Wrong
Posted on September 19, 2008
A great set of new commercials being run by the Vets for Freedom organization exposes how wrong Barack Obama was on the surge.
It juxtaposes comments made by David Petraeus about how the surge was working with an adamant Obama insisted that it had no chance of working.
This is a powerful ad because it exemplifies how certain Obama was about his position, which turned out to be exactly wrong.
On the most important military decision in the last two years, Obama was profoundly wrong. What does that say about his judgment on other issues?
If you look closely at Obama’s proposals, he is every bit as wrong as he was on the surge.
For example, Obama is wrong on trade. He has said that he wants repeal NAFTA and look at all of our other trade agreements. But any reading of history could teach Obama that protectionism kills American jobs. Just ask Mr. Smoot and Mr. Hawley, whose trade policies prolonged and deepened the worst Depression in our nation’s history.
Obama is wrong on taxes. For some reason, Obama hates people who make more than $250,000 a year. He wants to sharply raise taxes on these poor suckers while he lowers taxes on everybody else. It might make for nice political rhetoric but it is a loser financially. His proposals to sharply raise taxes on jobs creators will kill jobs, and the people he wants to cut taxes for mostly don’t pay taxes. In fact, the biggest costs in his plan go to pay for refundable tax credits to people who don’t pay any taxes.
Obama is wrong on the size and scope of government. The American people don’t want bigger government; they want smarter government. They don’t want more powerful government; they want more representative government.
Obama is wrong about Wall Street. We don’t need more regulations. We need smarter regulations. Part of what has killed companies like AIG have been unrealistic regulations that require companies to put an exact price on their assets (or liabilities) in ways that unrealistically hurt the bottom line. These “mark-to-market” regulations have compounded the problems in a shaky time on Wall Street.
Obama is wrong about how the economy works. Obama had a chance to either go to Wall Street or to become a community organizer. He then became a lawyer. Nothing teaches less about how to grow a business and create jobs than being a community organizer and a lawyer. Community organizer want higher taxes so they have more money to play with. Lawyers want more regulations so they can sue people with deep pockets.
Obama’s political philosophy shows a deep antipathy to the free-market capitalism. On that he is wrong. Free-market capitalism works if it is allowed to work without government mandates and government interference. The financial melt-down we have today was caused by government interference, specifically the market distortions caused by Fannie and Freddie. The government caused this problem. Now it has to solve it.