by Kevin McCullough
Never has an administration who had more firepower at their disposal, been set to so totally fail in the next six to eight weeks. It is nearly a foregone conclusion. It is nearly unavoidable. And it defies all logic given the sizable majority the administration has in both houses of Congress.
Since I was the first pundit to predict Obama's presidency (Dec 2006) it behooves me to tell you the course I believe the next few weeks will take and effectively halt the radical transformation that the left appeared unstoppable with only months ago.
1. Health Care's long and painful death.
Barring the existing possibility that the Democrats cram a reform bill down the throats of actively protesting Americans through an ultra-partisan process that would shut out conservatives and Republicans from even being allowed to contribute to the discussion, health care reform is dead. It actually died a good while back when the President decided to pivot and create a new issue that no one had been discussing--health insurance reform. The American people will want to know why we should spend $4 billion to cover everyone in America "efficiently," when we already do so with inefficiencies like people using the emergency room as their general practitioner for $2.5 billion. Deep thinkers on the issue want to know why the President hasn't entertained one item of tort reform--protecting his friends, the trial lawyers--yet is willing to claim that doctors are eager to lop off feet, tonsils, and foreskin just to make a buck.
2. Cap & Trade will be the largest tax increase in American history.
With the 2010 election cycle just around the corner, campaign ads are not far off from being drafted. With Cap & Trade still sitting in legislative limbo, with the President's own advisor--Warren Buffet--now opposing it openly on media, with the 9.12 project in the works in which the largest gathering of anti-tax Americans from the left, right, and middle will be coming to Washington DC on September 12, and with blue dogs getting absolutely hammered in their home districts supporting it, the chance of single-party ram through victory on the matter is not wise. Cap & Trade, if passed, will contribute to unemployment, Wall Street stop and starts, and ultimately reduced treasury revenues. It would serve as the single largest tax increase on the average American in all of American history. Even President Obama admitted as much, predicting that electric bill prices, in his words, would, "skyrocket." Those that have looked at the specifics tell us that the average utility bill in America will go from $167 to $307 per month, per family.
Read Why the 'O'-ministration will implode in weeks »»
by C. Edmund Wright.
Scott Rasmussen's Daily Presidential Tracking Poll gets a lot of national attention -- as it should -- with the index balancing the strongly approve numbers versus the strongly disapprove numbers. Taken with the three day rolling average concept, an argument could be made that Rasmussen's poll and his index is the best snap shot of informed and engaged Americans at any given time.
The unspoken number however could the "Give-a-Damn index." To me, that is the total of folks who have a strong opinion one way or the other. Today that number would be an astounding 74%. See excerpts from Rasmussen today:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove. That's the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President and it gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10.
The "Give a Damn" Index is up some 10% from several weeks ago, as more people start to tie Obama to his policies -- which have never been popular -- and the reactionary liberal base starts to support their man due to attacks on him from the right. If you see the chart below, you can see clearly that both positives and negatives are rising and have been for a couple months.
The Democrat Congress is not holding up well either. From Rasmussen:
If Americans could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress,57% would throw out all the legislators and start over again. Just 25% would vote to keep the Congress. Just 25% would vote to keep the Congress.
And in the softer measure of Presidential approval ratings, Rasmussen has this to say:
Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That matches the lowest total approval yet measured for Obama. Fifty-two percent (52%) now disapprove.
Translation: most of the folks who disapprove do so STRONGLY. Approximately 81%. Of those who approved, only some 61% feel strongly about it. This could be part B of the Give a Damn Index. A negative 20.
Read all of The Give-a-Damn Index reaches a new high (updated) here »»
