Well, today’s the day. Either Barack Obama gets re-elected for another four year term, or Mitt Romney becomes our new President. I already voted via mail-in ballot a few weeks ago, and my vote (not surprisingly for anyone who reads this blog) was for the Romney/Ryan ticket.
Many of us on the right see this election as a tipping point. Should Obama be re-elected, the United States is on the road to ruin because the results will show that the majority of Americans believe that larger government, higher taxation, and more entitlements are the way to go. Mr. Obama, aided by a Democratic House and Senate the first two years of his term, pushed through ridiculous spending to the tune a $6 trillion deficit. While fans of Paul Krugman believe that spending is the fast way to growth, it’s done nothing in the past four years to create jobs or provide economic growth. The economy has stagnated, and we now have more debt per capita than that bastion of economic stability, Greece.
Higher taxes will be coming in January unless stopped by Congress and/or a new administration. Obama’s fiscal cliff is on the way: in case you’ve been blissfully aware of what that is, here’s a quote from About.com: “Among the laws set to change at midnight on December 31, 2012, are the end of last year’s temporary payroll tax cuts (resulting in a 2% tax increase for workers), the end of certain tax breaks for businesses, shifts in the alternative minimum tax that would take a larger bite, the end of the tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the beginning of taxes related to President Obama’s health care law. At the same time, the spending cuts agreed upon as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect. According to Barron’s, over 1,000 government programs – including the defense budget and Medicare are in line for “deep, automatic cuts.”
Anyone who believes that those program cuts won’t affect everyone in this country in a negative way has no clue how our economy works. Let’s say that sequestration goes into effect and those cuts take place — the defense industry, as an example, will see an automatic 10% cut in spending. These are cuts across ALL programs — the industry cannot pick and choose where the spending cuts will be made. So defense contractors will lay off at least 10% of their staff, many of whom are highly skilled engineers and machinists. Those people will cut their spending while looking for new jobs: no going on vacation, no heading to the theater to see the latest Hollywood film, no purchasing of the latest Apple tech toys. The travel industry, Hollywood, and Apple will all see adverse effects, and I’m just using a tiny example of the industries that will be hit.
And of course, to meet the ever-rising demands of the Obama constituency, new and expensive entitlement programs will rise to make a new generation of voters dependent on the Democratic Party. If the idiotic ads that inundated the airwaves during this election cycle are any indication, every woman in the country wants free birth control pills and an abortion (kind of contradictory, isn’t it?), so we’ll probably have some federal women’s health initiative. Public schools, which did just fine before the unnecessary Department of Education was foisted on Americans in 1979, will undoubtedly be the beneficiary of some new Obama program, just to keep the union schoolteachers and administrators voting the “correct” way.
Worst of all, and most damaging to our future as a nation, will be Obama’s march to a socialist state. At some point, he’ll have to replace the conservative and moderate voices in the Supreme Court with young, socialist high court members to further erode the Constitution. He’ll continue to push against the Second Amendment rights of Americans, something that could result in a mass revolt if he doesn’t watch it.
So, what if I’m pleasantly surprised tonight and Americans vote in droves for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan? I don’t expect miracles — after all, they’ll still have a Democratic senate (which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed will “not work with Romney”) to contend with. But I don’t think that Mitt Romney is going to blame his predecessor for four years, like Barack Obama has done to cover his vast inadequacies. Romney will buckle down and compromise; it’s always the Republicans who compromise, and they understand the old adage that “a half a loaf is better than none.”
Romney will keep the tax cuts from the Bush and Obama years (yes, Obama did extend his predecessor’s tax cuts), and will most likely look to further tax cuts across the board to stimulate consumer and business spending. For government spending, I’m hopeful that the Paul Ryan budget cuts will come into play, reducing unnecessary waste and government that we never asked for.
Yes, Romney would load the court with conservative and moderate justices; primarily those men and women who would work to uphold our constitutional rights. And those justices would probably overthrow Roe vs. Wade and put the question of abortion back where it belongs — in the individual states.
We’ll find out tonight or tomorrow which way the wind blows.
