The Punishment of Success

The contradictions between what President Barack Obama says and what he does are immense. In an article this morning published by the Washington Post he has vowed to cut the United States budget deficit within four years. This will most assuredly be a difficult task as the current budget has become even more bloated thanks to Porkfest 2009, the recent $700 BILLION stimulus package pushed through Congress by the Obama administration.  Of course the White House has stated a couple of methods for achieving their stated goals.

One such method that the Obama administration plans to utilize in order to reduce the deficit is a reduction in spending on the Iraq War. I understand that the war will end eventually, but I think that it would be a disaster to end it prematurely. Until stability has been achieved we cannot completely withdraw troops from the nation. I truly hope that Obama can see that an earlier withdrawal from that nation can and will lead to a destabilization of the region and leave the region open to exploitation by terrorist organizations and rogue nations. A premature withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq could result in the need for a reinvasion of the nation to capture or eliminate terrorist threats in the future.

Another method that Obama intends to use to help shrink the budget deficit is to raise taxes on what he calls wealthy families. These are families earning at least $250,000 a year. He doesn’t seem to take into account that families that earn in the neighborhood of $250,000 tend to be self-employed small business owners. Because of this they do not have the advantage of employer provided benefits. As a result much of what the rest of us take for granted such as health insurance and holiday pay these “wealthy” families do not receive. For these families any unexpected operating expense for their business usually comes from the family budget. These families have poured their hearts and souls into building a successful small business. Now President Obama comes along and wants to punish these highly motivated and hard working families with higher taxes. Tell me where is the justice in that? Why should the hardworking business owners subsidize someone else’s poor judgment? Why should business owners subsidize a single mother because she doesn’t have the common sense to use protection?

President Obama has plans for the US, but they will not advance our nation. Instead Obama’s plans for our nation will put our nation at risk. They will put the middle class at risk. Obama’s plan will do more to curb ambition and aspirations for a better life. In short President Obama rather than using good sense and rewarding the most hardworking and industrious among us will punish them.