Obama - more to the Left than France

If Obama gets his way, the USA of 2016 would be to the *LEFT* of most of the European states - larger Government, higher taxes, tighter regulations, less freedoms than EU countries.

I made that statement on this blog and got challenged on it:

“I would disagree with your assessment. In what regards is Obama to the left of France or Germany?”

My response:

I was speaking of a trajectory that if continued might get crossed by 2016, should they tack right and we race left. I am speaking of trajectory not current position.
America’s heritage of freedom, and previous 28 years of Governance that has been overall centrist has kept us from trending left … but Obama is outside that historical envelope, and is seeking to move USA to a place we’ve never been.

And I think the assessment that Obama is racing USA to the left, to a massive Federal Government more bloated than any Government in history, is accurate. Disagree?

Perhaps you are unaware of how gargantuan ObamaCare, even with the Baucus all-pain-no-gain version, will be. The true ten-year cost once the program is fully loaded is about $1.7 trillion (not the $800 billion 10 year number they tout). That’s the CBO estimate, or as best we can get, since the Senate is arrogantly going to forge ahead without even the legislative language required to enable a real scoring.

Perhaps you haven’t accounted for the 50+ agencies that bill will produce, the squeeze on the entire healthcare industry it will create.

Perhaps you haven’t added in the added pestilence of “Cap and Trade” on industrial America, adding regulations, taxations and bureaucracies galore. That bill will shift another $200 billion per year through the Federal Govt over time, taxing/punishing some and rewarding others. This is another $2000/ year per family, or more, of either direct cost or Govt redistribution, depending on how the Govt set it up - and Govts get sticky fingers.

Perhaps you haven’t noticed that our deficit this year is - for the first time sine WWII - in double digits of GDP, and that the *lowest* deficit that Obama projects over the next 5 years is higher than the last Bush+republican budget in 2006.

Perhaps you havent noticed that every year the Pelosi Democrat Congress has passed budgets, they have increased discretionary spending by double digits. Perhaps you havent noticed that the Federal budget is a higher percentage at any time in USA’s history than in the last 50 years, jumping from historical 18-20% levels to over 28% of GDP.

Perhaps you havent noticed that if you take that higher number and include state and local Governments, the share of Government to GDP is now eclipsing the ratio in many of the European nations, exactly the metric some would use to assure us we are not as ’socialist’ as Europe.

Perhaps you haven’t considered the tidal wave of additional welfare state obligations that are inherent in Obama’s proposed amnesty legalization of 12-20 million illegal aliens, who will be on track for a plethora of Government assistance programs which they are currently legally excluded from.

And last but not least, perhaps you are not noticing the collapse and the discrediting of the left in Europe, the rise of conservative and right-wing / liberal-economics parties in that continent.

Meanwhile in USA, President Obama says that his ideal Justice is a leftwing agitator on the Supreme Court by the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; she has disallowed the right of states to democratically protect unborn human life in law, and such judicial legislation will remain in force is so long as Obama nominates similarly leftwing Judges.

“His foreign policy is still tougher than Germany’s or France’s.”

Not really. Bush’s foreign policy trajectory continues, and I give credit to Obama for not bugging out on Iraq or Afghanistan (yet), but almost everything Obama has done new has been in the direction of weakness. His missile defense giveaway was positively Carteresque. I have France’s own Sarkozy in my corner on this, and any cogent reading of Obama’s dreadful UN speech backs up this assessment:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574441402775482322.html
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/09/sarkozy-on-obama-naive-and-grossly.html