Bill Clinton learned post-1994 that one could not only succeed politically with it, but that it could deliver good results for the country as well (at least until the bubble popped in 2000).
Obama though is ideologically incapable of supporting policies that stimulate growth and lessen people’s dependence on government.
