Politics
Dick Morris’ Political Prophecy
Dick Morris served in the Clinton administration and was the political strategist behind Clinton’s widely successful “triangulation” strategy. I do not always agree with him, but in terms of political instincts I value his wisdom and perspective. This recent article is a sobering look at the coming four years in American political and economic history. It’s quite troublesome and appears almost prophetic to me–not in a literal sense, but a thoughtful prediction. I share it with you because I agree with many of Morris’ concerns and want all of us to rise up in prayer and action. Most “prophecies” are conditional. Let’s shape this one by our own courageous acts.
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 20, 2009
2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.
Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.
In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy. But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent. (These data and the real story of Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s missteps, uncolored by ideology, are available in The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, copyright 2007.)
But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.
Obama’s record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements. These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit — indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible — Obama will do them all rather quickly.
But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.
Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.
In the name of stabilizing the banking system, Obama will nationalize it. Using Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to write generous checks to needy financial institutions, his administration will demand preferred stock in exchange. Preferred stock gets dividends before common stockholders do. With the massive debt these companies will owe to the government, they will only be able to afford dividends for preferred stockholders — the government, not private investors. So who will buy common stock? And the government will demand that its bills be paid before any profits that might materialize are reinvested in the financial institution, so how will the value of the stocks ever grow? Devoid of private investors, these institutions will fall ever more under government control.
Obama will begin the process by limiting executive compensation. Then he will urge restructuring and lowering of home mortgages in danger of default (as the feds have already done with Citibank).
Then will come guidance on the loans to make and government instructions on the types of enterprises to favor. God grant that some Blagojevich type is not in charge of the program, using his power to line his pockets. The United States will find itself with an economic system comparable to that of Japan, where the all-powerful bureaucracy at MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) manages the economy, often making mistakes like giving mainframe computers priority over the development of laptops.
But it is the health care system that will experience the most dramatic and traumatic of changes. The current debate between erecting a Medicare-like governmental single payer or channeling coverage through private insurance misses the essential point. Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that now serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And, as government imposes ever more Draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question, so the government will impose health care rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral.)
And Obama will move to change permanently the partisan balance in America. He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote. If they go by top-heavy margins for the Democrats, as they did in 2008, it will assure Democratic domination (until they move up the economic ladder and become good Republicans).
And he will enact the check-off card system for determining labor union representation, repealing the secret ballot in union elections. The result will be to raise the proportion of the labor force in unions up to the high teens from the current level of about 12 percent.
Finally, he will use the expansive powers of the Federal Communications Commission to impose “local” control and ownership of radio stations and to impose the “fairness doctrine” on talk radio. The effect will be to drive talk radio to the Internet, fundamentally change its economics, and retard its growth for years hence.
But none of these changes will cure the depression. It will end when the private sector works through the high debt levels that triggered the collapse in the first place. And, then, the large stimulus package deficits will likely lead to rapid inflation, probably necessitating a second recession to cure it.
So Obama’s name will be mud by 2012 and probably by 2010 as well. And the Republican Party will make big gains and regain much of its lost power.
But it will be too late to reverse the socialism of much of the economy, the demographic change in the electorate, the rationing of health care by the government, the surge of unionization and the crippling of talk radio.
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!
Obama’s First Week: Change You Can Fear
President Barack Obama’s first week in office is history. Because he is a relative unknown with a thin resume for the US presidency, there’s been a question in many minds whether he is really a centrist-pragmatist politician or an ultra-left ideologue. The early verdict is in–and the results are discouraging. Far-left ideologue fits the bill so far. Three first-week directives given by the new president bode badly for America’s safety, the struggling economy, and for the most vulnerable among us–little children.
THE WAR ON TERROR
President Obama’s first presidential oder set in motion the closing of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison within a year. This was a promise he’d made to his radical anti-war base, and he wasted no time in fulfilling it. Essentially the Obama administration is taking us back to the pre-9-11 days where enemy combatants are treated as domestic instead of terrorists. It was the policy of the former Clinton administration that encouraged the first Trade Center bombings, the attack on the US Cole, and ultimately set the table for the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001. In closing Gitmo, the new administration has no plan where the terrorists will go–they’ve just decided to give them rights and privileges that will probably bring them to our shores and assure that some make their way back to the theaters of the world where they can kill more people. Robert Gibbs, the administration’s new press secretary, was careful in his first press conference to not use the words “war on terror.” They either think the war is over or that there is a more humane way to prosecute it. Obama is not being very FDR-like here. Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans who were even suspected of being at war with the US. President Obama is giving privileges to those who killed three thousand of our fellow countrymen.
The president also moved quickly to disband the effective interrogation tactics that the Bush administration used to prevent another attack on American soil for the past seven years. Interrogation sites in Europe will be closed, water-boarding banned, and our military will now have to ask our enemies “Please” and “Thank you” in obtaining important information that could save lives. If one of the priorities of the US president is to “protect and defend” the people of America, then President Obama’s first week was a failure. We are now more vulnerable to attack, our enemies have been emboldened, and if–God-forbid–another 9-11 comes to our nation, there will be one person who is responsible: Barack Hussein Obama.
Some willing accomplices, who should also be held in contempt, are the New York Times, Washington Post, and other liberal media outlets who have cried foul against “torture” for years. They say we need to live out our values–take the high moral ground–treat people humanely. Well, we do. We’re Americans–and we believe in human life and its special creation in the image of God. The left has co-opted the torture issue simply because no one can clearly define it. Let me give it a try: Torture is inflicting permanent or long-term physical or psychological pain to a human being for the purpose of gaining their cooperation. We can all imagine, thanks to Hollywood, what this might entail including cutting, burning or tearing the body, or afflicting the mind to the point of mental damage or long-term affects. The US does none of these. We have used strong, but humane forms of persuasion to get our enemies to divulge secrets that have saved many lives. But no more. Obama’s first acts have gutted these necessary defenses. We are now less safe.
THE WAR ON THE ECONOMY
President Obama also continues to pursue a 850 billion to 1.2 trillion “stimulus package” to try and get the American economy back on track. But the approach is wrong and will only prolong and deepen the pain that is spreading through our financial markets and businesses. Obama’s economic team–supposedly very bright people (except one who cheated on his taxes)–want the federal government to “spend us” out of the recession. But as history shows, this is the wrong path to take. To get America going again we don’t need more federal fiat dollars. We need government, banks, businesses, and individuals to correct their debt-laden ways–and we need Uncle Sam to slash taxes and regulations that are throttling both recovery and economic growth.
I’m reading a fascinating book right now called The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy If We Let It Happen. It’s written by three economists, one of which is Dr. Arthur Laffer, the famous originator of the Laffer Curveand the brains behind supply side economics. It was Laffer’s advice to Ronald Reagan on tax cuts in the early 80s that led to an unprecedented twenty-five year boom in the American economy from 1982-2007. During those years “America, Inc. climbed in real terms from $25 trillion in 1980 to $57 trillion in 2007. More wealth was created in the United States over the past twenty-five years than in the previous two hundred years.” This low-tax engine of growth included:
- Between 2001 and 2007 the number of Americans with a net worth of $1 million quadrupled from 2.1 million to 8.9 million. The rich expanded their ranks.
- In 1967 only one in 25 families earned an income of $100,000, whereas today over one in four families do. The percentage of families with an income of more than $75,000 a year has more than tripled from 9 percent in 1967 to almost 33 percent from 1967 to 2005. The middle class grew.
- The percentage of families in income groups between $5000 and $50,000 has dropped 19% since 1967. The number of poor people is shrinking. (All figures above are adjusted for inflation.)
Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter Tanous applaud both Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Ronald Reagan for understanding the keys to economic growth. Both cut tax rates that hindered entrepreneurs and capital investment. They also take to task Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter–two Ds and two Rs–whom they call the “Four Stooges.” These presidents didn’t understand economic principles and caused America to flounder during the sixties and seventies (the last major recession). The authors say that Bill Clinton eventually got it right with the help of Newt Gingrich and Co. and George Bush did the right thing on taxes, but not on spending.
They’re greatly concerned about Barack Obama and team: “If Washington turns all the policy dials in the wrong direction, just as sure as the sun rises in the morning, the US economic growth machine will grind to a halt. That is, in fact, the central premise of this book: Economic policy matters. Incentives matter (lowering taxes). Prosperity doesn’t happen by accident, and growth is not the natural course of events; it has to be nurtured and rewarded.” Their advice to President Obama: “Lower taxes–better yet, abolish the IRS, enact a 12% flat tax and champion free trade.” As of his first week, the president is acting like the fifth Stooge. He wants to secure his political base by distributing government pork all over the countryside–increasing government and its tentacles. It’s a recipe for another Depression.
THE WAR ON CHILDREN
Probably the saddest event of President Obama’s first week was expanding the death grip of abortion in American culture. Gone from the presidential web-site was George Bush’s encouragement on the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday or any other pro-life information. In its place was language supporting abortion rights, including this passage:
“President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Administration. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.”
Thus, one of first presidential orders signed by President Obama was allowing federal tax dollars to be used for abortions and “family planning services” around the world. Though a clear majority in this nation are opposed to abortion on demand, your tax dollars will now be used to kill unborn babies in the womb. This is something that should lead us to weep for our children. I also encourage you to write President Obama and ask him to rescind the evil order. (Click HERE to send an e-mail.) Maybe we need to start another tax revolt to let our government know that the Declaration of Independence asserts a God-given right to life and that we refuse to let our tax monies be used without “representation.”
It’s been a bad week for America.
- The nation’s less safe
- The economy’s less safe
- And the children are less safe.
Let’s pray for forgiveness, repentance, faith in God and his ways, and a change of direction. Otherwise, all we’re left holding is a change you can fear.
Why Obama Won
Now that the dust has settled on the 2008 presidential election, it might be helpful to analyze why Barack Obama was elected America’s 44th American president. As stated in a previous column, though I did not vote for Mr. Obama, I believe it is very important to pray for him, support his efforts when we agree, and wish him well in his new responsibilities. He deserves credit for winning a highly contested election and making history by becoming the first African American president of the United States.
How did he do it? Let’s look first at the positive things President-elect Obama did in defeating John McCain and the Republicans:
1. Big Vision – Barack Obama won the battle of Grand Ideas with his vision of hope and message of change. He began that journey with his book The Audacity of Hope and grew the message into the over-arching theme of “Changing the Status Quo in Washington D.C.” and leading the nation in a new direction. His big picture view resonated with the people of America and drew them to his side.
2. Communication Skills – Barack Obama is a gifted orator who drew massive crowds and support with his speaking abilities. His words were articulate, his style was personal, and he had all the good mannerisms of an African American preacher. Though Ronald Reagan is called the Great Communicator, Barack Obama certainly inherits that title with the new generation. His golden tongue was a major factor in building an army that would carry him to victory.
3. Disciplined Message– Barack Obama was also very careful to stay on message during the campaign. It was hope and change, hope and change, and more hope and change. He rarely got side-tracked from his political mantra or lost in petty details and arguments. His advisers should be given kudos for keeping him on message through the ups and downs of the long haul. He was the consistent candidate.
4. Strong Organization– He also formed a powerful political machine that brought him millions of donors and thousands of volunteers who turned out the vote. It was Obama’s organizational strategy of focusing on the caucus states with paid volunteers that led to his upset of Hillary Clinton in Iowa and eventually derailed the Clinton juggernaut. In the general election, he mobilized the strongest grassroots effort to share his message and get people to the polls. In many states, 40-50% of the population were personally contacted by Obama volunteers. The McCain campaign could only muster 30% in the best of states. And his use of the new media including texting, Facebook, and MySpace proved decisive. The young still didn’t vote in larger numbers in this election–but a sizable majority of those who voted cast their votes for Obama.
These positive qualities of vision, communication, discipline and organization must be re-learned by the Republicans and other candidates if they seek to win elections. Barack Obama has set a new standard in critical areas that bring victory.
But there were also a number of negative factors that contributed to the 53% to 46% Obama victory. Based on Obama’s positives and circumstantial factors we we will mention later, this race should have been the biggest blow-out in history. It wasn’t. It didn’t come close to Reagan’s 1984 electoral landslide nor LBJ’s 1964 popular vote victory. That’s because quite a few people were concerned with the negative aspects of Barack Obama the person and the candidate. These include:
1. Deceptive Imaging – The Obama election was a victory of style over substance. For all his quirks, John McCain had the greater substance–he was a war hero who stood for a strong military, tax cuts for all, judicial restraint, and pro-family-pro-life issues. But Barack Obama had the better style–with the soaring rhetoric, special effects, and glitzy advertising. In terms of historic American positions, he was all bun and no beef. He even pretended to be center-right on numerous issues, when his record had been nothing short of 100% liberal. He also posed as bi-partisan and inclusive while his actions showed that he rarely crossed the aisle to listen to the other side. If a lie is defined as “an intended deception,” then the Obama campaign was littered with them. It was very reminiscent of the nation’s last Democrat in office, Bill “it depends on the meaning of the word IS” Clinton. Liberals call it nuanced and thoughtful. Most of us call it lying.
2. Covering up the past – Barack Obama was also very clever about covering up his suspect and radical past. His birth and education records are all sealed. What’s he trying to hide? He spent twenty years in a liberation theology church, then cast his spiritual father off the boat when he threatened his campaign. His formative years were filled with radical friendships that he mostly denied or shrugged off as meaningless and distant associations. In 1984, an affair derailed Gary Hart’s path to the presidential nomination. Barack Obama’s ties to an unrepentant terrorist didn’t cause a blink of an eye to 53% of Americans. If a person is “hot,” do we no longer care who they really are or who they work with?
3. Racism – There’s no doubt that Barack Obama received 95% of the black vote in America because racism still exists–just in reverse. Blacks voted for him because he is black. If whites vote for people because they’re white, then it’s racism. But not the other way around. Obama also exploited the issue by playing up the race card on a number of occasions while John McCain chose to take the high moral ground. Dr. Martin Luther King wanted people to vote for individuals on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. That lesson remains to be learned in 21st century America.
4. Media Bias – Sean Hannity called it “the year that journalism died” and I tend to agree. From the moment Barak Obama announced his candidacy, the main stream press backed him without shame all the way through election day. They didn’t vet him. They rarely reported negative stories. They actively campaigned for him. His smiling face was everywhere. This was a huge reason he defeated Hillary Clinton and it certainly propelled him in the general election. He was the “media’s candidate.” And just who is the mainstream media? They’re the Big Three broadcast stations (ABC, NBC, and CBS), cable network’s CNN, the three leading national newspapers and their affiliates (New York and LA Times and the Washington Post), and the AP wire service. These news organizations, though in decline, still control the majority of news reporting in America. By everyone’s count, they were about 70% pro-Obama and 30% pro-McCain. This alone was probably a $200 million advertising gift to Obama-Biden. Why did they support him? Because these news outlets lean leftward. For example: Only 8% of them weekly attend church, as opposed to 40% of Americans. So their view is limited–and the only person in their sights was Barack Hussein Obama.
There were also a number of large circumstantial factors in Barack Obama’s election victory. The unpopularity of the Iraq War was big, though the issue was on the backburner. The hatred of George Bush and incompetence of the Republican Party was a big part. Another factor was the lack of a strong conservative alternative to run against Obama. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee canceled each other out in the primaries and the mantel fell to John McCain. Sarah Palin brought back the conservative enthusiasm with huge crowds and All-American appeal, but she was in the number two slot. And then there was the biggest circumstantial factor–the economic meltdown which was blamed on the current administration. John McCain was ahead
by ten points in September, but after the disastrous bank bailout, Barack Obama surged to a lead he never lost. People blamed the Republicans for the mess though many of us would argue that liberal politicians over the past sixty years are primarily to blame. (Click here to see my October 7 article on this subject.)
But the greatest single factor in Barack Obama’s election as the 44th president of the United States is something you probably won’t hear on CBS. Here are some sobering statistics:
- In 2004 22% of Christian evangelicals voted for John Kerry. In 2008 32% of them voted for Barack Obama–a ten point increase.
- Protestants as a whole cast 45% of their votes for Obama.
- Catholics gave him 54%.
That was the ball-game–the margin of victory. It was professing Christians–especially evangelical Christians, voting for a far left, anti-Christian president that determined the 2008 election. God gave us who we wanted–with Christians casting the deciding votes.
Now you know why “judgment begins with the house of God” in the coming years (1 Peter 4:17) and why the greatest need in America is the spiritual revival of the church. It’s also our greatest hope–not the election of a man–but the hope of nationwide revival of the people of God through the power of Jesus Christ.