To President Obama and the Republicans in Congress: Throw Pelosi/Reid and Leftism Overboard

by Justin La Grange

After President Obama's productive interlude with Republican members of Congress, I cannot help but believe the President found it refreshing to engage with rational intelligent congresspersons with policy heft and suave, unlike the irrational SP nutcases in his party such as Barbara Lee, Henry Waxman, and Nancy Pelosi, all of whom are dragging him down like an anvil in quicksand with their polarizing hard-left ideologies. Secretly, President Obama and the Republican Congress can build synergies if they align now rather than after what will be a backbreaking defeat in 2010 which will render Democrats in Congress politically useless.

As they say, if you can't beat them, join 'em. If your friends in Congress want to jump off a cliff, are you going to join them just because they're your slightly slow secular-progressive Starbucks latte drinking friends?

At this point, President Obama knows he has two options with 2010 looming: Option 1 -- Create synergies with Republican members of Congress in order to build a successful trans-government coalition that will catapault President Obama to electoral success in 2012 or, Option 2 -- remain with Democratic allies through 2010 who will go firebombing in defeat, stubbornly refuse to build a coalition with the ideologically conservative majority, and continue to be a man on fire until extinguished in 2012.

Politics above all is a game of survival. When Option 1 is your only game of self-preservation, you better darn well take it, botox lady be damned.

Politics is also a game of political calculus. There are two key words to describe the political calculus in this country: center-right. What do 1976-1980, 1993-1994, and 2009-2010 have in common? They were not center-right, were dominated primarily by left-wing elements, and firebombed magnificently.

President Clinton was determined not to firebomb, and as the Clinton machine is based purely on political opportunism and political calculus, he swerved to the right, implimenting center-right legislation from the spring of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America, and rewrote history by calling it his own. To no one with a brain's surprise, this trans-government center-right coalition was magnificently successful, propelling him to a second term in 1996 (in no small part thanks to the grouchy Bob Dole) and a record as one of history's better "operational" presidents (minus Juanita Broadderick, Monica Lewinsky, impeachment proceedings, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers, Marc Rich, disbarrment from the US Supreme Court, renting the Lincoln Bedroom, etc).

So you see, President Obama can adopt the Clinton model, and even be completely smarter about it and redirect a centrist course now. Actually, it is imperative. To complicate things for Mr. Obama, he faces a larger credibility and suspicion gap than Mr. Clinton did, largely because of the complex far-left mystery that was his past inner-dealings, from Reverend Wright to Indonesia to Michelle Obama to community organizing to Van Jones to healthcare, et. al. He has to make a more concerted effort to prove he's not a manchurian candidate for the radical Chicago hard-left, and he needs as much time to prove himself as possible. He has to somehow rectify his radical divorce from his campaign promises for centrist government and political unity.

First and foremost, Mr. Obama needs to understand that Republicans bearing the doghouse label "party of no" is what is propelling their popularity. One needs to look no further than Scott Brown. Scott Brown ran explicitly on being the candidate of "no": "no" to a massive fat bureaucratic regulatory overhaul of healthcare and "no" to a supermajority that allows Democratic Congresspersons to engage in economic busting taxation and spending binges unabated. And what do you know, he did what man was never thought able to accomplish ever again: take Teddy Kennedy's senate seat in a state that is historically to the left of mid 20th century China.

President Obama needs to realize -- and articulate -- that the best kind of government is a government that sits on the sidelines and lets innovators and entrepreneurs structure society and its market order, remaining a skeletal enterprise that overseas legal fairness and societal justice. MSNBC commentators have often complained that the Republicans have no ideas, while everyone besides MSNBC and Hugo Chavez are sitting aghast, thinking to themselves "a government with ideas is a dangerous government".

And no, the people can see right through initiating a "spending freeze" on top of a vast heap of already proposed spending -- just like the get revenue but wait 4 years for the cost accounting procedures of the healthcare bill, Obama's numbers on the "spending freeze" make Enron look good. The Obama Administration is presiding over the largest ever federal payroll of 2.15 million government workers with gigantic salaries, hefty benefits, huge retirement packages, and the inability to be fired -- and next to no results to speak of. Meanwhile the private sector's average salary is 40% less with 80% greater productivity, delivering innovation and productivity on the most incredible scale.

America is drowning in economic calamity and you have the payrolls of the fat useless lazy incompetent bureaucrats expanding at the expense of suffering businesses, corporations, and the taxpayer. If liberals want to complain about a corporation, try complaining about the federal government for a change, delivering next to nothing on a $3.4 trillion dollar budget, putting any ideas of efficiency and results to shame. In response to the idea that it is just okay for people and businesses who produce over $250,000 a year to be the ones getting a hike, I have a very simple law of American economics to present to you: these people are the ones with the intelligence, fortitude, wherewithal, and acumen to create or expand business and commerce in America. It's that simple. When you hammer this group, you directly hammer economic production and job growth.

President Obama -- people want to see these government workers take the same haircut that the American people have been taking in the private sector. Former Oakland Mayor Willie Brown recently admitted on Fox News that the redistribution of productive private sector wealth to line the coffers of unproductive federal and state employees was destroying the economy of both California and the United States, and people are starting to realize it. They see two things: economic collapse and massive spending/debt; they're beginning to steadfastly tie those together in their minds and punish those who foster a big spending big government agenda. The tide is shifting, and one can only hope to God it will shift permanently.

President Obama, I will leave you with three simple policy propositions that will assure you a win in 2012:

• Silently work to defeat Pelosi's majority in Congress, rendering her the new House Minority Leader, silently dispose of Harry Reid, and realign with Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, etc. In other words, remove obstructionist obstacles to centrist government and align with elements who are part and parcel of American political ideology. Remember, it's all about the political calculus.


• Drive business and jobs into America with the reduction of the corporate tax rate -- give global and American corporations incentive to either setup or keep shop in America. Maintain the capital gains tax at 15% and keep the top tax rate at 35% -- the American Productive class doesn't keep money under their pillow. Insist upon massive bureaucracy/federal employee reform which includes a massive reduction in federal compensation and packages -- get the center-left to the right onboard to pass it.


• Insist upon tort reform and market solutions to healthcare which include selling insurance across state lines and lifting regulations for mandatory size fits all packages. In every other unregulated industry -- from computers to food to car insurance -- consumers get to choose the size, color, and attributes of the products they buy in the marketplace. It's time to sell lots of disaster only packages and dispose of a system where everybody is exploiting their insurance for counseling, acupuncture treatments, and hypochondria related excessive doctor visits. You're sure enjoying that 52" Sony TV and that trip to Cabo, so how about paying for your own restless leg syndrome treatment, acupuncture, and marital counseling while you're at it. With this model of health insurance reform -- implimented in both the private sector and public plans -- costs will drop precipitously. Tort reform can potentially save $600 billion dollars over 10 years. Work in a voucher related model for lower income folks who absolutely can't afford insurance. But don't, don't, don't create a model that creates up to 75 more government bureaucracies that we don't need to enforce unneeded regulations and expanded welfare programs that would make Stalin cringe.

This policy is the center-right political calculus that equals an American majority. That's where we as an American populace are, and Scott Brown's brilliant unprecedented win in Massachusetts proves it.

But the big question that is causing the American people to sit on the edge of their seats, waiting to be answered is: Does President Obama subscribe to political pragmatism and self-preservation, or is he do-or-die entrenched in the community organizing secular-progressive left? Will my previous warnings of a nefarious agenda by President Obama be validated? Get out your popcorn people, cause I think we're getting to the juicy part.