The Fiscal Cliff And The Alinsky President

     The Fiscal Cliff negotiations are illustrative of the President's inability to lead and to govern. With this dire deadline of economy-killing tax increases and automatic spending cuts looming over the American people, he chooses to campaign at toy factories, golf with Bill Clinton and publicly try to intimidate the Republicans into a deal that he wants. President Obama hasn't even met with Speaker Boehner in person for weeks, choosing instead to only talk to him over the phone.
     But then we really can't expect any other behavior from a committed Alinskyite like the President. When one strictly adheres to the principles of Saul Alinsky, you don't negotiate, you intimidate. You don't take a stand, but make the other guy take a stand and then you demonize it. You create so much static with class warfare rhetoric that it drowns out reason and fact. A good case in point is the President's insistence that the wealthy do not pay their fair share. He has been saying this for so long, it is almost an accepted fact by some. The real truth is that the top one percent of wage earners have gone from paying 20% of the total tax burden in the 1980s to 40% today. The percentage of the total income they earn is around 25%. If one extrapolates out the tax burden to include the top 10% of wage earners, the total share of the tax burden paid by that group is 70%. Their total percentage of the income earned is around 38%. These facts come straight from current IRS data.
     No fair-minded person could conclude from the empirical evidence laid out in the previous paragraph, that the wealthy in this country are not paying their fair share. And yet, the President spews out this categorically false narrative and a certain percentage of the population laps it up like kittens lapping milk from a bowl. This is also what followers of Saul Alinsky practice, repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. This concept is best illustrated by the incident in Bob Wooward's recent book about the debt limit negotiations in August of 2011. President Obama placed his hand on John Boehner's arm and said, "John, I have complete confidence in my ability to sway the American people." This statement shows not only the President's complete contempt for the truth, but for the American people who he looks at as sheep to be lead, not free people to be governed.
     The President looks at problems not so much to be solved, but as opportunities to score political points and advance an agenda that recent polling has shown, even a majority of his voters don't want. President Reagan had a sign on his desk that read, "It is amazing what a man can accomplish when he doesn't care who gets the credit." President Obama should have a sign on his desk saying, "It's amazing what I can accomplish by blaming others for the problem."

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.