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America’s Pathway To Decline
Jeffrey Kuhner
RightBias.com
December 29, 2012
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This year has been a turning point in American history. Our constitutional
republic is dying. President Obama’s re-election was more than a victory for
liberalism. It represented America’s collective suicide — a national push into a
fiscal, cultural and moral abyss. We are sliding toward Greece.
Mr. Obama won despite chronic high unemployment, rising inflation and
skyrocketing deficits. Our national debt stands at more than $16 trillion. We
are the most indebted nation in history. It is almost impossible to dig our way
out of this massive financial hole. Even if the president gets everything he
wants in tax increases on the wealthy, it will only pay for 11 days of the
government’s annual spending. It is class warfare masquerading as serious public
policy. His soak-the-rich rhetoric is nothing more than smoke and mirrors,
casting the illusion that he knows — or even cares — how to solve the debt
crisis.
America faces a seminal reality: We are broke, and we are getting broker by the
day. This is the real “fiscal cliff” the country is about to jump off, not the
artificial one consuming Washington. Instead of confronting our looming
insolvency, the electorate voted to take the plunge. It ratified Mr. Obama’s
drive to erect the equivalent of a Franco-German welfare state. Consider
Obamacare, the massive stimulus, failed green-energy boondoggles, record numbers
on food stamps, constant extensions of unemployment benefits, public housing
subsidies, unprecedented government spending and free contraception. Voters
chose economic security over individual opportunity, handouts instead of
self-reliance, statism over capitalism. Rather than rebuking Mr. Obama, they
rewarded him.
His plan calls for piling trillions more upon the national debt. By 2016, the
United States’ debt ratio will reach that of Greece and other Euro-socialist
basket cases. Once international creditors realize this, and they will soon,
America’s days as an economic superpower will be over. We will no longer be able
to borrow to subsidize our deficit spending — or at least not without being
charged much higher interest rates. America’s budget will be devoured by
servicing the debt. This will squeeze funding for government programs and social
services. Crushing taxes will have to be imposed. Low growth will become
permanent. The American dream will fade away. We are doing to ourselves what
imperial Britain, the Axis powers and Soviet Russia were unable to do to us:
destroy our unique system of limited government and personal liberty.
A key reason for Mr. Obama’s success is his cult of personality. He is deified
by large segments of the liberal establishment. Hollywood practically worships
him. For example, actor Jamie Foxx recently referred to the president as “our
Lord and Savior.” University faculties support him. Public unions rally to him.
Environmentalists praise him. The homosexual and feminist lobbies adore him.
Liberals in the media champion him. In fact, under his administration there has
grown an incestuous government-media complex. Major outlets — the New York
Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, CNN
and MSNBC — act as little more than mouthpieces for the administration. Several
weeks ago, MSNBC hosts including Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence
O’Donnell visited Mr. Obama. Their goal: to perfectly toe the administration’s
line on budget negotiations with Republicans. The free press is fading and being
replaced by sycophants and palace courtiers, cravenly serving the Democrats in
power.
For decades, the secular left’s aim has been to transform America into a
European-style social democracy. Yet the more we become like Europe, the less
American we become. Now we’re a centralized, big-government mutant our Founding
Fathers would find not only unrecognizable but repulsive. Our unique national
identity is dissolving. American exceptionalism is in danger of becoming a thing
of the past. Just like Europe, we can no longer pay our bills, generate economic
dynamism or, eventually, even maintain our military might. An expensive
entitlement state is incompatible with superpower status, and eventually,
defense budgets must be scaled back to make way for free contraceptives and
nationalized health care. One cannot have both butter and guns. Ask the Germans,
the British, the French or the Japanese. Their days in the sun are over.
The real meaning of the Obama presidency is the end of America’s greatness. The
sad fact is the American people chose this path.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist and editorial writer at The Washington
Times. He is also the host of “The Kuhner Report” from 6 to 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
to noon EST on WRKO AM-680 (www.wrko.com) in Boston.
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