by Jack Campitelli | August 13th, 2010
The Worst President "EVER"?
Jack Campitelli, August 12, 2010
Controversial Arizona Congressional candidate Ben Quayle, who has publically called Barack Obama “the worst president in history” – appeared on a Fox “News” interview tonight and said that entitlement programs need to be cut, not expanded as the Obama administration and congress are doing. He’s right. But he started his defense by grandfathering in all the current recipients of social security. Thank God. And then adjusting entitlements for follow-on generations downwards.
In a large sense, he’s right. Something’s got to give. But I did a bit of research on entitlement programs after his interview and found out that, yes, social security and medicare make up a lot of “entitlement” programs – but there are a “ton” of other entitlement programs that could use a “second look”. Turns out that unbeknownst to me, and I bet you, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that entitlements are a “property right” and getting rid of them is “complicated.”
Food stamps. Well, we’d hate to see people hungry. Aid to families with dependent children. Well, we don’t want to hurt children. We have other “welfare” programs and low-income programs. Hate to hurt these people.
But let’s start with social security. These folks, us, at the point of gun, were required by law, to give the government, in addition to income tax, 7.5% of everything they made; their employer was required to match it with another 7.5%; and if workers had the audacity to be self-employed, the government took 15% of everything they earned on top of their taxes. So let’s start with “fair” – some of these so-called “entitlement” people actually paid for “something.” They thought it was “forced saving” to have a decent life at retirement age. And they should get it.
About the “poor” I don’t’ have an easy answer. But is this a government problem or a societal problem? Did government decide to grab this problem as its own because someone was running for election and needed votes by promising something for nothing? Does it have to be a government problem? A federal government problem? Is there any other way to be humane without involving the federal bureaucracy and our federal tax dollars? These guys couldn’t manage their way out of paper bag. Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true!
Yet all this “entitlement” talk is clustered around taking away grandma’s medicine or poor kids’ food. But there are another bunch of entitlement programs that the president is responsible for that is really killing us. They’re just not called “entitlements.” What do you call the bailouts? The “stimulus” packages? The money to help stupid greedy state governments? These are not billions. These are trillions of dollars that there is no conceivable way to pay back ever. I know Obama went to Harvard Law School and I only went to Ole Miss, but dammit, no one really wants to tell the truth that this kind of spending is not a band-aid, this is an economic death sentence. If he’s good, I’m mean really good, then the American economy won’t die on his watch. The next poor bastard will take the hit. And banks and brokerage firms should nominate Obama for another Nobel Prize. (By the way, how the hell did THAT happen?) He’s made hundred-million-millionaires/billionaires out of so many of them, they OWE him. Big time.
And what do you suppose the biggest investment social security makes in order to provide all these entitlement “benefits” is? Why they buy U.S. treasury obligations, of course! So the coffers of social security are full of junk bonds (federal junk bonds to be fair, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government) and how exactly is this going to help someone twenty years from now? There is actually not one rational plan to pay back all this debt. Hell, admit it. It’s impossible. Just call a press conference and tell us right to our faces:
“My fellow Americans. It is with deep sorrow in my heart that I must inform you that I have effectively killed the U.S. economy for the next twenty years at best. I did it to save you the trouble and embarrassment of knowing that we, your government, and your banking system, totally screwed up everything and you and your grand children are going to have to pay for it. We made credit too easy. We made promises we shouldn’t have. A house in every pot and a chicken in every garage. Hell, we have a lot of power and prestige and, well, we just got a little carried away with all our ability to win votes by promising you the moon. In all fairness, it wasn’t just my administration. I was given a really nice head start by previous administrations who fought wars we didn’t bother to pay for. That’s right. We fought them on credit. The Saudis and the Chinese and Japanese were kind enough to take all the Wal-Mart dollars and petro-dollars and Toyota-dollars we sent them and buy our treasury bonds that allowed us to print the money that paid for the wars.
“I can’t really say what good the wars have done us. I know they have cost thousands of lives. And I’m not sure we can ever pay back those treasury obligations with money that’s worth what it was worth when the Chinese and Saudis bought the bonds and I’m pretty sure this will cause major economic disruptions around the world and probably more bloodshed in many countries than we’d like to tell you about.
“It’s a mess. And I don’t really have any answers. We never had any answers. And we’ve pissed away, excuse my French, a good, what, $30-trillion dollars that is gone forever? More money than we’ve ever had in our nation’s history. It’s gone. What can I say?
“It’s unlikely you’re going to re-elect me, so I’m just going to say I’m sorry right now and carry on as best I can as long as we can still print money until you replace me. I am going to dedicate the rest of my life helping NASA foster good relationships with Muslim countries and finding funding to build mosques so everyone can share the American dream.
“Good night. And God bless America.”
