How Obama Set Us Up for Economic Calamity

COMMENTARY | The DOW fell below 11,000 Monday on the heels of a credit rating downgrade by S&P for the first time since November. The newswire has lit up with stories of Democrats blaming the Republicans and the GOP blaming the administration. A White House adviser has even blamed the Tea Party for America's latest economic woes, reports The Associated Press.

While it's fun to sling mud and place blame, the downgrade of our country's credit rating is a bigger deal than most people realize. The economic climate was worsened by the current administration's attempt at economic stimulus. It has been a long time since our government has been fiscally responsible, and a slap in the face by the S&P may be what it will take to wake us up as a nation.

When Barack Obama was preaching his message of hope in the run up to election, I never heard anyone say "I hope that our debt spirals out of control in the next three years." We gave him an opportunity to prove his effectiveness, and the most audacious thing I have seen from our current president is him asking to put off fixing the debt crisis until after the end of his first term.

Keynesian policy challenged the neo-classical economic paradigm, which stated that an economy that lacked governmental interference would establish full employment equilibrium. Just as a model of strict Laissez Faire economics was a brilliant answer for a rapidly industrializing America in the 19^th century, the policies of John Maynard Keynes were a brilliant answer to the great depression of the 1930s. Obama and his advisers were ignorant in thinking that anything less than a brilliant economic plan tailored to our current market conditions would save our economy. Adopting an economic plan from the 1930s was a ridiculous answer to a very serious question.

As an American, I can honestly say I expected nothing less. The hyper-partisan atmosphere in American politics makes our economic downfall a certainty. I sometimes wonder how people can even have opinions about parts of the economy without at least a basic understanding of all of it, but they continue to do so. One thing is for certain; we are riding Obama's boat over a waterfall here. The debt crisis could have been avoided by smart and responsible fiscal reform that was enacted in the place of Obama's Medicare reform, which by the way will probably be remembered as another failure.

This was a real chance to make some audacious policy decisions that would give Americans hope for years to come. Cutting the federal deficit in half would have made Obama's time in office a time to be proud of. Instead he bled America dry, then looked Congress in the face and asked if he could put off these problems until after his first term in office. I don't know about you, but I feel taken advantage of by a man who promised us hope and delivered misery.