OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

by Rod Blum

How would you evaluate President Obama's performance thus far?

Obama administration ushering in socialism

In nearly every policy area, he wants to tax, spend and control. Citizens need to act before we lose our freedoms to big government.

In 1927, Norman Thomas, a six-time candidate for president on the American Socialist Party ticket, said, "The American people will never vote for socialism. But under the name of liberalism, the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program."

The threat of socialism has always been with us, but at this moment -- under unchecked Democrat rule -- the threat is real. Russia's newspaper, the Pravda, recently featured a column that said, "Like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless people." Even Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned Barack Obama against adopting further socialism, saying Russian history clearly proves it is a recipe for failure. "Any fourth-grade student knows socialism has failed in every country, at every time in history," said Putin.

Last November, millions of Americans voted for a first-term senator about whom they knew little. His voting record was the most liberal in the Senate but his rhetoric was moderate, so many voters took a chance. After Obama's first four months in office, voters' doubts have been answered: Obama is a European-style socialist. Simply put, he wants to tax, spend and control. In everything from his economic policy to his energy policy, Obama is moving the country from a traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to a European model of regulation and government control. I don't think the American people knowingly voted for this type of power grab.

Obama came into office highly critical of the previous administration's spending and deficits. Well! His proposed deficit over the next two years is an astonishing $3 trillion, or $27,000 of debt per U.S. household. George Bush might have spent like a drunken sailor, but Obama's spending orgy makes Bush look like a teetotaler. Government spending soars by 30 percent to $3.9 trillion in the Democrat's 2009 budget. Furthermore, Obama projects $500 billion deficits as far as the eye can see despite saying, "We are out of money now" in a recent CSPAN interview. During the debates he vowed to carefully scrub the budget line by line for programs that did not work. Toward that end he recently asked his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a minuscule .0027 percent of the budget! That's the equivalent of a family of four cutting $1 from its annual budget.

We are also now witnessing the most radical meddling of the government in private industry ever as we've quickly become "bailout nation." Taxpayers will spend at least $10 billion on Chrysler, $50 billion on GM, $170 billion on AIG, $700 billion for the TARP bank fund, $400 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $29 billion to Bear Stearns and the list goes on. Up next -- the health care and energy industries. When does this insanity stop?

From his pro-abortion stance to his "blame America first" mindset, this president does not share the values of most voters. We did not elect a leader who punishes the job creators in America while warmly embracing two-bit dictators whose goal is the destruction of America. He is a leader who closes the highly successful school voucher program for needy children in Washington while bailing out fiscally irresponsible states. What can we do? Well, you and I can do a great deal. Contact your elected officials. Participate in Tea Party protests. But please DO SOMETHING before we lose our individual liberties and freedoms to big government.