President Obama’s Dark Shadows

Years ago, on an earlier version of this BLOG, I wrote that I was “giving up on President Obama.”  Then, and now I find it depressing and really disappointing and sad that Mr. Obama’s interventionist and I believe socialistic approach to “fundamentally transforming America” is so misguided and so destructive. It is no surprise to me that his policies have generated a legacy of failure. The only saving grace for the country is the fact that the Congress has thwarted many of Mr. Obama’s destructive socialistic schemes. Many, but not all . . .

Sadly, Mr. Obama was able to strong-arm the passing of the failed nearly $1T Keynesian stimulus boondoggle bill (how’s that shovel-ready job working out for you?), the ever so destructive Dodd Frank finance “reform” law (can you spell crony?), and the “how can I count the ways it is destroys value” Obama Care debacle (aka “affordable health care act” without a single Republican vote). The economy has been anemic for seven years under the shadow of Obamanomics and the poor and middle class have suffered the most. The United States has assumed more debt under President Obama than was amassed under all of the previous presidents combined. The national debt is now more than $18 trillion and rising.

Speaking of legacies, how’s that key domestic-policy legacy going? Not so hot. ObamaCare remains unpopular; far more Americans oppose than favor it. People still remember the disaster of the October 2013 rollout, which still casts a shadow over the program today.  Those hard feelings were deepened last year by the discovery of a series of talks by key ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber in which he bragged that it had been falsely marketed to the American people to take advantage of their stupidity.” . . .  

In the latest RealClearPolitics polling average, 62% say the country is on the wrong track more than seven years after Obama moved into the White House. - New York Post 

Sadly, Mr. Obama has been able to impose several uber-destructive big-government agenda ancillaries such as the carbon emissions mandate by using his assumed authority over the regulatory agencies (vis “I’ve got a pen and a phone”).  We will suffer for decades from Dodd Frank and the Obama Care mess but hopefully future presidents will undo the damage on the regulatory side.   Mr. Obama’s foreign policy and the middle east in particular is a disaster on steroids.  Anyway you slice it President Obama’s legacy so far is a sorry one at best.

Now the end of his tenure is in sight and President Obama is trying like crazy to beef up his resume, his “legacy.”  His last ditch efforts to “fundamentally change America” (i.e. facilitate a “progressive” movement toward a welfare nanny state) are clouded in dark, socialistic shadows.  I gave up on him years ago. Then, and now I find it depressing and really disappointing and sad that Mr. Obama’s interventionist and I believe socialistic approach to “fundamentally transforming America” has been so misguided and so destructive.

Mark Van Schuyver