PrintFebruary 25, 2009
'Wrong Way' Obama
Last night, with his faux State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama lifted off on a flight of dramatic rhetoric that will attempt to take America in exactly the wrong direction. His speech was reminiscent of an experimental flight made by Douglas Corrigan on the foggy night of July 18th, 1938.
Douglas Corrigan became a legendary aviator, not because of his accomplishments as a pilot but rather because of a supposed navigational error. In 1938, Corrigan "mistakenly" flew from New York to Ireland -- when he was supposed to be flying from New York to California -- because he seemingly misread his compass.[i]
Like wise, President Obama is misreading his compass and charts as he stakes his Presidency and Americas future on three fundamentally flawed economic concepts: (1) a government run “green energy - cap and trade” system, (2) a government run “single payer” universal healthcare and (3) a government run National Bank will, when all three are up and running, pull us out of our government induced economic malaise.
These three initiatives are doomed to failure from the start because of two words “government run.” If “government run” anything actually worked Havana would be the economic Mecca of the world -- not New York City.
This is the economic fog that Obama is flying in.
On July 17, 1938, Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York. His official flight plan called for him to fly to California. He took off in thick fog and headed east because airport officials had told him to lift off in any direction except west since there were some buildings at the western edge of the field. They fully believed Corrigan would turn his plane around and head west toward California once he cleared the airport's airspace. To everyone's surprise, he kept flying eastward. Corrigan insisted that his visibility was so poor that he could only fly by using his compass and claimed his compass indicated he was heading west.
Approximately 26 hours into his flight, Corrigan claimed to have finally dropped down out of the clouds and noticed that he was over a large body of water. Knowing that it was too early to have reached the Pacific Ocean, Corrigan looked down at his compass--and because there was now supposedly more light to see by, Corrigan suddenly noticed he "had been following the wrong end of the magnetic needle." Within a short time, Corrigan was over Ireland. He landed at Baldonnel Airport, in Dublin, after a 28-hour, 13-minute flight.[i]
President Obama is “following the wrong end of needle” and he is willfully accepting economic failure in favor of political power on the FDR model. He is ignoring the common problem of all three of his proposed initiatives: a lack of competition. His only hope for success is to make George W. Bush into today’s Herbert Hoover.
I believe Douglas Corrigan knew he was flying the “Wrong Way” but did so to accomplish his goal of a nonstop flight to Ireland.
Last night, in one paragraph President Obama revealed the faulty premise of his charted path towards recovery:
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America - as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited - a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited - a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Simply replace the word “inherit” with the word “created” to see the blindness of his premise:
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've created - a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
The truth is that government spending on social engineering programs for the last seventy-five years has created this deficit.
JFK and Ronald Reagan charted the correct paths for previous successful flights from worse economic calamities. Both Presidents recognized that the government was the problem. The successful solution was to get “government” out of the way and give American enterprise the incentive to risk capital and attempt innovation by reducing the tax and regulatory burden government placed on productivity.
Increasing the availability of credit without increasing productivity is the fool’s errand that politicians have foisted on us for far too long.
Big Oil works because it is highly efficient. That is why we are addicted to it. Green Power is not highly efficient, which is why politicians are addicted to it.
“Single Payer” health care does not work because it removes competition and accountability from the marketplace. Demand increases and quality decreases because the end user perceives their care as free and as a right.
A Nationalized Bank can not work efficiently because its calculations will be always politically based. Where are they going to get their depositors from? Most right thinking Americans are not going to place any more of their money under government control than they absolutely have to. After all if we have National Banks why would the government need the IRS?
For Americans, who were caught in the midst of the Great Depression, Corrigan's antic provided a great deal of humor and uplift and he became a national folk hero. To this day, Corrigan's nickname, "'Wrong Way' Corrigan," remains a stock colloquial phrase in popular culture.[i]
If President Obama continues on his Wrong Way flight his political epitaph may well read:
For Americans, who were caught on the brink of another Great Depression, Obama's antics did not provide a great deal of humor and uplift. He became a national joke.
"'Wrong Way' Obama," may become the new stock colloquial phrase in popular culture.
[i] from an essay by David H. Onkst
