"A Response to the Obama Administration"

A Libertarian Response to the Obama Administration

J. David Fernández & the Columbia University Libertarians

“If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we'd see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.”

That was Senator Barack Obama addressing the U.S. Senate in 2006. If only he could apply that advice to his existing actions as head honcho in Washington D.C. The fiscal irresponsibility with which Obama and the federal government are currently operating is beyond belief. Our present national debt is a staggering fiscal nightmare, over $11 trillion. That means every American including every school child, owes approximately $37,000 of U.S. debt. We are running a bigger-than-gigantic-government budget at the same time as a large tax break, continuing the same behavior Bush was vilified for. An increase in spending and reduction of taxes? It’s possible when the government borrows money from China and walks over to the elephant in the room, the Federal Reserve. The former is coming to an end and the latter is at the root cause of our economic calamity today.

Obama appears to be neither pragmatic nor ideological, but an adept player in the traditional political game. There aren’t substantial differences between elected Republicans and Democrats; besides a few singular exceptions, both agree on higher levels of government spending and foreign action abroad. Both reserve the right to seize assets and power away from citizens, and use it as they—not the people—see fit. Both break their own promises, and violate principles they claim to hold for the sake of winning elections and staying in office. When bailout programs like TARP, miserably fail at their intended purpose, instead of getting abolished, it receives more funding. With political parties like ours, unabashed “liberalism” has been around way before 2009.

And where are tax dollars flowing to? They’ve become life support to bankrupt corporations, insolvent automobile companies, the pockets of crony CEO’s and a volley of make-work programs to come. The Obama campaign ran on a platform that prided the now popular monikers of “yes we can,” “change” and “hope.” However, the first few months of Obama’s administration have already proven to be alike to the previous one. Spending hasn’t decreased from the reckless levels of the Bush administration; it has gone up, astronomically! Our military interventionism hasn’t decreased; and by all signs it will continue to shoot upwards with a perpetual foreign policy overseas, with over 20,000 U.S. Marines shipped out to Afghanistan in the next six months and military spending is projected to increase by next year. It’s nice to see the anti-war vote was well cast. Additionally, there is no dialogue over fiscal or monetary policy issues like the Federal Reserve and significant plans to reduce overall spending.

An economist once wrote to me saying, “Like Rodney Dangerfield, libertarians get no respect.” He’s right. That’s due to the fact that libertarianism is an ethical philosophy that believes in liberty across the board with the smallest degree of government necessary. Hence, libertarianism is neither right nor left wing, and so there isn’t much of a distinction between Obama and Bush. We should call Obama, Bush and other Republicrats and “liberals” by their actual name: Socialists.