Analysis for Critical Thinkers

At a town hall style campaign speech in Wisconsin on June 11 , President Obama wrote a letter for 10 year old girl, Kennedy Corpus, who had apparently cut class to see the President.

“To Kennedy’s teacher: Please excuse Kennedy’s absence. She’s with me. Barack Obama.”

While it is likely that this was meant merely as a cute display for the future voter and is bound to send a shiver up the legs of fawning Obama fanatics everywhere, it does point to a larger issue that is largely forgotten.

You are not in charge of the country Mr. Obama. No President is. This is certainly not a sign of disrespect on my part. I do however point out something that was originally pointed out over 200 years ago by our founding fathers. The President of the United States is the leader of the Executive branch of the Federal Government – and that is it. There are three branches – he is in charge of one of them. He is Commander in Chief of the United States Military which falls under his branch of government.

The Federal Government was not designed to be the chief overseer of everything. Mr. Obama, addressing his inexperience during his campaign, was described by his supporters to be “ready to rule from day one.” But having a ruler was not the reason why they came up with the position of President. In fact, much effort was put into the design to prevent that from happening. There is this common perception that the Federal Government is “higher” or more important – that it somehow supersedes lesser powers in some sort of “authority flowchart” of who can tell you what to do. There is a perception that life is good in this country because the Federal Government, through their generosity, allows you to do things or – through their good graces – decides to give you things. We know that people have started to believe this because whatever problem that arises, people wonder what the President is going to do about it. And everybody quakes when threatened by the prospect of having the Big Government step in and take over things.

The writers of the Constitution were very explicit that their new Federal government would be required to have very little to do with the lives of the average citizen. Each of the 3 branches of government has very limited powers which you can read about in the famous document. Each power is listed there. None of these powers included anything about running the lives of the citizens or nobly giving you stuff or being in charge of you, your employment, your health care, your retirement, your education – or your being allowed to miss school. Nowhere in the Constitution does it allow any of the 3 branches to take over businesses, take over your health care or make things “fair” – however they may perceive that to be.

Strangely, the few powers actually given to the Federal government are the ones that have caused the biggest uproar when they are actually carried out.  Preventing terrorists from invading our country and attacking our citizens is one example that has offended so many Americans.

So no Mr. President, I respect you and your office – although we may disagree at times. But I am in charge of me. I am responsible for making my own living and supporting my own family within the guidelines of the laws of the land. Now I ask please that you go and do only what you are supposed to do and leave me alone to do what I am supposed to do. This was the vision of our founding fathers. The President is not the ruler of the country – he is the leader of one of the 3 branches of our limited self-governed republic.

Four months after President Obama and his Democrat Congress enacted the largest expenditure in history to “stimulate” the economy, it has been a complete failure – but not for the reason that people are likely to argue about. Unemployment continues to rise and businesses continue to fail. Proponents of socialism and Big Government will surely argue that we have to be patient and simply wait around while this magic potion of stimulus takes effect.  As long as there are still people that can be taxed, they argue, all is not lost. They further make it clear that even if they finally admit that the plan is a failure, there is someone else to blame. If it doesn’t work, they say, it is only because we didn’t spend enough or wait long enough. But the plan is a failure.

The failure is once again believing that more Big Government intervention is the answer to any perceived problem. The failure is thinking that Big Government is better able to run businesses – or the economy  in general – than the free market upon which this country was based. The failure is discarding the U.S. Constitution by procaliming that Big Government is in charge of the economy where no such power exists. The failure is living by the idea that any problem results from the mere absence of a particular new law or regulation that is yet to be made.

And all of this money has to come from somewhere. If only some new tax were charged, then we’ll get somewhere – or wait! Maybe penalize successful people more! These tired arguments are tired for a reason – they have never worked to help an economy. The Obama – Ponzi scheme of raising taxes – but only on some other, unnamed rich evil people – will fail like any other Ponzi scheme. There will be no more “someone else” who will pay for all of this.

The “stimulus” plan is a failure simply because Big Government became big enough to believe that the people would allow them to come up with such a plan in the first place.

 C.R.