The Patriot Post - Alexander's Essay 10-4-2012

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Essay 10-4-2012
From The Federalist Patriot
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Who Inherited What from Whom?
Countering Obama's Blame-Shifting Baloney

By Mark Alexander

October 4, 2012

"A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come." --George Washington (1788 )

The first of the 2012 Presidential Debates1 is over. With over 60 million viewers, the undisputed champion of this round was Mitt Romney who towered like the brilliant, unyielding professor over a petulant, adolescent "community organizer."

The event pitted the socialist rhetoric2 of Barack Hussein Obama against Romney's articulate free-market advocacy3.

The focus of the debate was domestic policy -- the economy, health care and the role of government. Chief among these topics was the economy, according to the conventional political wisdom that Americans vote first for their economic future and for the candidate who they believe will provide the greatest sense of individual economic security and prosperity.

The caveat here is the qualifier "who they believe," and that perception will be shaped by competing visions built on both truth and leftist deception. The vision that prevails will be determined by the ability of voters to distinguish the difference. Unfortunately, the election of Obama in 2008 provided ample evidence that the American electorate's ability has diminished in recent years, primarily because the spirit of Liberty4 has been eroded by decades of classist propaganda promulgated by the the Left5.

Obama's re-election prospects depend entirely on his ability to deceive a majority of Americans with the same old blame-shifting blather that he used to dupe them in 2008: "It's Bush's fault." Obama can't effectively focus his campaign on the textbook pillars of socialist propaganda6, race7 and economic disparity8, if he has to spend airtime defending his ruinous economic policies.

To that end, in the first debate Obama repeatedly invoked his now-familiar refrain9 about the financial crisis he "inherited": "The approach that Governor Romney's talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003, and we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years, we ended up moving from surplus to deficits, and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. ... When I walked into the Oval Office, I had more than a trillion-dollar deficit greeting me. And we know where it came from ... a massive economic crisis. ... The reason we have been in such a enormous economic crisis was prompted by reckless behavior across the board. ... Are we going to double-down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess? Or do we embrace a new economic patriotism...?"

"Economic patriotism"? I would like to meet comrade Marxist staffer who coined that phrase for the debate so we can "discuss it."

Obama even opened his closing remarks by asserting, "Four years ago, we were going through a major crisis." Not nearly as "major" as the one we are in now.

Will shamelessly blaming the policies of the past work again on November 6?

To be sure, the once-noble Democrat Party10 has devolved into a socialist political machine11, and Obama's charismatic appeal12 has successfully convinced a growing constituency that they're dependent upon the state13 for their well-being.

However, coming into this first debate and the upcoming election, Obama was and remains saddled with the Great Recession -- the deepest and most prolonged economic stagnation since the Great Depression. His policies have failed miserably, and our national debt has exploded to more than $16,000,000,000,000. Consequently, he's spent every day of his tenure in office blaming the previous administration for the economy he "inherited."

But just who inherited what from whom?

In fact, the current economic decline did begin almost six months before Obama was elected. So if one looks no further than January 2009 as the starting point of the Obama economy, one might conclude that there's some veracity to his claim of having inherited the economic decline that he has, ostensibly14, attempted to reverse with historic spending and debt15.

It's true that the economy Obama inherited wasn't the solid recovery that began some months after 9/11 under President George W. Bush and his Republican Congress. Instead, it was the gravely weakened economy of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Harry Reid (D-NV) and their Democrat congressional majorities in both houses.

On January 3, 2007, the date that the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress took office after a record 52 months of job growth accelerated by Bush administration tax cuts16, unemployment was at 4.6 percent, and the economy was growing at three times the current rate.