Obama clearly needs a 12-step plan for his political recovery - and let's not forget, America's survival.

All he has to do is 1) acknowledge that he has a problem, and 2) follow the plan by acting upon or supporting each of its items.

Yes, he would be turning his back on his drugs of choice: his leftist, Statist base, the Press, and Progressivism itself; but he could clean up nicely and transform himself from the "worst President ever" to "the best", with a quick and dirty policy shift:

1 Lift Offshore Oil Drilling Ban

2 Unleash Natural Gas Drilling

3 Lower Capital Gains Tax Rate

4 Support a Balanced Budget Amendment

5 Lower Business Tax Rate (first time)

6 Cut Federal Spending to 2008 levels

7 Cap Federal Spending

8 Close Corporate International Tax Loopholes

9 Lower Business Tax Rate (second time)

10 Observe reduction in unemployment, return of manufacturing

11 Observe ensuing prosperity

12 Take credit for saving America

Unfortunately, he refuses to acknowledge the bitter, obvious truth that Socialism has failed, and that it could take most of the Western world down with it.

He also cannot see the opportunity of guaranteeing a place for himself in the temple of American heroes, if he only took the advice of the unsettling events taking place around us.  Surely, he loves to be worshipped?

What's it going to be Mr. President: Ideology, or your legacy?

Perhaps his friends should hold an intervention, before the American voters intervene next November - if we make it that far.

It is a sad day for the United States when Italy, one of the European Union’s weaker economies, is determined to pass an economic recovery act that is essentially the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill that House Republicans passed during the recent debt limit crisis; the very same bill that Harry Reid and Barack Obama insisted they would strike down, the moment it got to them.

Italy’s proposal includes a constitutional amendment to balance their national budget, welfare reforms, and public sector cost reductions: all among the concepts that Liberals, in Washington, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, have railed as “extreme”, “irresponsible”, and “uncompromising”, despite their own recent spending outbursts.

It appears that we may not have yet hit financial rock bottom; otherwise, Liberal politicians would have put their insulting demagoguery aside and supported Conservative-led measures that Italy is now taking seriously for their own survival.

It is an embarrassment that Moody’s felt it necessary to downgrade our national credit rating yesterday, particularly since it could have been avoided if Liberals managed to come to their senses on their own.

Since it is not likely that we will pass any such common sense measures with Barack Obama in the White House and Harry Reid as Senate President, we can only hope that we can repair the damage after the American people vote them out next November, and before we fall into irrecoverable collapse.

If the word “quagmire” comes to mind when you watch the ugly debt limit process, it is not a coincidence.  A quagmire is “a situation from which extrication is very difficult”.

The fight over raising the US debt ceiling is not a new phenomenon.  Some people say, “Reagan lifted it 18 times, Bush Jr. lifted it 11 times, and Clinton lifted it, so what’s the problem!?”  Yeah, we get that, but this crisis is like no other in history.  Other Presidents have lifted it many times, but none had to do it in an era when the current and prior President and their Congressional counterparts spiked Federal spending, collectively acquiring more debt than all Presidents combined, raising our total debt-to-GDP ratio above 95%.  In addition, they were not living in the fallout of the bursting of a massive, destructive global housing credit bubble.

Since the beginning of our nation’s history, and with few exceptions, our debt has been accumulating steadily with increased Federal spending.  Dramatic spikes in debt typically occur during times of war and defense, specifically the Civil War, World War I, World War II, The Cold War, and the war against terror since 2001.

Yet the recent war-driven spike is compounded by the following factors: 45 years of cumulative Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending, auto and financial (TARP) industry bailouts, two conventional stimulus packages, two phases of Federal Reserve quantitative easing (central bank “money printing” stimulus, when conventional stimulus fails), the worst US trade deficit in 50 years (some say more damaging than the budget deficit), the devaluation of the US dollar, dramatic reductions in tax receipts due to high unemployment, and the threat of a credit rating downgrade.

Enter the “Tea Party”.

Responding to the growing risk, Americans elected groups of new, conservative members to the US House and Senate, and their State legislatures, in the swell of the “Tea Party” enthusiasm of 2010.  With the exception of California and Massachusetts, We The People fired scores of long-time, embedded politicians, replacing them with regular people – Patriots - who promised to fight the wave of economic self destruction.

In spite of this, the Press vilifies these people in the court of public opinion, labeling them “extremists” and “children, holding their economy hostage”, indicting them of driving the world economy “off the edge of a cliff”.  Not unlike the social and political radicals of the 1960’s who demonized American soldiers in the quagmire that was Vietnam, self-justifying their warped ideology, the current Liberal community (including the Press) is doing their best to isolate, ridicule, and demonize the only group in Washington that is acting on principle and common sense.

Americans families are hurting, jobs are scarce, and our economic system has never been as fragile and weak, yet the President and Congressional Democrats insist that tax increases are the solution to the debt crisis THEY escalated.

It is bewildering and confounding to understand the juvenile, partisan vitriol flying in the face of common sense, fiscal responsibility, and economic sanity.  The President and followers of his failed policies are causing the quagmire and stalemate we are experiencing, which could ultimately drive this country off the cliff, right behind the European economies, not the responsible Tea Party Patriots we elected last year.

(photo credit: Chicago Sun-Times)

So, we now have a very high profile case (story here) of a non-Republican being forced into serious cost-cutting mode...with public workers' unions.

Layoffs, spending cuts, and (gasp!) privatization of some public functions.....in none other than Chicagoland.

It shows how drastic things can get when you don't have Conservatives around, proactively controlling spending and cleaning up Democrat messes.

This year, New Hampshire's Republican controlled legislature took small but important steps to avoid a future public spending meltdown, the likes of which are playing out now in Chicago.  They pushed a justified increase in benefits contributions, from absolute bottom-of-the-barrel levels (and need to do more next session), and have started to loosen the union grip on the public workforce - one small step at a time.

Overriding Lynch's Right to Work veto would push us even further towards spending salvation.

To those who say that New Hampshire's reforms are "not fair", "draconian", or (insert hypocritical, statist whine here), take a long, hard look at what one of America's most progressive politicians is forced to do, as a result of the unholy alliance between Democrats and public employee unions.

They're reaping what they sowed long ago, and we will not accept such a fate in New Hampshire. 

Somehow, I think Chicagoland will survive these cuts, but let's see if it starts to resemble downtown Athens in a few weeks.

The audacity of hypocrisy...

Ok Mr. Peabody, let’s set the way-back machine to 2006, when Senator Obama made these statements, during that year’s debt–limit crisis:

(video credit: RedDoogan)

Text: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.  It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills.  It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.  Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally.  Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.'  Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.  America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.  Americans deserve better.”

I could not agree more, Mr. President.

Now, let’s flash-forward to 2009, when then Presidential candidate Obama said:

“First of all, he is [Scott Ferguson] right.  Normally, you do not raise taxes in a recession, which is why we have not and why we have instead cut taxes.  So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right.  You do not raise taxes in a recession.  We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.”

Again, I agree.

What the House leadership needs to do, tonight, is construct a bill that raises the debt limit by the amount necessary ONLY to carry on a Constitutional government and honor the current mandatory spending (unconstitutional as some of it may be).  It must conversely demand spending cuts to offset the increase, prioritizing the spending on 1) debt interest, 2) military paychecks and existing combat operations, 3) Social Security payments(if necessary), then 4) only that which fits into the increase; nothing more.

Make him veto this bill, killing the increase.  Dare him.  Expose his hypocritical pulpit rhetoric to the cleansing light of decisive action.

Mr. Speaker: I’m asking you now, in the name of We The People, to write this bill and cover the items he is using to scare the American people; call his bluff, make him squirm, and effectively end his Presidency, right here, right now.

No more stimulus, no more taxes, no more social engineering.  It is time to do this right, and we told you so last November.

This video really puts the whole issue into simple perspective: