When Obama was running for president, Rightardia's ears perked up. Obama talked about reforming the income tax system to benefit the middle class, reforming medical insurance, ending the middle east wars, closing Guantanamo, reforming Socail Security with a implementing a donut that would have exempted the Midle Class from much of the Social security tax . Obama had many other good ideas.
After 138 weeks of his presidency, Obama has left many of these campaign promises unfulfilled.
Obama did get 95 per cent of Americans a tax cut, but he left the onerous Bush tax cuts intact that were a boon to the affluent since 2003 and are a big contributor the the deficit.
Obama modestly reformed health care, but the GOP is using the courts to torpedo "Obamacare" and the case will ultimately be decided in the Supreme Court. With a 5-4 conservative majority, Obamacare could go down in flames.
After all, Bush was the only president who started a war but didn't raises taxes. The middle east wars cost the US economy $1 trillion already, but the life cycle cost is expected to reach $4 trillion when VA disabilities take their toll. War is hell for the poor soldiers, marines airmen and seaman who get caught up in it.
Obama certainly hasn't reformed Social Security and it is likely the Social Security system will be subjected to draconian cuts by the GOP rather than by the Democrats. Gitmo is still open. The wars in Iraq and Iran are still on-going and Iran may request a long term presence of US troops.
It was clear after the Democratic sweep in 2008 that the GOP was going to play hardball with Obama from the GitGo. Yet Bush was able to work with a Democratic congress when the Democrats took the Congress back in 2006. It appears the Republicans are suggesting that things can only get doe with a GOP president in place.
Part of this problem is that the Democratic Party is more flexible than the Republican. Most of the Democrats are moderates and there are conservative Blue Dog Democrats. The Democratic progressive caucus has 80 members. The Blue Dog coalition of conservative democrats has 26 seats, down from 54 seats in the 111th Congress.
Although there are conservative Democrats, name one liberal Republican! There aren't any. Any intra-party work with Republicans on the part of Democrats has been with GOP moderates. And there are few GOP moderates left.
Rightardia has long lamented the loss of a credible left in US politics. What we have is a moderate Democratic party and a Republican Party that has moved to the right.
What is interesting is that after a big election loss,the political pundits expected the GOP to move to the center. It has actually moved to the right. In the long run, the extreme GOP politics will fail the party. The GOP appears to subscribe to a fascist philosophy in which only business people are qualified to lead the country.
Should the GOP take the presidency or the Senate in 2012, America will be in for some hard times. Based on the demographic shifts in the US, the era of neo-conservatism's days are numbered.
Conservative theory rarely works in hard times.The last important right wing leader to try to get a failing economy back on track was Adolf Hitler.
What could America expect form the next Republican president? An increase in defense spending and homeland security is likely. Federal employee unions will be busted. Labor and environmental laws will be ignored. The federal government will try to pass laws that will make it easier to privatize the public school system.
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