Conservative's Conscience

Election 2008 and the North Shore and Cape Cod

 Will Obama become the tough commander-in-chief that the times demand?

The median household income in Beverly is $54K; Danvers, $59K; Peabody, $55K and  Salem, $44K.  In Barnstable County, the average per capita personal income is $38K (2001).

            Obviously, most of the people in these communities essentially live from paycheck to paycheck.  They will be hardest hit by any behavior in Washington that threatens jobs, or that, promiscuously, adds to debt.

            It is axiomatic that high business taxes either inflate prices, or reduce profits, jobs and investment in new plant and equipment.  And it has been repeatedly demonstrated in deadly detail that the unaffordable expansion of the Welfare State since the 1960s is the fundamental cause of high levels of public debt that, if continued, represents the greatest threat to the solvency and power of the United States than any other financial issue, including the current liquidity problem in the financial sector. 

            Results will soon be in.  It is probable that Barack Obama will be sitting in the Oval Office in January 2009.

            Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Iran, Israel and all of Arabia are waiting in the Middle East.  Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea are waiting in the North, South and West.  The United Nations is waiting in New York.  They all wonder: What kind of president will Obama be? 

            He, the super-loyal Democrat, has seldom strayed from the party-line.  He belongs to the political party that has, for years, sponsored a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, that simplistically associates the War against Terrorism with the capture of bin Laden and that, through Rep. Barney Frank, currently recommends a 25 percent reduction in defense spending.     

            Will he suddenly reverse course and become the tough commander-in-chief that the times demand in the face of so many threats from near and far places, all of them made close by modern transportation and communications technologies?  Or will he be the United Nations poster boy who brings a weakened nation's problems to its Security Council, there to be eviscerated by Russia, China and other power-seeking rivals?

            Will the political party, led by Obama, which has resisted voter registration reform, and has been attempting, for years, to make registered voters out of everybody that moves, suddenly get tough on voting reform, or on immigration, legal or otherwise?  Will Obama resist the attempts of his party (and some Republicans) to allow amnesty to the 12-20 million illegals already in the country?  Will the border fence be completed or, if so, properly supervised?    

            When Obama, with no established preconditions, has his promised chat with Ahmadinejad in Iran, will he demand that the pursuit of nuclear weapons be stopped and that threats to Israel should cease?  And if he does, will Ahmadinejad love him?  And if he doesn't, will Israel trust him?

            Although not specifically stated on the Obama web site, presumably the Bush tax cuts will not be renewed and the Obama plan will be substituted. He has promised, among other things: Higher taxes for those who currently pay most of the   income, interest, dividend, capital gains, excise and estate taxes.  And (thanks to that raid on their income) a government check will be issued to the 40 percent of Americans who pay no federal income taxes at all, and to others who earns less than the variable amount that Obama and his people like to quote to different audiences, ranging from $120K to $250K. 

            Also, Obama promises lower tax rates for the "middle class," capital gains relief for small businesses, and an unending series of tax credits for college education, mortgage interest, low-income seniors and on and on and on and on. 

            Under the cover of words like "fairness" and "tax credits" Obama promises -- before your eyes -- a punishing expansion of the entitlement programs that have steadily impoverished America for a half-century.  And, on top of this, he will nationalize the most efficient healthcare system in the world.  Whew!  Under this onslaught, public debt will skyrocket. 

            Democrats have resisted tax decreases since President Reagan took office in the 1980s.  Will they change under Obama, a loyal Democrat?  Will taxes for the average American really be lower under his presidency?  Is the direct transfer of wealth from one class of Americans to another, through a filter created by and imposed by the federal government, desirable?  Is a larger federal government an attractive prospect?

            Will Obama lead those who created the Community Reinvestment Act to rethink their aggressiveness?  Will he lead Barney Frank and the others who for years protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against reform attempts to a new way of thinking, which will motivate banks to eschew asset-base lending and return to safe income-based lending with its associated strictures?  Or will it be more of the same old same old?

            These are legitimate questions for the new president.  And perhaps they can be summed up in one comprehensive query: Will the North Shore, Cape Cod and the average American be benefited or harmed by Obama's idea of "change?"