Obama’s Head Fake to the Center

By Neil Rosekrans

Poor messaging is always to blame when the public revolts against the Democrat agenda.  It was last summer that Sen. John Kerry explained: “We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what’s happening.”

In other words, the masses are just too simple-minded to know what’s best for them.  That’s the patronizing line of thought that is pervasive across the Democratic Party. 

Don’t expect the Obama administration to moderate its agenda as Clinton did after his party lost the House in 1994.  Signaling openness to Republican ideas during the State of the Union address was nothing more than a head fake to the ideological center.

Making serious budget cuts?  Unlikely.  President Obama hasn’t shown any interest in any of the proposals outlined by his own deficit reduction commission.  Instead, he calls for a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending.  The savings, a whopping $40 billion per year, are grossly inadequate considering the $3 trillion in new debt that has been piled on over the past two years.

(After all, spending isn’t the problem.  It’s the public misunderstanding that is the problem.  Instead of new spending, we heard “investment.”  It’s the packaging, not the contents.)

Getting rid of the individual mandate?  Don’t count on it.  ObamaCare would unravel if healthy people aren’t forced to buy insurance.

Cap and trade?  That was so 2008.  Efforts to expand energy regulation under the ‘market-friendly’ guise of cap and trade fell apart after the public made clear it didn’t want higher energy bills.

Therefore, cap and trade will be sold to the public under a different name: ‘Renewable Energy Standards.’  There’s really no difference between the two, except the messaging.  The administration is gambling that the public will respond more favorably to ‘standards’ than it did to ‘caps’. 

The ultimate goal is the same: Replace efficient fossil fuel-based energy with inefficient renewable energy – no matter the cost.

Cap and trade would have forced the market to slowly eliminate coal and natural gas power plants.  A national Renewable Energy Standard is much simpler.  It is nothing but a regulatory diktat.  It simply requires your local utility to procure a percentage of its electricity from renewable sources.  In his State of the Union, Obama says he wants 80 percent of our energy to come from carbon-free sources by 2035.

If these energy sources were price competitive, we wouldn’t need laws to force them upon us.  But as Sen. Kerry pointed out, we are an electorate that is too distracted by bumper sticker slogans and we don’t understand what’s in our best interest.

Let’s not get too optimistic about any real shift to the middle.  During these times, we should heed the wisdom of President Bush…