New Dawn? This Looks More Like a New Dusk

MAIL ONLINE: The next four years for America look bleak. It’s not so much a new dawn as a new dusk. And with 50 months left in power, President Obama, his hands tied by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, is a lame duck already.

He was re-elected despite a majority of voters thinking the economy is on the wrong track. And with tax rises that could wreck recovery due on January 1 – the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ – experts fear a recession here in 2013.

The most sensible policy – which a Romney administration would have pursued – is deficit reduction. Instead, the second Obama term will increase the deficit, further diminishing America’s economic power and credibility.

Around $1trillion a year will be added to debt – bringing the total to $20trillion by 2016. This will drive up interest rates on US bonds, and hard-pressed Americans will have to pay more taxes to fund higher interest payments.

Meanwhile, the President is determined to push through his ‘Obamacare’ health insurance policy, which would account for a large part of that increase.

But the Democrats are well aware that the pumping of federal money into corporate bail-outs and infrastructure projects in declining regions is the key to creating a state clientele that keeps voting them back into office.

The administration is already devising stealth taxes to help pay for the bribes it wishes to offer the coalition of minorities that comprise its supporters. Some will corrode the core of American self-reliance, such as taxes on any substantial capital gains made from house sales. Others are simply opportunist, such as a tax on tanning salons.

These are all measures of how desperate the financial situation is – a reality apparently kept from most of the American electorate, so far. Read on and comment » | Simon Heffer | Wednesday, November 07, 2012