As he was leaving Independence Hall in Philadelphia after the new United States Constitution was approved, a woman, one Mrs. Powell, is said to have asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government had been constructed by the committee, a republic or a monarchy.
"A republic," Mr. Franklin replied. "If you can keep it." Sardonic words to live by these days.
President Obama's reelection is a disappointment. It's hard to fathom why half the electorate voted to continue his failed policies. Under Mr. Obama, unemployment stayed over 8% for 43 months straight before dropping all the way down to 7.8% only days before the election, before settling in at 7.9%.
His claim to have created 5 million new jobs in the private sector is valid only if one takes into account that his policies first cost 5 million jobs before his 5 million jobs were brought back. There are 23 million unemployed people in this country today, and half the electorate turned its back on them. Some of these people have been out of work for so long that they've given up and stopped looking. If those people are counted, the unemployment figure rises to an incredible 11%. Not one single day has passed since Mr. Obama took office that more Americans been employed than on the day before he took the oath.
Under Barack Obama, the national debt has increased by $6 trillion in less than four years, with the prospect of additional trillion dollar budgets over the next four years. He promised to halve the deficit in three years, remember?
Every one of his policies has been a job-killer. Obamacare is the biggest and most obvious boondoggle. But Mr. Obama has waged war on the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. He's stopped offshore drilling and vetoed the construction of the Keystone pipeline. His "shovel-ready" green energy jobs never had a chance, having never been there to begin with.
Need proof? In a word, "Solyndra." If that isn't enough for you, the Chevy Volt should serve to underline the point. The Administration took over that portion of the auto industry and forced it to build an electric vehicle that nobody wants to buy. Th Volt costs more to operate than traditional gas vehicles and its batteries have a tendency to blow up. This is somehow defined by the Obama Administration as "success."
In the wake of the President's reelection, there have been calls for everything from investigation of massive voter fraud to secession. Wasted effort. The election is over, and the question of secession was decided in 1865 when the Confederacy furled its flag for the last time. Look it up if you don't believe it.
Then, less than 24 hours after the election results were in, the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, held a conference call with House Republicans. Keep in mind that the Republicans maintained control of the House. That means that the electorate appointed them to act as watchdogs over the national purse. None of the liberal/socialist/Democratic (LSD) agenda can get funding without their approval.
Mr. Boehner, instead of preparing for battle, told his fellow Republicans that the time for compromising with the LSDs has come, and that he wants to "avoid" all of the partisan fighting that has taken place over the last two years. Uh-oh.
Later, appearing at the Capitol, probably with those sickenly sentimental tears rolling down his cheeks as on numerous past occasions, Mr. Boehner said, "Mr. President, this is your moment...we want you to succeed...The American people have spoken. If there's a mandate in yesterday's results, it's a mandate for us to find a way to work together." Horse feathers.
The odious David Axelrod was "encouraged" by Mr. Boehner's apparent willingness to work with the LSDs. But, "I think we've also had an intervening election," he added ominously.
And there is the rub. For Axelrod and the LSDs, the only election result that mattered was the one that they won, that the President was reelected. "Compromise" is a one-way street. For the LSDs, that means that the Republicans should shut up and rubber-stamp the President's agenda.
The good news is that the Republicans maintained control of the House. The bad news is that John Boehner is still Speaker of the House, and that he has, not once but twice, voted in favor of raising the already incomprehensibly high debt ceiling to accomodate Mr. Obama and his congressional LSD allies. He's apparently accepted that Obamacare is "the law of the land."
Mr. Boehner also seems to think that the problem of "undocumented" immigrants needs to be addressed. It's a good bet that he's about to cave in on that issue as well.
It's true that the President won, Mr. Boehner. However, he hasn't been crowned as King of the United States and he never will be. His policies have no clear mandate. The Constitution provides for a system of "checks and balances."
That the electorate saw fit to keep House Republicans in the majority is confirmation of the system that Benjamin Franklin and the framers of that venerable document put in place. Without the built-in "checks and balances," there would be no defense against the President and his LSD allies, who long ago set out to "fundamentally change America."
In short, House Republicans also won, and they were elected to do a job. They are charged with keeping the LSDs from fixing what ain't broke. They are there to insure that Americans continue to have the choice of liberty over socialism, to choose the American Dream, which is why people come to our shores in the first place. America is about freedom and unlimited opportunity. The Republicans ought never to stop saying to anyone who will listen that dependence on the government dole, which is all that the LSDs offer, amounts to economic slavery.
Perhaps voters want to see for themselves where Mr. Obama's up-until-now disastrous policies will lead. It's possible that they gave him the benefit of the doubt even though Mitt Romney made a more than compelling case for his own election.
Whatever the reason for Obama's reelection, Mr. Boehner and the House Republicans had best understand why they were themselves elected. If they don't, Mr. Boehner's sloppy sentiment won't help them next time.
Isn't that Hillary Clinton over there on the horizon?
Comments