Karl Rove writes in the Feb. 27, 2009, issue of the Wall Street Journal that Pres. Obama is fond of setting up  straw men and knocking them down -- ascribing to his political adversaries positions that they do not hold and arguing against "views no one really advocates", rather than debating the ideas that dissenting voices actually espouse. For example:

During his news conference on Feb. 9, Mr. Obama decried an unnamed faction in the congressional stimulus debate as "a set of folks who -- I don't doubt their sincerity -- who just believe that we should do nothing."

Who were these sincere do-nothings? Every House Republican voted for an alternative stimulus plan, evidence that they wanted to do something. Every Senate Republican -- with the exception of Judd Gregg, who'd just withdrawn his nomination to be Mr. Obama's Commerce secretary and therefore voted "present" -- voted for alternative stimulus proposals...

In his inaugural address -- which was generally graceful toward the opposition -- Mr. Obama proclaimed, "We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Which Republican ran against him on fear, conflict and discord?

Rove concludes:

Mr. Obama portrays himself as a nonideological, bipartisan voice of reason. Everyone resorts to straw men occasionally, but Mr. Obama's persistent use of the device is troubling. Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas.

It was said that Lincoln crafted his arguments in "resonant words that enriched the political dialogue of his age." Mr. Obama's straw men aren't enriching the dialogue of our age. They are cheapening it. Mr. Obama should stop employing them.

On the Feb. 27, 2009, Wall Street Journal editorial page, the editors say that Pres. Obama left the impression,  in his speech to Congress, that he can pay for his expensive ambitions by merely ending "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," without raising taxes on those earning less than $250,000. The numbers don't back him up, they write:

A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion...

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

On that point, by the way, it's unclear why Mr. Obama thinks his climate-change scheme won't hit all Americans with higher taxes. Selling the right to emit greenhouse gases amounts to a steep new tax on most types of energy and, therefore, on all Americans who use energy. There's a reason that Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means panel, which writes tax law, is holding hearings this week on cap-and-trade regulation.

Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.

 

 

In the February 24, 2009, Wall Street Journal, authors Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone write that the stimulus bill from Pres. Obama and congressional Democrats is an example of generals fighting the last war, using weapons that are obsolete. Instead, they say, government needs to empower entrepreneurs:

These are the people who gave us everything -- from Wal-Mart to iPhones, from microprocessors to Twitter -- that is still strong in our economy. Without entrepreneurs, we will never get out of our current predicament....

Only entrepreneurs have the flexibility, the freedom and the risk-everything ambition to find the path back to prosperity in a rapidly changing, technology-driven global economy.

Access to capital is a problem for new-business creators in these tight times. Hayes and Malone offer a list of government actions that could help, including the repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley, the elimination of the payroll tax (which deters sole proprietors from hiring employees), and changes to the tax system to allow small investors put their money to work with creative new business ideas.