Trickle Up Poverty
Despite Republican cries to the contrary, President Obama and his team have effectively set the agenda for the US economy and the United States for the years, and perhaps decades, ahead.
Because the Republicans have failed to establish a strategy that is clearly understood by the American people, Obama has been able to effectively distract the Republicans and conservatives from their message of the America that we believe in. In effect, Obama has put his opponents on the defensive.
Defensive tactics and defensive reactionary policies seldom win battles and almost never win ideological wars.
Obama and his team have affected so many radical policies and have attacked conservatives and our culture on so many fronts that the counter efforts by those opposing Obama are merely distractions when not guided by a strategy. These distracted and fragmented tactical responses to the Obama’s fundamental changes to our society are not likely to be successful in defeating this President’s destructive policies.
Conservatives need to stay focused on a message and how that message benefits all Americans. Our message must be one of our core values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all within our society and our fiscal responsibility for future generations.
These core values and this fiscal responsibility provide a stable framework for our society to remain strong, vibrant, and exceptional. In those core values comes hope for the children of so many families and immigrants to our nation.
The very policies of this administration are so destructive to our core values as a society and American exceptionalism that rather than providing hope and change for our society, Obama has merely insured that "trickle up poverty" will become the reality of his administration’s policies for the millions of people who voted for him.
Many may have become disillusioned by trickle down economics but I can assure that trickle up poverty is real, alive, and the only logical outcome of this administrations policies.
By focusing on core values, the American dream for all, and fiscal responsibility, citizens weary of poor job creation, higher costs, out of control personal expenses, nonexistent healthcare, higher rental costs for apartments will see the conservative message as the real message of hope.
Once you establish the overall strategic vision of core values and fiscal responsibility, we can attack this President’s irresponsible policies within that umbrella of the strategic vision. Americans will understand the alternatives and what is at stake for them rather than be confused by fragmented negative responses.
Without a clear strategy, our efforts merely appear to be negative. Many pundits of conservatism have labeled the Republican Party as the "party of no" as a result.
Republicans can claim that label "party of no" as unfair but if people do not see your strategic vision and how it affects them, negative responses typically will fall on deaf ears.
Using a strategic vision of core values, the American dream, and fiscal responsibility, it would be relatively easy to depict every one of Obama’s policies as destructive to the future of all Americans but we need to stay on message.
For example, under this administration, monetary policy has been so lenient that it is enabled private equity funds and Obama supporters to buy over 50% of all homes purchased to be turned into rental properties with the easy cash this administration provides to his supporters. The net result is young families, who do not qualify for a mortgage, cannot afford the rental rates on their apartments. Obama’s monetary policies and reckless fiscal spending have caused the greatest inflation for young families in our nation’s history. Young families are struggling.
Education costs continue to escalate wildly. This President, however, has recommended discharging student loan debt rather than reducing the subsidy to universities and college professors who are benefiting from the lax and fiscally irresponsible behavior of passing on unwarranted increases in college costs to students by allowing students to borrow more against their future. For some reason conservatives allow Obama to show this as a student loan problem rather than as fiscally irresponsible behavior of universities and university professors.
It would be very easy to convince students that their student loan debts are caused by this administration’s protecting university professors at the expense of the student.
Finally, this administration’s policies relative to the Affordable Care Act do absolutely nothing other than pass costs of medical insurance to those who are least able to afford it while at the same time have the least need for health insurance at this stage in their life. It is an insurance pool plain and simple. Obama has not provided healthcare for anyone. He has merely passed on the cost of insurance to those least able to afford it. He has done nothing to fix healthcare.
If you really want to win this battle for the survival of the American dream adopt a strategy and do not merely react to this President’s irresponsible behavior relative to the IRS, NSA, VA, skyrocketing deficits, bailouts, affordable care act, and arrogance and contempt of the American people.
Show Americans what you stand for with a clear strategy and go on the offensive by showing America what an alternative future really looks like. America is ready!
Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan and specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations. He can be reached at [email protected] and twitter at @fryan1951.
