Obama, The Hatchet Man
President Obama has become John McCain, at least on economic issues.
When they were running for President against each other, McCain proposed an across the board spending freeze.
At that time, Obama ridiculed the idea.
“The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," Obama said in his first presidential debate against McCain. "There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded."
In the second debate, he said, “I disagree with Senator McCain about an across-the-board freeze. . . . I want to use a scalpel, so that people who need help are getting help."
Now Obama is the hatchet man.
This spending freeze, which, in traditional Republican fashion, exempts the Pentagon, is a colossal blunder.
As far as the economy goes, it’s totally foolish, since we’re still reeling from the Great Recession and we need more—not less—domestic spending to pull us out of it. By embracing the spending freeze, Obama is consigning millions more to the unemployment lines.
And politically, we need a Democrat for this?
He’s going to be freezing the Education Department, he’s going to be freezing other departments that help the poor, he’s going to be freezing the EPA, he’s going to be freezing the Labor Department, he’s going to be freezing the Justice Department.
That’s less money for people who need it, and less money to go after corporate criminals.
What a hatchet job.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.
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Comments
"I would argue that imposing a Wealth Tax, on Corporations earning more than 100 million, would
only move them offshore, but since most of them already have, that argument might be somewhat moot."
Where would they go? Would they relocate to Europe? Of course not, because the Europeans would never give them the sort of free ride that America does.
We can impose a tax on any corporation that wants to do business in the United States. They would be unwilling to forfeit participation in the prosperous American market.
Back in 1990, the state of California passed a law that required any automobile manufacturer that wanted to sell cars in the state to build some non-emission (fully electric) vehicles.
The car companies weren't about to lose access to the California auto market, so they complied. That's why GM produced that wonderful electric car, the EV-One.
Of course they bought off enough politicians to get the law repealed, and today GM insists that somehow the technology is not yet available to build the sort of cars they built back in 1990.
But my point is that participation in the U.S. economy is too profitable for corporations to pass up. They will pay, if only our government has the sense to send them a bill.