Nov 08
5
President Obama – Things to look forward to
It wasn’t a surprise but the finality of it was kind of sad last night. It’s now official that for at least the next 4 years we’re going to have Barak Hussein Obama as the president of the United States. I could take some comfort in the fact that since we’ve elected the first black president, we can now put some of the racist accusations of Americans to bed but we’ve already heard from black leaders that since Obama is only half black and didn’t descend from slaves, he really isn’t the first black president so I can’t even feel good about that.
I just thought I’d throw out a few things that we can now look forward to with a new Obama administration.
More Government Regulations
Nothing leads to government regulations like a country in crisis. If congress ever had a creed, it would be “If in doubt, regulate”. We’re in a huge financial crisis and Obama will use that to create more regulation. Never mind that it was government regulation that created the mess in the first place. Never let a few facts get in the way of good ‘ole government control.
Higher Taxes
I’m not even talking about people who make $250,000 per year, either. First thing that will happen is Obama and the Democratic congress is going to let the Bush tax cuts expire. They don’t really count that as a tax increase, just the expiration of a tax cut. In the end, though, your taxes will be higher next year than they were this past year. Then Obama will increase taxes on the “rich”. Now he’s mentioned that the “rich” are those who make $250,000 or more….or was that $200,000….or maybe it was $150,000. There were actually lots of numbers thrown out there. The truth is, we don’t, and probably neither does he know how low that number needs to go. According to the article in my last post, it could be as low as $75,000. Congratulations. You just may have been declared rich by Obama. Please pay more next April.
Socialized Medicine
Barak wants everyone covered by insurance. If you work for a “large” company, he says that you will be fined if you don’t provide health insurance to your employees. He has yet to define “large”. If you are a small company, your employees will go on a state insurance program. Who will pay for this? Everyone. See the “higher taxes” point above. That’s the plan laid out during the campaign. Ultimately I believe there will be a push for universal coverage a la Canada. After all, we can’t have the rich with better coverage than the poor.
Civil Military
Obama wants to create some sort of Civilian Security Force that was just as well funded and equipped as our current military. We’re not exactly sure what the role of this new military would be but if history serves as any kind of guide, a civil military corps usually leads to some sort of oppression. I’ve heard people say that it’d be like the peace corps building houses and roads and stuff. If it’s just as well equipped as the military, I’m not sure what they’ll need tanks and F-22 Raptors for. On the other hand, maybe our foreign military (for lack of a better name) will trade in their tanks and jet fighters for bulldozers and shovels. Either way, I can’t see it as being a very good thing.
Lose Your 401(k)
With Obama’s support Democrats are discussing a plan that will eliminate the tax exempt status of your 401(k) and turn it over to the Social Security office to invest it in government bonds in exchange for a guaranteed 3% return. You would be required to put 5% of your pay into this account. Also, without the tax benefits associated with 401(k) plans, all employer matching programs would cease. So if you have a 1:1 match with your employer and you put 5% of your income into your 401(k), you currently have 10% tax deferred which is then most likely invested in funds that over the long term return 8% to 12%. This will be replaced with 5% of your income with a 3% return. Also, since this will essentially be part of Social Security, about the time you retire, we’ll be hearing about how for years Congress has been raiding Social Security and it won’t be solvent by the time you retire so your promised 3% won’t even be there.
Well, these are some things I could think of off the top of my head. My only hope is that these 4 years will be a disaster and it will remind people just what a liberal administration means. Those of us that don’t remember much of the Carter administration will have Obama to give us an idea of how it was. Hopefully this will pave the way for another Ronald Reagan to bring sane conservatism back into government and get this country back on track. I can hope, can’t I?