Excellently illustrated in this Rasmussen survey:
…Republicans (79%) and unaffiliated voters (74%) overwhelming favor a plan to cut the federal payroll by 10% over the next 10 years. Democrats are less enthusiastic: 48% of those in President Obama’s party favor the concept, while 39% are opposed…
Obama’s cynical and purely cosmetic “freeze” on federal payrolls is in response to this. After massively running up the number of federal workers and lavishly increasing pay, he now has to take a bow to the fact that the people want a reduction in government.
It is stunning that overwhelming majorities of Republicans and Independents favor such cuts, while Obama’s Democrats can only muster a bare plurality in favor of such a common sense action. Keep in mind that a 10% reduction over 10 years can be done by attrition – no need to immediately fire a large number of employees. A wiser policy would be to immediately reduce personnel by 10% – a first step in controlling government and a small down payment in reducing our deficit. That Obama offers us a mere freeze means is just his way of trying to score some points without having to substantially change course.
We can expect more of this from Obama. Some are convinced that he will now triangulate to position himself for 2012. My view is that he will pretend to do so – just as he pretended to be a centrist in 2008, all the while keeping up the leftward march in actuality. Incompetent and ignorant of a lot of basic facts, Obama appears to retain a conviction of his own excellence. He’s going to thrust ahead unabated, and use tricks to bamboozle people in to thinking he’s something other than he is…and he’ll use these tricks because he’s convinced that our opposition is because we’re stupid, and thus we can be easily tricked in to going along with him.
In the end, I don’t expect this to work – there was an absurd glow about Obama in 2008 and heading in to 2009. Here in late 2010, the shine has worn off…and The One has become rather shopworn. I don’t think he can rekindle the magic, nor fool a populace which has turned decisively away from him. Only a miracle turn around in the economy can save him at this point – and then only barely.
Blogs For Victory 