Obama's Legacy: Progressive Collapse; Right Resurgent

I am continually astounded at what I see happening in our great country. Barack Obama’s election marked the biggest shift to the left in the United States in my lifetime. This guy was, and is, an avowed progressive. A fluke in economic circumstances rooted in the misdeeds of both political parties allowed a leftist Congress to follow him to Washington.

For two years, these folks bullied into law some of the most radical legislation passed since the early days of FDR…and like FDR, much of it will eventually be found to be unconstitutional. In addition, Obama stacked his advisers and staff with some of the most radical individuals we have ever seen in Washington, bypassing the Congress by making these special executive appointments. He silenced Hillary Clinton, his main adversary in the Democratic Party, by appointing her Secretary of State, and burying here like no other Secretary of State I can remember.

It’s ironic therefore, that Obama’s legacy to this country will be the single biggest jolt to the right in its history, the dismantling of 80 years of growth of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and the gutting of the last vestiges of the American labor movement which is found in the public employee unions.

State by state, a new America is being born with power reverting to the states. The weight of the massive increase in the size of the Federal government is too much for the system to bear, and it is collapsing from the top down. With a weak central leader, the states are reasserting their rightful place in the governance of the country.

While the events in Wisconsin are the most visible of this seismic event in American history, a more serious example is found in Alaska, where the Governor Sean Parnell announced last week that Alaska is simply refusing to implement Obamacare in its state. He announced that his state will not comply with the terms of the legislation. Using the Florida federal court ruling declaring the Health Care Reform Act unconstitutional, and more importantly citing the financial ruin that will be thrust upon his states by the unfunded Medicaid mandates in the law, Governor Parnell just said no. And what is the Federal Government going to do? Send in the troops? March into the governor’s office and throw him out? Take over the operation of the state? I don’t think so.

Obama’s vision of utopia is so cumbersome and so top heavy it is almost physically impossible to implement. His administration is overtly granting “waivers” to his friends and friendly states. Do you think for one minute the rest of the country will sit idly by? They will just say “no” also.

Meanwhile, part of the impetus to the states to dismantle public employee unions is based not only the huge deficits currently on the state books, but also what they are facing under the new mandates from the Washington. Obama’s best friends, the unions, are bearing the brunt of the problem. In Wisconsin, it isn’t union pensions that have caused the deficits. It isn't union employee salaries or benefits that have caused the deficits. It isn’t those no good school teachers that has caused the problems. IT IS MEDICAID, AND THE NEWLY PASSED MEDICAID MANDATES. Translate: Obamacare is the root of the problem of Wisconsin. It is the straw that is breaking the camel's back across the nation.

The law of unintended consequences is raising its head in Alaska and Wisconsin. One state is simply refusing to comply. The other is forcing the cost onto the only place it can, public employees. And as cronyism grows geometrically in Washington, non-compliance with these cumbersome edicts will grow in the country.

If Alaska just says no…what do you think will happen if everyone just says no? Such are the rewards of having a law school professor constitutional scholar President who taught how to get around the Constitution rather than reverence for it.