Presidential Pep Rally

While flipping through the channels just now I was lucky enough to stumble upon Mr. Obama’s 87,467^th “town hall meeting.” Give or take. The term “town hall meeting” conjures up images of grumpy old dudes with pitch forks or powdered wigs fiercely debating the pressing policy issues of the day, or maybe that’s just me.

Although due to the times in which we live, one can certainly understand the lack of pitch forks and powdered wigs at this latest display of Big O’s M.C. abilities. However, the heated debate was also certainly missing. Now this is, of course, not just the fault of the President. Anthropologists tell me that honest, in-depth political discourse died out a long time ago.

It does however beg the question, why are these propagandistic-fun-fests termed “town hall meetings”? The format goes roughly like this: The President says something, usually void of any real meaning, and people cheer. The President mentions someone’s name, usually a party member, and people cheer.

During the opening applause while the fan-crazed, starry-eyed audience shrieked with joy, our Nobel Peace Prize winning, War Monger-in-Chief introduced various politicians of the democratic ilk in the crowd to riotous applause. No doubt feeling the love, Obama told the crowd to “pump it up!”

I couldn’t help but feel that I had been transported back in time to a high school pep rally before a big Friday night football game. Much to my disappointment however there were no pretty cheerleaders to be found, only the much more frightening, screaming partisans.

Once the furor died down I was relieved to hear the president say that Sen. Reid and he “didn’t run to kick our problems down the road.” This reassuring statement was naturally met by an enthusiastic standing ovation. I feel certain that Mr. Obama was implying that by the time he leaves office our national debt will back to the same deplorable state in which he found it on inauguration day.

He then reassured the crowd that we taxpayers were well on the way to getting back all of our money that his colleagues on the Hill loaned to the banks. Obama confided in us that recovering our loot was no easy task, as many members of congress had a lot of friends on Wall Street. That is as opposed to himself who received $994,795 in campaign contributions from none other than Goldman Sachs, making the Wall Street giant his second largest contributor. Citi Group, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, and Morgan Stanley also made the top-20 contributor list giving his campaign between $500,000-700,000 each.

But I’m sure those firms failed to secure a friendship from our noble leader, and surely they’ve not received any preferential treatment.

Then speaking of the stimulus package, Obama shared some credit with Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, “We’re no longer staring into an economic abyss, because of what Harry Reid helped to do.”

That’s comforting, but many prominent economists, like Peter Schiff, who actually saw the crisis coming do not agree.

Obama then promised that more measures would be put in place to expand the American dream of home ownership. Curiously enough he used that to segue into laying blame all over the place for the housing and financial crises. The finger pointed everywhere except at such government initiatives to expand home ownership, and reckless Federal Reserve policies that most economists agree played a major role in the crises.

Finally the President issued some platitudes about controlling and reigning in the deficit while domestic and foreign expenditures continue to soar. Shockingly enough, he failed to mention how this magic trick would be pulled off.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Q & A session!

For this the captain of the football team had to take off his jacket. I swear I saw a young girl faint amongst the screams of excitement. I hope she’s okay.

The first question was from a lady who runs a private, free health care in Nevada. She asked if the president’s proposed plan would help clinics like hers, or only community clinics as she understood to be the case.

After thanking her for her work, Mr. Obama reminded us how courageous he was by tackling this divisive issue. “I was warned not to take on health care,” he said. The President then danced beautifully around the lady’s question while hitting his favorite talking points on the topic, yet never approaching a response.

He went on to explain that his proposed plan would miraculously make insurance more affordable while eliminating life-time caps on benefits, and not allowing coverage denial based on preexisting conditions. That sounds great. However, such new regulations would undoubtedly raise the operating costs of any insurance company. Regardless of how one feels about such a move, it’s hard to imagine how that could possibly make care more affordable.

Turning back to the economy, the President lamented that while businesses were making profits and growing they were not hiring new employees, indeed they were still laying them off.

If a business is growing and increasing profits while downsizing it is becoming more productive. Its profits reflect this productivity, and this is exactly what our economy needs. Real productivity that will lead to real capital accumulation, that in turn can be used for real economic growth.

It is through this sort of mechanism that businesses will be able to employ people in truly productive capacities, rather than wealth destroying government make-work jobs.

Obama rounded out his appearance by saying something along the lines of, the best way to unleash capitalism and free markets is through sensible regulation. I was left scratching my head.

Then he explained that the reason so many people bought hummers before gas prices shot up in ’08 was because that’s the type of vehicle that American auto companies were making. And here I thought people bought such vehicles because they wanted them. Silly me.

Its statements like these that illustrate how little members of this administration comprehend basic economics.

For the next pep rally I think I’ll leave my computer off, put on my star-spangled skirt, and buy some pom poms to keep my spirit fingers company.