More of the Same

…from the best damn change-maker [Bill Clinton has] met in my entire lifeIndeed,

Mrs Clinton has been clear. She wants to serve as Mr. Obama’s political and policy heir, as she and he now admit. This won’t mean “change” unless the Clintons have an unusual personal definition of that word, as they do for “classified material.” A de facto third Obama term will mean the status quo, only more of it.

Here’s what Obama has accomplished with his policies, and Clinton has made no bones about wanting to do even more of it.

The slowest recovery from a recession since WWII—a period that encompasses a dozen recessions, culminating in the Panic of 2008.

  • labor force participation rate is at a 40 year low
  • median real household income remains lower than it was before the Panic
  • unemployment rate, even accounting for that greatly depressed labor force participation rate, didn’t recover even nominally until 5-6 years after the official end of the Panic against a normal interval of 2-3 years after the end of a recession
  • the national debt has been doubled and is growing because
  • the budget deficit, exploded in the years immediately following the Panic and dropping for a time after that has begun growing again

Rapid retreat from the world

  • Russia now occupies a partitioned Georgia and Ukraine (yes, Russia had invaded Georgia prior to this administration’s accession, but Obama has accepted the resulting partition)
  • Russia has attacked with impunity the Baltic States and Poland with cyber war
  • Russia threatens nuclear war against any European nation that builds is military defenses beyond what Russia would permit with this administration’s silence on the matter
  • abrogation of commitments to Poland and Czech Republic to deploy missile defense systems on the demand of Russia. We have yet to see whether this administration will follow through on a new commitment to Romania
  • People’s Republic of China occupation of the South China Sea
  • PRC repudiation of the International Court’s ruling against the PRC regarding the South China Sea, answered with US…silence
  • conclusion of an agreement with Iran that not only permits it to develop nuclear weapons, codifies that “right”
  • weakening of our ties with Israel
  • weakening of our ties with Great Britain, including Obama’s economic threat that if Great Britain leaves the EU, they will be pushed to the back of the bus queue on any trade deals with us

Here’s how Clinton wants to extend the domestic same old-same old, acceding to the demands of Independent Socialist Senator Sanders (I—he walked away from the D as soon as that no longer was convenient—VT).  We can’t afford four more years of no change, especially from a change-maker who’s promising unchanged-making.

  • subsidies ages 0 to 5
  • spending allegedly earmarked for public works (read, her crony capitalists)
  • wage controls for higher federal minimum
  • a right to child care
  • free college; a Medicare-like public health insurance option and administrative prices for new drugs;

With all of this paid for by even higher taxes, including a nearly doubling of the top tax rate on long-term capital gains to 43.4% from 23.8%, which is about as anti-investment and job-killing as it’s possible to get.

2 thoughts on “More of the Same

  1. Although I agree with most of what you say, I’m not sure that codifying a right for Iran to build nuclear weapons is as bad as you suggest. I’ve seen enough voices on the right cogently argue (e.g., http://shadydealings.net/stuff/Iran.pdf ) that history supports a nuclear Iran being less dangerous, not more.

    • The underlying premises of the Shady Dealings unsigned article are mistaken. I’ll dispense with the simplest first: it doesn’t matter if Iranian women can drive (or that the Iranian people aren’t so very different from us)–they’re not the ones who’ll make the decision to use nuclear weapons.

      And that brings me to my next point. Deterrence depends utterly on the willingness of the deterree to be deterred. The leadership of Iran doesn’t care. Indeed, Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is the senior advisor of Khamenei, has said of a nuclear exchange with Israel, the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam. There’s not much deterrence there.

      Further, Iran is long-sworn to exterminate Israel; when it gets nuclear weapons, it will have the means to do so. A nuclear-armed Iran has further danger: they’ll give/sell nuclear weapons to their client terrorist entities.

      A nuclear-armed Iran will be extremely dangerous. And I haven’t gotten to the nuclear arms race that would ensue.

      Eric Hines

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