Are liberals insane?

By Monte Kuligowski

A basic definition of insanity often attributed to Albert Einstein is doing the same thing, over and over, while expecting different results.

President Obama, by proposing nearly $500 billion more in government spending to "create jobs," demonstrates liberal insanity quite well. Michael Savage has a book out titled, "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" — I think he's on to something.

True enough, many liberal politicians may know full well that European-style socialism does not work. Sooner or later the well of other people's money runs dry. But, in the meantime, many are content to buy votes by taking wages from one citizen's productivity and distributing them to others.

Still, others actually believe the old liberty-killing ideas of Karl Marx can work. Because of his upbringing and the people he has been drawn to, Mr. Obama likely falls into the category of impulsively believing he can force a better America upon us (and he's certainly not above buying votes with other people's money).

The revolutionary ideas of redistributive justice have caused untold suffering and misery worldwide. But to modern-day liberals, that's irrelevant because they believe we now have a president with the brainpower to finally make forced wealth redistribution work.

The pure idiocy of spending more money to keep from going bankrupt, as awkwardly defended by Vice President Joe Biden, is somehow accepted as a brilliant idea by the faithful of the leftward flock. Recently, Rep. Maxine "The Tea Party Can Go Straight to Hell" Waters (D-CA) proclaimed that the feds need to spend another "trillion dollars or more" to create "jobs." Isn't that (plus ObamaCare) what led to the Tea Party in the first place?

Since the 2010 "Summer of Recovery" was such a smashing success, what could possibly go wrong with Summer of Recovery 2?

Transforming stupidity into brilliance requires the appearance of politicians who are so far above the rest of us that we really can't be expected to understand how it all works (maybe even Biden can't be expected to begin to understand how Obama's policies make any sense).

That's why, with far left liberals, there is such an emphasis on how smart they think they are compared to how stupid they believe conservatives are. In Barack Obama liberals carelessly believed, without any supporting evidence, that a near-god had arrived to transform America into a near-paradise. Once the narrative is set, it is set in stone; and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change it. The latest narrative is that, in spite of abject failure Barack Obama remains brilliant while Rick Perry (or anyone else who poses a real threat to Barack's power) is another swaggering dunderhead. Never mind that Perry has presided over prosperity in Texas — as Obama created an astounding national decline in liberty, citizen confidence, individual and aggregate wealth and U.S. sovereignty.

An overemphasis on a distorted view of "smart" presently permeates the culture. Government funded schools teach kids to be "smart" in an environment where secular morality has replaced religious morality. In its advertisements, one high tech company echoes the widespread obsession of creating a "smarter" planet. We live in the information age controlled by the liberal establishment and the highest virtue seems to be a leftist perspective of "smart" — as the former preeminent virtue, character, is relegated to quaint obscurity.

Liberalism is best facilitated by having Ivy League narcissists, who believe they are geniuses among men, in the seats of the federal government's highest chairs. In contrast, conservatism simply requires ordinary citizen leaders with character who embrace the principles that made America great — principles of religious morality, fiscal responsibility, limited central powers and American exceptionalism.

The problem with central command and control is that it will never work in a free country.

We should notice that Obama never talks about creating "wealth," but instead talks about creating "jobs." That's because government jobs and most government induced jobs do not create wealth. In fact, government jobs reduce aggregate wealth. And, they're only a necessary expense to the extent that the federal government spends our tax dollars within the bounds of its constitutional responsibilities.

In a twisted sense, Mr. Obama's 2009 "jobs stimulus bill" with a price tag of $787 billion (which will cost the taxpayers well over a trillion dollars, with interest) was a success. It created a larger Democrat voting block by creating a whole lot of government jobs and transferring tax dollars for not-so-ready-shovel-ready jobs and to the entitlement constituency.

Obama managed to spread the wealth around, but any arguable benefits from the mammoth 2009 "stimulus" came at an unsustainable cost. As ABC reported back in Oct. of 2009, the "White House claimed 640,329 jobs have been created or saved because of the $159 billion in stimulus funds allocated as of Sept. 30." Unfortunately, the actual number of jobs created was much lower. But even accepting the administration's exaggerated claims, Writer Michael James concludes: "So let's see. Assuming their number is right — 160 billion divided by 1 million [jobs]. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?"

More recently, the Weekly Standard reported in July of 2011 that the Obama administration's own statistics reveal that the so-called jobs stimulus will cost taxpayers $278,000 per job created. The Weekly Standard piece concludes with these words: "All sides agree on these incriminating numbers — and now they also appear to agree on this important point: The economy would now be generating job growth at a faster rate if the Democrats hadn't passed the 'stimulus.'"

The administration's own website, Recovery.gov shamelessly breaks down the three categories into which the borrowed taxpayer money has been funneled: "Tax Benefits: $298.5 billion; Entitlements: $207.1 billion; and Contracts, Grants and Loans: $205.2 billion."

It turns out that Mr. Obama's oft-touted "tax cuts" for the middle class are little more than transfers of wealth to the entitlement class. Under "Tax Incentives and Credits," the White House website transfers the viewer to an IRS site which explains one of the so-called tax cuts:

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), more families will be eligible for the additional child tax credit because of a change to the way the credit is figured. ... It is a refundable credit, which means taxpayers may receive refunds even when they do not owe any tax.

Hello, if they don't owe any tax, they are not taxpayers — yet they qualify for some of the bread of taxpayer John Doe's hard work.

Considering that a CBO report reveals that the national debt will rise to 90% of the GDP by 2020, it's apparent that President Obama is not creating wealth, but diminishing it. But he has created government jobs, "green" jobs and expanded entitlements via the "stimulus" and ObamaCare at a level which cannot be remedied short of rejecting and repealing the destructive policies of the Obama administration.

In the face of the Obama debt catastrophe that threatens to alter the course of America forever, the only answer Barack Obama has for the country is more of the same — more government spending with our borrowed tax dollars and more and more debt.

To continue down the same path is not only unsustainable, it's the definition of insanity.

© Monte Kuligowski