Mr. Obama’s campaign and his ultimate election as President were predicated upon an appeal to the sense of idealism and altruism which are important components of what defines the United States.  These American ideals manifested in the United States and its citizens, collectively and individually, as being among the most charitable and forgiving of peoples throughout the course of world history, were able to be expressed because of another American principle – realism.  And, it is precisely this principle of realism that is most absent in the current administration as it wrestles with finding a solution to the current economic meltdown.

The overriding sense of altruism and idealism is present in the Administration’s approach to dealing with both the housing crisis and the automobile industry.  The altruism is made manifest in the housing crisis by trying to be good to all and by appealing to our charitable spirit of wanting to save others.  No one has ever provided an accounting, a real number for amount of homes that were financed with no down payment and/or fraudulent and inflated values.  Spoon fed stories of people who were either too stupid to realize they could not afford to make the payments on the homes they were purchasing, we are told to feel sorry for them.  We are told to feel equally sorry for the mortgage bankers and lenders who perpetuated a massive ponzi scheme via offering high returns on illusory assets.  Rather than follow a more realistic approach of allowing these properties to go into foreclosure and let the market forces deal with the real value of these properties, we are compelling, forcing, this generation of taxpayers and future generations to make a charitable contribution in the form of higher taxes to pay off the massive debt that is being incurred to save people and the banks from their own foolishness.  The current program is an appeal to our sense of altruism, our sense of wanting to save others, of wanting to help others so that they do not suffer the consequences that naturally flow from their own behaviors and actions.  I might feel sorry for those who smoked the crack cocaine of low interest rates and no qualifications to purchase real estate.  However, this does not mean that I have to contribute to their rehabilitation through a forced charitable contribution known as either higher taxes or a devaluation of my earned money through inflation.

In a similar vein, we have a domestic auto industry that is, de facto, bankrupt because of their own fault.  There is more than enough blame for this to go around, from the executives who refused to deal with the realities of the car buying public to the workers and executive at the United Auto Workers.  By what stretch of the imagination did they delude themselves into believing that by the union’s insisting on unrealistic pay scales, benefits and work rules, and the auto executives repeatedly caving into their demands that a day of reckoning would not come.  There are automobile manufacturers in the United States who were able to produce high quality cars desired by the American car buying public, at competitive prices.  These cars were produced by American workers who received good pay and benefits because the manufacturers were not constrained from being flexible in their business operations by outdated and outmoded union contracts.

The realistic approach would be to let the automobile companies who cannot compete to file for bankruptcy. If there is value in the car companies, GM, Chrysler and Ford, then they can emerge from bankruptcy able to compete in the marketplace, or to sell their assets in bankruptcy to entrepreneurs who will assume the risk of using these assets to create new car companies that can compete. This is the American way. We did not offer subsidies to the makers of the carriages and buggy whips when the automobile displaced them.  But, our concern for others, our altruism and idealism is now leading us to providing charitable relief to the automobile companies and the workers who have repeatedly been unrealistic in evaluating their own self worth and the demands they have made through their unions.  We are being told we must save them from themselves.  Another round of charitable giving through higher taxes that is sure to follow the federally funded bailout of these failed businesses.  

A sense of altruism and an appeal to our higher ideals is part of the American way.  But, it has always been a matter of personal choice. We individually choose our charities. Never before in American history have we been forced to give, and that, when all is said and done, is what this current administration is asking of us.  And, if we are to give, then why the burden must be excessively placed on those with higher incomes?  If, our idealistic President’s response is that those who have more should  give more, then  let that be a matter of personal choice and not imposed by the federal government.  To impose charitable gifts through taxation is to follow the beliefs of the pre-eminent idealist of the nineteenth century – Karl Marx – from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.  Mr. Obama’s idealism has met Mr. Marx’s socialism.