by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
The US stock market has nose-dived. Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt, and prompting the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor\u2019s to downgrade America\u2019s multitrillion-dollar debt for the first time in 70 years.<\/p>\n
Unemployment is still over 9 percent. Private-sector businesses may have more than $1 trillion in cash, but they will be scared away from hiring or buying for as long as they fear new taxes, new regulations, new entitlement obligations, new plant shutdowns \u2014 or a new harangue.<\/p>\n
America\u2019s Gross Domestic Product is almost static. Every classical Keynesian remedy \u2014 massive government borrowing and spending (\u201cstimulus\u201d), near-zero interest rates, public works, expanded federal entitlements \u2014 has been tried and has failed; together they are turning a modest recovery into another recession. Neither the example of the socialist European Union nor that of big-spending blue-state America suggests that massive government spending and entitlements lead to collective prosperity.<\/p>\n
In response to this depressing news, President Obama still offers the same predictably stale sermons: George W. Bush did it. The tea-party fiscal reformers are to blame. Government will fund \u201cmillions of green jobs.\u201d Obama\u2019s political opponents want to destroy Social Security and Medicare.<\/p>\n
Imagine if President Obama simply stopped diverting blame and tried something different.<\/p>\n
There are vast new finds of natural gas, oil, and tar sands offshore and in the American West, the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, New York, and Alaska. This natural wealth represents hundreds of billions of dollars of savings in imported-energy costs and millions of new American jobs. Instead of lecturing about tire pressure and car tune-ups and encouraging people to trade in clunkers, the president could rally the country to go all out right now to develop its burgeoning fossil-fuel resources to supply our needs while we wait for the development of future green energy.<\/p>\n
Ever since he began campaigning for the presidency, Obama has hectored the private sector \u2014 talking nonstop of higher taxes, \u201cspreading the wealth,\u201d \u201cfat cat\u201d bankers, paying your \u201cfair share,\u201d \u201cmillionaires and billionaires,\u201d \u201ccorporate jet owners,\u201d and \u201cunneeded\u201d income.<\/p>\n
Such share-the-wealth tirades were matched with redistributive vendettas. Vast new financial regulations and red tape followed. A new trillion-dollar health-care entitlement was imposed on employers. The National Labor Relations Board is attempting to shut down a new Boeing aircraft plant. The federal government took over private businesses \u2014 and on occasion reversed the order of payment to private creditors. New environmental regulations have curbed energy and agricultural production. Lifelong academics and government functionaries, not businesspeople, staff the Obama Cabinet and head the administration\u2019s agencies.<\/p>\n
But imagine if the president had instead promoted profit-making \u2014 by cutting red tape, praising entrepreneurs, promising no new taxes or burdens on businesses, and offering incentives to open new plants inside the United States. In other words, what if small businesses and large corporations believed Obama to be a friend and partner, a leader who wanted them to make big profits, hire millions of workers, and enrich the country in the process?<\/p>\n
In the last three years, the president has increased the national debt by almost $5 trillion. But what if the president were to promise an end to the gargantuan spending and borrowing and were to accept the tax reforms and budget discipline offered by his own Simpson-Bowles Commission, but so far neglected by the administration?<\/p>\n
The United States should be in a renaissance. In a food- and fuel-short world, we have vast agricultural and energy resources. While there are riots, strikes, and unrest from Europe to the Middle East, America remains quiet. Foreign depositors even now still believe that the United States is the least likely nation to either confiscate their capital or renege on the interest owed on it. China, Russia, and India have enormous environmental, demographic, and social challenges ahead, of the same sort the United States dealt with decades ago. Our military is far superior to the competitors.<\/p>\n
After nearly three years of blaming, apologizing, and explaining what America cannot and should not do, it is past time for a confident President Obama to remind the country that we can do almost anything we wish.<\/p>\n
Instead of lecturing some Americans about why they owe their existing wealth to others, why not inspire them to create even bigger new profits to enrich everyone? And in these tough times, let the first family give up vacationing at Vail, Costa del Sol, and Martha\u2019s Vineyard; trim White House entertainment expenses; and set an example of thrift for the country to match new budget frugalities.<\/p>\n
In short, President Obama could end the current psychological depression and acrimony by promising to lead from the fore rather than continually harping from far behind.<\/p>\n
\u00a92011 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The US stock market has nose-dived. Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt, and prompting the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor\u2019s to downgrade America\u2019s multitrillion-dollar debt for the first time in 70 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[49,536],"tags":[12,42,1057,580,50,442,134,680,514,1052,592],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Do","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2433,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-paradoxes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Paradoxes","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Consider the myriad paradoxes of the Obama age. Unprecedented government borrowing is out of control, unsustainable, and finally causing financial markets to panic. Yet we are told that the necessary cutting ahead will further stall the stalled economy. We went from $9 trillion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2530,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/st-obama-and-the-debt-dragon\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":1},"title":"St. Obama and the Debt Dragon","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media \u201cReckless Fiscal Policies\u201d Why did Obama only enumerate George W. Bush\u2019s big spending as responsible for the out-of-control $14 trillion-plus debt, while not mentioning his own contribution of $5 trillion? Why is there a debt limit standoff now, rather than, say, in 2009 or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economic Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Economic Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/economic-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2488,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-president-in-recovery\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":2},"title":"Is the President in Recovery?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama does not care much about deficits \u2014 other than worrying that big debt might matter in his re-election campaign. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. Currently, the government is borrowing about 45 percent of everything that it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2403,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-old-not-enough-excuse\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":3},"title":"The Old ‘Not Enough’ Excuse","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services To newly inaugurated Barack Obama and his prime-the-pump technocrats, the logic seemed so simple. America's problem was a struggling economy. The solution was to spread around even more borrowed government money. The result would be a return to prosperity. But after nearly three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Unemployment"","block_context":{"text":"Unemployment","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/unemployment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-big-deficits-became-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":4},"title":"When Big Deficits Became Good","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush's chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2428,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/atlas-is-sorta-shrugging\/","url_meta":{"origin":2442,"position":5},"title":"Atlas Is Sorta Shrugging","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media \u201cThey Did It!\u201d The president just concluded a frenzied \u201cjobs\u201d bus tour to explain why unemployment is at 9.1% \u2014 after borrowing nearly $5 trillion in stimulus the last three years. You knowthe usual suspects\u00a0[1] responsible for our, not his, malaise: George Bush did\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2443,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions\/2443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}