AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

President Obama:

May I congratulate you on this occasion of your 3rd State of the Union address.  I, like you, applaud the innovation that has been so quintessentially part of America.  I also share your hope for an economic recovery similar to that the U.S. experienced after WW II.  A recovery that is desperately needed. I can even find promise in some of your proposals, like making corporate taxes lower, simpler and with less loopholes.  An idea that conservatives have been pushing for years.

I admire your spirit and willingness to stick to your guns. These are qualities that are all to often lacking in modern politicians.  But you should know that while a strong will can be an asset, it can also be a weakness.  Often your speech was sprinkled with the divisive rhetoric we have seen all to much in Washington, rhetoric that seems to show a mind that is closed to the objections of others.  This is not helpful and like most Americans, I  believe we are divided enough.  You spoke of renewable energy and press for a future powered by it.  You do not seem to realize pushing technologies that have yet to prove their worth while pushing aside the ones we rely on today is a recipe for disaster.

Your criticism often seems unbalanced and your memory short.  You demonize Wall Street and banks who raked in profits during the real estate boom but fail to mention the role of government in creating the subprime mortgage market or the artificially low interest rates that fed the rush to invest in all things real estate. Some think this oversight is due to the fact that Democrats had a large hand in this debacle but you should know Republicans are not totally without blame. The fact you seem to want banks to continue many of the same policies that got us into the mess shows you either do not understand the crisis you are tasked with dealing with or have forgotten the mess it caused.

You also failed to deal with America’s most pressing issue, jobs. You call yourself a progressive but recently you have blamed unemployment on progress.  Do you not read history or appreciate the forces of capitalism? The factory loom displaced the handloomer as the car made the horse ferrier nearly extinct but the result was not less jobs but more! This is part of the power of capitalism, something you would do well to study.

You tout education reform and new Washington mandated rules on schools.  I too lament the condition of education in America.  The difference is, conservatives see the the decline of education as a consequence of increasing central control, you see central control as the answer.  This all leads to a fundamental question as to the role of government.  If Schools, the most local of functions, is now to be totally controlled out of Washington can we safely say that Federalism is dead?  If so, who gave you the power to declare it so?

Also Mr. President, why do you call for a return of the American dream but assail those that have achieved it?  You demonize the rich and call income disparity the greatest challenge facing America.  How so? In real dollars more people are wealthy and the wealth spread out more than ever before. Even the poor today live better then the well off a century before. Are you worried about real problems or playing on the envy and jealousies of society? Working the dark emotions of society I am sure has some political payoff but is it really a good strategy for rebuilding America?

Your philosophy seems to be based on the ideas of social and economic justice and your years as a community organizer. Do you really believe as Marx that the rich get wealthy off the backs of the poor? That somehow the wealthy owe a debt to the poor and it is the government’s duty to make sure they pay? Maybe you haven’t heard, but the wealthy already pay most of the taxes in this country and almost half the population do not pay any federal income tax at all! Do you think this is fair?  Do you not know that the majority of the wealthy in America come from the ranks of the poor and middle class? That it is the creative force of these exceptional Atlases that have created the society we live in and upon whose shoulders we stand.  Have you not reasoned that in a society built on voluntary exchange that a man does not become wealthy unless he creates even more wealth in society at large? Your increasing regulations, law changes, demonetization and pushes for increased taxation has made their jobs even tougher. Can you not see that the tougher you make it to succeed the less success there will be?

The truth is Mr. President the poor are poor  not because of exploitation as you seem to believe but solely because they live in a state of low productivity.  Stealing from one to subsidize another does not change this.  Can’t you see that it is not incumbent on the high achieving student to accept a B instead of an A so the D student can have a C.  This maybe the definition of fairness in your world but it is not for most everyone else.  Who is responsible, Mr. President, for the economic straits of the dropout or the drug addict, the rich or the person themselves? Yes it is true not all poor are poor because of their own choices, some are temporarily poor because of circumstances. I, unlike you, know poverty and have lived it and I know what it takes to move beyond it, do you? Your programs of wealth redistribution do nothing to alleviate poverty, to the contrary by subsidizing it you guarantee it will become even greater.

The greatest threat facing this country is not the ever present enemies from without and certainly not the gap between the rich and the poor, it is the mounting debt that is growing out of control.  President Obama, as the U.S. faces the twenty first century it is also sinking under mounds of debt, a debt that has increased faster under your watch then on any other.  Every family knows when debt becomes too great they must shrink their expenses, why can’t you understand this applies to governments as well. If a family cannot afford their house they must find a smaller one more appropriate to their income.  Is it not understandable that a country whose government is too big and expensive that the country must move to a smaller one?

I wish you health and happiness but I fear you have no clue how to deal with the problems of this country  I can only hope you soon find other another occupation more suited for your talents.

The Conservative Mind