President Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was scary.
What Americans heard is a thinly disguised plan to continue with an effort to further the addiction of American voters to government subsidies, aid and handouts. Every person in the nation should already understand that our government has made promises that it cannot afford to honor. Yet, our president, incredibly, advances ideas that would expand entitlements at the very time when a rising debt and 4 years of shameful $1 trillion dollar annual deficits have eroded American prosperity.
Mr. Obama’s only plan, it seems, is to continue looting the savings from those most responsible and levy new and confiscatory taxes on the job creators and entrepreneurs. Obama's is an economic plan that cannot work and whose only aim is to create a dependent nation of guaranteed Democrat voters for the future who are incapable of functioning autonomously from big government.
Barack Obama spoke as if the past four years, and five trillion dollars of federal spending that yielded nothing save bigger debt, bigger class divisions and bigger government, had not occurred. Meanwhile, joblessness continues. Obama made no mention of the fact that more and more of our fellow Americans have become so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work.
Instead, Mr. Obama went back in time and dipped into the approximately 500 campaign promises made in 2008. Of course, few of these 500 promises were kept, but that made no difference as glib promises were dusted off and trotted back out.
In his 2012 speech, Obama has made no promises that he had not made four years earlier. He offered no roadmap for how his promise of a "better path" would be achieved. He clearly didn't think he needed to do so. With almost 50% of Americans having already drunk the federal subsidies and entitlement "kool-aid", Obama seems to believe he needs only to promise more of the same and guarantee that the government entitlements will continue to grow and to flow to guarantee his re-election. That assumption, too, is scary.
But perhaps, the scariest assumption that permeated Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC convention was Obama's apparent belief that Americans are idiots who will continue to believe him, idiots who are incapable of putting the interests of the nation and of future generations ahead of a self-serving desire to have the government provide increasing entitlements, funded by a nonexistent entity.
Barack Obama was right about one thing -- our nation is facing "a choice between two different paths for America. A choice between two fundamentally different visions of the future." The president's speech showed clearly the differences between his basic philosophies and the GOP candidate, Mitt Romney: Romney is for Big Tent, Obama is for Big Government.
Obama's vision leads our country on the path to serfdom fostering greater dependence on an ever-increasing government that ultimately destroys individual freedom. Romney believes that freedom is the gift that the government can give its citizens and that the private sector, responding to supply and demand can create a vibrant economy, as long as heavy-handed government is limited and bound by the constitutions fetters. Romney understands that, both at home and abroad, economies are complicated entities and that any government's attempt to control the free market will result in disaster.
Obama believes that people are inherently selfish and that unless the government steps in, charity will not flow to those less fortunate. He is, quite simply, the last true believer in the role of Big Government. Romney, in sharp contrast, knows that Americans are the most generous people in the history of the world, giving over $300 billion dollars to charities each year. Romney knows that the greatest good can come when communities address problems directly. Romney also knows that the best solution for a failed economy is work, and that simply extending unemployment benefits, food stamps and issuing waivers so that the unemployed have no obligation to look for work only creates more dependency on government.
Mr. Obama believes that he can say anything, do anything and that he will not be held accountable because many Americans are more afraid of the inevitable false charges from a well-oiled machine that will call them "racists". He simply cannot accept the fact that his policies have failed. And so, Obama goes on in a curious way, reprising old, false promises to narrow groups of constituents whom he hopes to bribe, one more time, for a vote with money and benefits that can only be paid for by future generations.
Most successful businesses know that a good rule of thumb is to underpromise and overdeliver. Barack Obama has spent four years overpromising and never delivering anything of value.
Romney, meanwhile, is calling for austerity, clearly identifiable budgetary priorities, strong defense and shared sacrifice that shows a willingness to make the future a secure and thriving place for our children's children.
A historic choice indeed.
As Clint Eastwood, so succinctly said, Americans -- you gotta let Obama go.