Obama's thin victory

Barack Obama's second term will provide America with a tired administration without a great reservoir of congressional support. But the Republicans cannot go through another four years as "the party of no," and will have to give him some sort of increased income and sales or value-added tax that will start deficit reduction at last, even if it doesn't do wonders for economic growth. It would also provide the impetus for an increase in the size of government and, heavy-handedly, further transfers of wealth and resources from the most to least advantaged people.

The incumbent no doubt is not surprised that he won. Obama sincerely believes he did a competent job, and blamed the deficit entirely on George W. Bush and Republican obduracy in the Congress. He took dramatic and transformative steps to extend medical care to those inadequately served, and transferred money from the rich to the poor.

In foreign policy, the Democrats believe they limited the adventurism, costly in money and lives, of the American-led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; were successful in fighting terrorism, especially in taking out Osama bin Laden; and stayed clear of the former administration's habitual policy of pulling out its six-guns and manning up to confrontation with almost everyone.

Of course, there is some truth to all of this. But many Americans did not get over several serious obstacles to re-electing the Obama regime.

In the 232 years of American history leading up to 2008, the federal government ran up a cumulative deficit of $10-trillion. In just the last four years, that has increased by 60% to $16 trillion, $17,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States; and there are 5-million fewer Americans with jobs than there were four years ago. In that time, the number of people benefitting from food-stamp programs (supplements to income for purposes of avoiding malnutrition) has increased from about 27- to about 47-million people.

Mr. Obama certainly inherited serious problems, but conditions have in many respects deteriorated, and the potential devaluation of the currency has shaken the traditional, bourgeois, soul of America.

While many Americans credit the current president with trying to extend assured medical care to the needy, the majority seem to blame him for misrepresenting a program that is too costly and too coercive, and which was rammed through the Congress. What was required was a health-care reform that the president could have sold to a broad enough cross-section of the public that some Republicans would have felt compelled to vote for it. None in the Senate did.

Obama's thin victory

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