In another of his positive and up-lifting speeches, president Obama charged on Friday that Republicans want to turn the USA into a third world country. Here's part of the description from AFP:
"US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign. The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.
"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.
"I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought -- that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure."
The attack is obviously not in keeping with Obama's previous call for civility in debating issues in Washington. Indeed, Obama himself said just about two months ago that the problems with the deficit could never be solved if politicians use the debate to describe the other party in negative terms. Apparently, Obama just meant that no one should point out Obama's own obvious failures when it comes to the deficit and spending; he can call the GOP evil, however, without a second thought.
So let's look at the nonsense that Obama is spouting to the faithful in Chicago. Supposedly, if the GOP gets its way, we will be "a nation of potholes" and bad airpots. Hey, Mr. President, try riding around New York City. It wasn't that long ago that a pothole on the FDR Drive in Manhattan got so large that a car fell through it and into the East River below. There are so many potholes in New York that it was suggested that the state put a picture of one on its license plates. And how about those airports? LaGuardia looks like it was built in the 1950's: wait, most of it was. It is an uncomfortable melange of Old and a few new buildings. Indeed, it is not as nice as the average airport in China.
Beyond the obviously silly nature of Obama's claims, there is this truly important critique: Potholes are not the concern of the federal government. State and local governments are responsible to keep the streets in good repair, so Republican proposals to cut federal spending should have no impact on street conditions. Airports too are supposed to be local concerns. That self same Laguardia airport is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an entity that has had sufficient revenues to spend billions on projects like the World Trade Center while leaving the airports to rot.
Fianlly, to me, the defining aspect of a third world country is not the state of the roads and airports. No, it is the poverty of the mass of people, the total control by the government and the wealth of a privileged few. That is exactly where the Obama spending spree of the last few years is pushing the USA. How many jobs did Obama drive out of the USA by stopping oil drilling, by driving up healthcare costs for business and by threatening all business with a host of other regulations and restrictions? How much investment did Obama discourage with these moves? And who got the benefits? Well the governement is now much bigger and stronger than it used to be. And Obama's cronies like GE got enormous bailouts from the governement with the people's money and then paid no taxes on the billions of dollars in profits. Obama, can you say banana republic?
Obama has got to go!
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