(Thomas Mitchell/4TH ST8) Twice in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, which is paired with one from Mitt Romney, Obama uses the phrase “top-down.”
“On Tuesday, you get to choose between two fundamentally different visions of America — one where we return to the top-down policies that crashed our economy four years ago, and one built on a strong, growing middle class,” the president or one of his minions writes. You might call that trickle up.
A couple of graphs later, he again blames Bush for: “Bigger tax cuts for the wealthy we couldn’t afford. … The result of this top-down economics? Falling incomes, record deficits, the slowest job growth in half a century, and an economic crisis we’ve been cleaning up for the past four years.”
Cleaning up or pouring fuel on the fire? The unemployment rate of 7.9 percent is higher than when Obama took office and median income and household assets are down markedly.
The very use of the phrase top-down by this president is the proper definition of irony: “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”
Obama’s policies are the very definition of top-down policies.
ObamaCare is classic command and control dictation from the central committee, setting prices, conditions, rules and eventually rationing.
The bailout of two auto unions, instead of letting existing law and the bankruptcy courts do the job, is over-the-top, unconstitutional top-down dictatorship.
TARP is top-down. Yes, Bush started it, but Obama doubled down.
Killing the Keystone pipeline is top-down.
Blocking oil and gas drilling in the Gulf, even in defiance of a court order, is top-down.
Covering up the nature of the attack on the Benghazi consulate for two months is top-down.
Providing tax breaks and subsidies to “green” energy company cronies is top-down defiance of free market practice.
Spending money to train people for jobs that don’t exist is top-down.
Blocking drilling leases in Nevada because sage grouse habitat might be harmed is top-down.
Doubling the vehicle gasoline mileage standard to 54.5 mpg is top-down.
Adding four times as many burdensome regulations in three years than Bush did in his first three years — Bush was no regulatory piker — is top-down.
Nearly doubling the number of Americans drawing disability payments from Social Security and giving one in six Americans food stamps is top-down.
Increasing the federal debt by 50 percent without actually passing a budget in three and half years is top-down in spades.
Passing vague Dodd-Frank financial reforms that leave banks and financial institutions guessing what the law is is top-down.
Exempting unions from the requirements of ObamaCare is top-down.
Exempting states who bow to special Washington curriculum requirements from No Child Left Behind is top-down.
Increasing the pollution requirements for refineries and then exempting certain East Coast refineries lest they shut down and cause gasoline prices to rise is top-down.
More examples of Obama’s bungling and top-down policies can be found in a lengthy Investor’s Business Daily editorial today.