D'Souza, Dinesh - Obama's America by D'Souza Dinesh

Author:D'Souza, Dinesh [D'Souza, Dinesh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Political Ideologies, Conservatism & Liberalism, Political Science
ISBN: 9781596987784
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2012-08-07T06:00:00+00:00

It’s worth pausing to ponder what Obama is saying. Basically, he is saying that it doesn’t matter whether higher tax rates on the rich generate additional revenues for the government or not. This is not about government revenue. Rather, Obama’s own basic notion of fairness demands that the rich pay more. Perhaps—to take a cue from his father’s paper—if the highest income earners paid tax rates of “up to 100 percent,” Obama would finally be satisfied that they were contributing their fair share.

Since we’re back to Obama Sr.’s paper for the moment, it’s worth recalling the second theme of that paper. Not only did Obama Sr. recommend limitless tax rates, but he also called for the state to use its power to control and dominate the institutions of the private sector. For Obama Sr. the private sector is the neocolonial sector. This sector is made up of the big bad corporations: banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, and so on. Obama Sr. proposed that the government seize control of these industries and turn them from private profit-making entities into regulated arms of the state. In effect, he called for turning them into state utilities serving socialist conceptions of the public good.

How does the vision of Obama Sr. match up with the actions of Obama Jr.? After four years of Obama’s presidency, we can see that there is a very good match. Obama used the banking crisis to establish the strong arm of government control over the banks. He backed the so-called Dodd-Frank legislation that basically empowers the government to take over any financial institution it considers to be imperiled; the government can then run that institution however it wants. The Dodd-Frank Bill is an 848-page encyclopedia containing 400 or so rules; moreover, nearly every page asks regulators to fill in the details by adding more rules. Already Dodd-Frank has dramatically raised the cost of doing business for the financial sector, and according to Investor’s Business Daily it may force 1,000 small banks to close down .7

Next Obama pushed through his health care reform—commonly dubbed Obamacare—without a single Republican vote. Obamacare takes the reach of government regulation far beyond what it has been previously. While upholding Obamacare under the government’s taxing power, the Supreme Court recognized this. Previously the government could tell you what you couldn’t buy; Obamacare is a case of the government telling you what you must buy. Imagine if the government, in the name of protecting your health, told you that you must buy exercise equipment or two pounds of broccoli every week at the supermarket. Most of us would consider that a ridiculous overreach, an infringement of personal liberty. Well, Obamacare is the same, because it forces people who don’t want to buy health insurance to buy health insurance. Moreover, Obamacare, like Dodd-Frank, institutionalizes a labyrinth of new rules, regulations, fines, costs, penalties, boards, and bureaucracies. The federal government can now specify who must have insurance, how much insurance companies can charge, what profit they can make, which medical ailments receive coverage, and what doctors are paid.

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