Recently, the defeated Mitt Romney summed up his loss to Obama by declaring that the democrat won by offering "gifts" to swing voters. And they responded.
Some went to the polls thinking, "Obama is more likely to preserve Medicare than Romney. I'll vote for Obama."
Others thought, "Obama is sure to deliver amnesty to my illegal alien family members, so he gets my vote."
Still others mulled over the entitlements of food stamps, unemployment benefits, free cell phones, child tax credits for illegal aliens, mortgage forgiveness, free college, school loan relief...and voted for Obama over Romney.
Strangely, Romney wasn't a real hard-liner when it came to entitlements. In fact, if he did what he was talking about on the campaign trail, he would be a bigger spender than GWB. Maybe he wouldn't set records like Obama has, but he didn't talk like a slash and burn candidate.
As for taxes, if you listened closely Romney was proposing a plan to give you your money back with one hand and take it away with the other.
And just like the campaign, we see this fiscal cliff rhetoric as more of the same dabbling in the sand with a tidal wave at our backs. No one is paying the least bit of attention to the debt clock. It looms so large that both parties are pretending it doesn't exist.
Obama is stuck in a loop like a pull-string doll. "All I am asking is that the richest 3% of Americans pay a little bit more." The GOP response is that we must cut spending, meaning a few hundred billion to make them look fiscally responsible.
The truth is Washington hasn't even tried to be fiscally responsible for decades. Those Washington shut-down days were alarms that went unheard by our elected leaders. Efforts to require a balanced budget have been replaced with years of no budget at all.
Why? Because telling Americans the truth is a negative message. Politicians do not win elections by telling people, "No." Responsible parents know that you have to deny some things to your children. They always want a pony and a trip to Disneyland and a car and a spring break trip...but it is neither wise nor affordable to give it to them.
Apparently, no one in Washington has ever raised children. So fate will take over and teach us all the austerity lesson. Time will tell if the children will, like the Greeks, take to the streets demanding their entitlements from a broke treasury.
But for now it seems that bread and circuses will win the day. The blinders are firmly in place.
The trapeze performers were better last year, don't you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment