It's Not Always Great Being Right

by Neal Boortz

I remember the morning after the 1994 Congressional elections.  Clinton had been president for two years.  HillaryCare was on the table.  Clinton was toying with the idea of levying a one-time 15% tax on the outstanding balance in every American’s IRA, 401K or pension plan to “shore up Social Security.”  The voter had had enough, and Clinton woke up to a Republican Congress and Senate.  Two months later, in his State of the Union address, Clinton said “the era of big government is over.”  The Republicans used their newfound strength to throw a roadblock in front of Clinton’s spending plans, and to force him into accepting (and later claiming credit for) welfare reform.  Some talk show hosts were saying that we need to keep some liberals around for scientific study and the amusement of our children in zoos. 

Not me.  I was warning my listeners that the Democrats would come back.  It may take years, but they would come back.  And when they did come back, when they finally gained control of the machinery of the federal legislative process again, they would work with blinding speed to make as many Americans dependent on possible as quickly as possible.  The did indeed come back.  Four years ago with the election of Barack Obama and a Democrat Senate and House – and they began the push to do exactly what I said they would do.  They worked feverishly to expand government dependency.  Welfare vastly expanded.  Welfare work rules relaxed.  Food stamp use explodes.  And don’t forget ObamaCare. 

It’s not going to get better.  The welfare state will expand any more.  The 49.1% of American households in which at least one member is getting an unearned check from government will grow to well over 50% by the next election.  The 60% of American households who get more unearned money from the government every year than they pay in taxes --- that number will expand as well.  The numbers on food stamps and Social Security disability will expand, and ObamaCare will create still another dependent demographic, government health care dependents.  By 2016 the Democrats will have achieved their decades-long dream of being able to go into an election battle saying:  “If you vote for the Republicans they are going to take away your medical care.” 

The argument could be made that this was our last chance .. this election … 2012.  Our LAST chance … and we blew it.  Turning this country back toward freedom, economic liberty and self reliance will be an even tougher task in the midterm elections of 2014, and probably impossible in 2016.  By 2016 even more Americans will realize that they can use the ballot as a weapon .. a legal weapon .. to do something that would put them in jail if they did it with a gun … and that is take someone else’s money.  Game. Set. Match.

Those people cheering this Obama victory have no real idea what is going on in the minds of business owners across America today.  Some are making plans to close less-profitable locations and lay off employees.  Some businessmen are shelving plans for expansion and more hiring, deciding that it would be better to take their money and put it where it will be safe from the coming tax increases.  Other businessmen are preparing to fire some employees and reduce others to part-time status in order to stay below the employee threshold on ObamaCare.  People who voted for Obama yesterday will be out of a job by the end of the week because their election wishes came true.

Here’s an interesting dynamic that the low-information voters who put Obama over the top will not be able to grasp.  As businesses cut back on employees, and as they move more employees to a part-time status in order to escape the mandates of ObamaCare and other government regulations, the employees who will suffer; the employees who will lose their jobs or be relegated to part-time status with lower pay, will be the less capable, less educated employees who voted for Obama yesterday.  They will never understand that their job situation has become more tenuous because of the vote they cast.  They simply aren’t intelligent enough to understand that.  They’ve done this to themselves, but they are too ignorant to realize it.

Are you wondering what the wonderful low-information voters have brought us on this day after the election?  Here … let me drop a few reminders:

• Higher taxes on productive Americans, of course. Exit polls showed that most voters want this.  Obama’s class warfare tactics worked like a charm. 
• Labor unions will renew their push for card-check; unionization by intimidation.
• Taxes on jobs producing small businessmen will almost certainly go up.
• Obama will issue a call for another multi-billion dollar stimulus bill that will do nothing other than reward cronies and campaign contributors.
• Doctors who have been in practice for many years will be closing up shop.  They know what a nightmare ObamaCare is going to be for their patients, and they want no part of it.
• The Second Amendment will come under immediate attack.  The United Nations will be used as an excuse to limit our rights.
• The EPA will unleash a flood of new “clean air” regulations that will all but destroy the coal industry and bring huge increases in the cost of energy.
• Democrats will start talking about a scheme to levy a tax against retirement and pension funds on the premise that it is not fair that some people are going to have a comfortable retirement while others will have to shove shopping carts at customers entering Wal-Marts.
• The push for ETIs will return.  Economically Targeted Investments.  This means that the government will tell you where you can and cannot invest your qualified retirement (401K, IRA) funds.  The purpose will be to force you to invest these funds in “union-friendly” (i.e., unionized) companies.
• Democrats will develop schemes to punish states with Right-To-Work laws in an attempt to force more Americans into joining unions in order to work.
• Democrats will attack talk radio with community advisory boards and shorter license renewal periods.  Syndicated talk radio may be a thing of the past in four years, except for Clark Howard, of course.