Let It Burn

I profess to be neither an economist nor a political science expert. But after watching the campaign for the presidency for the past four months or so, the cynic in me wonders if the Republican Party and conservatives might not be better off throwing in the towel now and letting President Obama have the second term that he and his supporters so desperately want.

Look at it this way: It seems that Obama's opponent is going to be one of four individuals - either Mitt Romney, Herman Cain (assuming that the media do not succeed in bringing him down over the recent allegations against him), Rick Perry, or Newt Gingrich. With the possible exception of Mr. Cain, none of the candidates is particularly conservative and Romney, Perry, and Gingrich, it could be argued, are all political insiders. Assuming that one of these four men will be facing Obama and assuming that the Republican nominee actually defeats Obama, what is the best that we can hope for? Can we expect the new president and Congress to actually roll back all of the destructive programs and regulations instituted by Obama and the Pelosi- and Reid-led House and Senate? Unless the Republicans win a majority in the Senate, it is not assured. Even if they do, it is likely that we will see a continuation of the status quo since the majority of politicians and the electorate at-large have shown time and again that they are unwilling to undertake the reforms that are necessary to get the nation's debt under control.

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Although I am not an economist, I have been paying a great deal of attention to many who are. Most of these economists believe that, due to the ever-increasing levels of public indebtedness, a complete collapse of the nation's - and possibly, the world's - economy is inevitable. We have already seen the beginnings of this collapse in places such as Greece. This being the case, why would we want to have a Republican occupying the White House when it happens? Liberals and the media being what they are, will only blame the collapse on the Republicans. Since President Obama's inauguration nearly three years ago, Democrats have been moderately successful spinning the news by blaming economy's death spiral on George Bush. Any attempts at reform by those on the right (i.e., Rep. Paul Ryan's plan) have been excoriated and demagogued mercilessly by liberals. Watching the economy over the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that it is analogous to the health of a terminally-ill cancer patient: It holds on and does reasonably well for a period of time. But, as time elapses, the patient's condition deteriorates at an accelerated pace. It is not unlike the trajectory of an object, such as a ball, thrown off a building. It will travel horizontally for a period of time in response to the thrust with which it was thrown. But before long, it travels downward faster than it travels outward and, before long, its motion has no horizontal component whatsoever and the ball soon impacts the ground. The economy, in my opinion, is going to need to bottom out before we can begin to put the train back on the tracks. It is going to be an excruciatingly painful process and we are going to witness civil unrest that makes the Occupy Wall Street protests look like a nursing home coffee klatch. But if the economy is going to crash and burn, why would we want to have a Republican president to take the fall for it? I believe that the economy is going to burn eventually anyway. Why not let Obama and the liberal agenda burn right along with it?