HowObamaGetsReElectedIn2012Part4 <– PDF version
Governor Romney chose Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his Vice-Presidential running mate. This was a good policy choice on Mr. Romney’s part, since Mr. Ryan is known as a serious thinker on the nation’s debt and deficit problems. Mr. Ryan had previously put forth a plan to reduce spending and promote economic growth, probably the two most serious problems facing the nation today. Granted, it is only a plan, likely to have some defects, and no plan survives intact after budget negotiations. But at least it is something in writing to talk to and debate. Choosing Mr. Ryan shows that the Republicans are attempting to get serious about the nation’s finances: if Mr. Obama had a budget plan, surely we would have heard about it by now after more than three years in office.
But Mr. Romney is engaging in the most amateur sort of wishful thinking if he believes that Mr. Obama will allow himself or his supporters to be baited into having a genuine discussion about issues. A discussion about facts is the last thing Mr. Obama and his Party want; they have never won on that basis before.
The attacks on Mr. Romney have proceeded apace, somewhat in line with my predictions in part 3 of this series (23 Apr 2012). The most recent focus is on Medicare. Mr. David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign was all over the Sunday morning talk shows claiming that the Romney/Ryan budget plan would “end Medicare as we know it”. This is earth calling Mr. Axelrod, repeat, earth calling Mr. Axelrod: Medicare “as we know it” has already been changed via Mr. Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), which decreases funding for Medicare by about $700 billion over the next decade. Perhaps it is too much trouble for Mr. Axelrod to read the legislation his Party has already passed. Mr. Axelrod went on to complain that Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were out of touch with regular Americans on the Medicare system. He said on NBC’s Meet the Press (12 Aug 2012) that the basic issue facing the voters was to evaluate the Republicans on the basis of “do you believe in Medicare or do you not ….. I don’t believe they [Romney and Ryan] believe in that program”.
Why should any voter believe in Medicare? The members of Congress don’t (Republicans or Democrats), the President doesn’t (nor his predecessors, regardless of party), and neither do any of their senior staff. Members of Congress are covered in retirement by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, a system of private health insurance, same as they have while in office. How many of them will give up the private plan for Medicare after they retire? It is worse than that: all of the aforementioned persons and their families are exempt from Obamacare as well (probably the only part of the bill they actually verified before voting for it). Only when our ruling elites have demonstrated their faith in Medicare will they be eligible to sit on their high horses, look down their noses at us, and lecture us that it is our patriotic duty to “believe in Medicare”. The only way to establish the true cost of anything is to let the market set the price. When the government intervenes, as in Medicare, the true costs are distorted generally upward, and the government picks winners and losers to compensate. Presently, it is the doctors and hospitals that are chosen to take the loss on caring for the elderly.
This is one example of the mindless hypocrisy that will further enable Mr. Obama to be re-elected, in this case, by scaring the elderly. The pro-Obama mainstream media will of course pretend not to notice. But we cannot blame the media entirely. A suitably large number of American voters have bought into the free-lunch theory offered by Marxism; they vote accordingly, and we get the ruling elites we have.
I have outlined many reasons in this series why I think Mr. Obama will win re-election. It seems he is vulnerable only if the U-3 unemployment rate goes back above 8.5%, or another financial meltdown occurs, or the stock market declines more than 20%. The tide of Marxism in America is otherwise too strong.
