Fewer than half the registered voters surveyed now believe Obama is “honest and trustworthy,” according to the poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. That figure had stood at 58 percent the last time the question was asked in September 2011. Now it is at 49 percent.
And it is the scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service that is hitting Obama hardest, the survey found. The voters, who were surveyed between Wednesday last week and Tuesday of this week, believe that controversy is more worrying than those surrounding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya or the seizure of phone records from journalists.
Here’s what I don’t understand.
Why do people rightly consider a politician untrustworthy for things like the IRS scandal, while they consider him trustworthy for things like bailouts, tax hikes, and massive seizures of wealth and private property?
Politicians, especially ones like Obama, do untrustworthy, unprincipled and uncivil things all the time. They sacrifice one group for the sake of another group. They calculate whatever they can do to win the approval of 60, 55 or 51 percent of the population, even if it comes at the expense and the individuals of the rest.
Put that way, most people would say, “That’s not very trustworthy either. That’s really no better than the IRS scandal.”
The IRS scandal is a monstrous injustice. If Obama knew about the IRS efforts to throttle people with politically incorrect views, and he’s lying about it, it’s outrageous. But it’s equally outrageous that he would not know it was going on. An injustice of this magnitude shows that the government is out of control, going way beyond its Constitutional or even moral limits.
The fact that Obama didn’t know about it–as he and his apologists claim–merely strengthens the point that government should not be doing most of what it does in the first place. Should we abolish the IRS? Absolutely. First, taxes must be simplified and reduced so massively that there would be no need for an IRS. That’s the crux of the issue. Unfortunately, the same (slim) majority of people who no longer think Obama is very trustworthy are the same ones who would riot in the streets if any government programs were trimmed.
‘Do you trust someone more or less if he’s the type of person to tell you the truth—even if you don’t always like the truth, or necessarily always agree?’ If asked this question, most people—even most Obama supporters—would probably say they have more trust in someone who speaks the truth. In any of their personal or business dealings, the vast majority would prefer to deal with honest and straightforward people rather than ones who tell you what you want to hear, even as the negative consequences of evading reality mount.
The behavior of our government is no different than that of an alcoholic or crack addict. The only difference is the veneer and pretense of respectability. The 58 percent who thought Obama was trustworthy before the IRS scandals, and the 49 percent who still think so now, are guilty of sheer self-deception.
The government ‘spends’ multiple trillions of dollars that we do not have, and that future generations (even assuming a growing economy) will never have. That spending is preordained, by the nature of our entitlement programs, to grow exponentially by the year. Obamacare and other programs yet to come will expand the entitlements. Even cuts in the increase in the rate of spending would not control it, and those cuts will never come from either party, because neither party wants to be responsible for the cuts.
It shouldn’t take an economist to grasp that ever-mounting debt with no possible end in sight cannot sustain itself. Whether the consequences result, ultimately, in hyper-inflation (as in Germany prior to Hitler’s rise to power); or a collapse in the currency; or intimidation by our creditors, dictatorships such as China; or a collapse into anarchy or secession of some states. No matter what the consequences, they will come and it will not be pretty, any more than for an alcoholic or crack addict.
Politicians are elected to do the very thing we later condemn them for when they take our requests to their only logical conclusions.
Is it wrong that Obama presided over an IRS who turned the United States into the equivalent of a third-world dictatorship? Of course. But isn’t it just as wrong when a majority of us tell Obama, through electing him twice, ‘You go right ahead and spread that wealth around. Debt be damned. Do whatever you like to the rights of others, just so I get what I feel I’m due from my fellow citizens.’
Most Americans who support these policies are doing their best to live productive and pretty honorable lives. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re electing the equivalent of pimps or drug dealers to do their bidding. They have no business being surprised when it all blows up in their faces.
The IRS scandal is the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not going to end with Obama’s term in office. The only way to end these scandals is to eradicate the bigger scandal of government’s wholesale redistribution of wealth, private property and—worst of all—individual rights. Only the people can change this.
Fewer than half the registered voters surveyed now believe Obama is “honest and trustworthy,” according to the poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. That figure had stood at 58 percent the last time the question was asked in September 2011. Now it is at 49 percent.
And it is the scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service that is hitting Obama hardest, the survey found. The voters, who were surveyed between Wednesday last week and Tuesday of this week, believe that controversy is more worrying than those surrounding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya or the seizure of phone records from journalists.
Here’s what I don’t understand.
Why do people rightly consider a politician untrustworthy for things like the IRS scandal, while they consider him trustworthy for things like bailouts, tax hikes, and massive seizures of wealth and private property?
Politicians, especially ones like Obama, do untrustworthy, unprincipled and uncivil things all the time. They sacrifice one group for the sake of another group. They calculate whatever they can do to win the approval of 60, 55 or 51 percent of the population, even if it comes at the expense and the individual rights of the rest.
Put that way, most people would say, “That’s not very trustworthy either. That’s really no better than the IRS scandal.”
The IRS scandal is a monstrous injustice. If Obama knew about the IRS efforts to throttle people with politically incorrect views, and he’s lying about it, it’s outrageous. But it’s equally outrageous that he would not know it was going on. An injustice of this magnitude shows that the government is out of control, going way beyond its Constitutional or even moral limits.
The fact that Obama didn’t know about it–as he and his apologists claim–merely strengthens the point that government should not be doing most of what it does in the first place. Should we abolish the IRS? Absolutely. First, taxes must be simplified and reduced so massively that there would be no need for an IRS. That’s the crux of the issue. Unfortunately, the same (slim) majority of people who no longer think Obama is very trustworthy are the same ones who would riot in the streets if any government programs were trimmed.
‘Do you trust someone more or less if he’s the type of person to tell you the truth—even if you don’t always like the truth, or necessarily always agree?’ If asked this question, most people—even most Obama supporters—would probably say they have more trust in someone who speaks the truth. In any of their personal or business dealings, the vast majority would prefer to deal with honest and straightforward people rather than ones who tell you what you want to hear, even as the negative consequences of evading reality mount.
The behavior of our government is no different than that of an alcoholic or crack addict. The only difference is the veneer and pretense of respectability. The 58 percent who thought Obama was trustworthy before the IRS scandals, and the 49 percent who still think so now, are guilty of sheer self-deception.The government ‘spends’ multiple trillions of dollars that we do not have, and that future generations (even assuming a growing economy) will never have. That spending is preordained, by the nature of our entitlement programs, to grow exponentially by the year. Obamacare and other programs yet to come will expand the entitlements. Even cuts in the increase in the rate of spending would not control it, and those cuts will never come from either party, because neither party wants to be responsible for the cuts.
It shouldn’t take an economist to grasp that ever-mounting debt with no possible end in sight cannot sustain itself. Whether the consequences result, ultimately, in hyper-inflation (as in Germany prior to Hitler’s rise to power); or a collapse in the currency; or intimidation by our creditors, i.e. dictatorships such as China; or a collapse into anarchy or even secession of some states from the union, once benefits can no longer be paid. No matter what the consequences, they will come and it will not be pretty, any more than for an alcoholic or crack addict. Politicians are elected to do the very thing we later condemn them for when they take our requests to their only logical conclusions.
Is it wrong that Obama presided over an IRS who turned the United States into the equivalent of a third-world dictatorship? Of course. But isn’t it just as wrong when a majority of us tell Obama, through electing him twice, ‘You go right ahead and spread that wealth around. Debt be damned. Do whatever you like to the rights of others, just so I get what I feel I’m due from my fellow citizens.’
Most Americans who support these policies are doing their best to live productive and pretty honorable lives. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re electing the equivalent of pimps or drug dealers to do their bidding. They have no business being surprised when it all blows up in their faces.
The IRS scandal is the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not going to end with Obama’s term in office. The only way to end these scandals is to eradicate the bigger scandal of government’s wholesale redistribution of wealth, private property and—worst of all—individual rights. Only the people can change this.
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