George Costanza for President
Seinfeld shows the way to save the U.S. economy
Remember “Seinfeld”? It was one of the most successful TV series in the history of American television. The show revolved around Jerry Seinfeld and his buddy George Costanza. George was the ultimate loser. Everything he did was a colossal failure. One day that all changed. George was hired by George Steinbrenner and the world champion New York Yankees. He had hit the lottery – overnight he had an important executive job, big salary and beautiful women.
Seinfeld was in shock. He asked, “George, how did you do it?” “Simple,” George said, “One day I woke up and realized I was the world’s biggest loser. So I decided to do the opposite of everything I’ve ever done – every thought, opinion, decision. Now I just do the opposite. And suddenly, I’m a winner!”
We must follow the same strategy with President Obama. His agenda of big government, big spending, big unions and big debt is driving the American economy to never-before-imagined levels of economic disaster, unemployment, real-estate collapse and small-business failure.
Various liberal, progressive, socialist and Marxist supporters of Mr. Obama ask, “But what would you do differently if you were president?” The answer is simple: It’s the Seinfeld solution. Mr. Obama is a real-life George Costanza. Every decision he makes poisons the U.S. economy and kills jobs. The solution to saving America is whatever Mr. Obama does, do the opposite.
Let’s go down the list:
Mr. Obama spent almost $1 trillion on a failed stimulus and billions more on bailouts of his union buddies at General Motors and Chrysler. Today we have about 2 million fewer jobs than the day Mr. Obama’s stimulus began. We should ban stimulus measures and bailouts. They are nothing more than pork barrel spending to buy votes and reward political class cronies.
Mr. Obama spends his entire working day targeting, demonizing and punishing “the rich.” In a Chicago-style mafia shakedown, he is placing most of the tax burden on small-business owners, who vote overwhelmingly conservative. We should do the opposite. Taxpayers and small-business owners are the heroes of our economy. They create most of the jobs and pay most of the taxes. We should reward and incentivize the taxpayers and job creators with a one-year income tax vacation. The cost would be about the same as Mr. Obama’s failed stimulus fiasco and would turn this economic Armageddon into one of the great economic booms in world history. It would be Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts on steroids.
Mr. Obama has named czars to oversee every aspect of American’s personal and business lives. Instead, we should fire them all and ban the word “czar” forever.
Mr. Obama has dramatically increased the size, scope, power and spending of government, including his Obamacare and financial reform bills. Instead, we should repeal them both and do the opposite: dramatically decrease the size of government and remove regulations that impede job creation.
Mr. Obama wants to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to keep 21 million government employees safely in their jobs. Instead, we should cut overpaid government bureaucrats, cut out entire bloated departments and agencies, freeze all salaries and cut the obscene pensions of government employees that are bankrupting America.
Mr. Obama doesn’t believe in “states’ rights,” ordering the U.S. government to sue the state of Arizona. Instead we should end the lawsuit, secure the borders, enforce immigration law, cut off all entitlements to anyone in the country illegally and respect states’ rights, just as the Constitution demands.
Mr. Obama supports the Federal Reserve and asks the Fed to print ever-more money, devaluing our currency and stealing every American’s savings. Instead, we should audit the Fed and make it transparent and accountable to the people, with an eye toward eliminating it as soon as possible.
Mr. Obama responded to the Gulf oil disaster with an oil-drilling moratorium costing thousands of jobs. The president’s tragic solution makes America more dependent on foreign oil. Instead, we should do the opposite, by encouraging more offshore drilling and reducing regulations so we can produce more domestic energy.
Mr. Obama is adding 18,000 new Internal Revenue Service agents with the implementation of Obamacare. Instead, we should aim to eliminate the IRS and streamline bureaucracy for small business.
Mr. Obama has treated friends such as Israel harshly, while treating evil rulers in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, who support terrorism, with kid gloves, even bowing down to some. Instead, we should treat friends with respect and not give our enemies the time of day. We should also do what should have been done decades ago: Eliminate foreign aid to despots and adversaries of America across the globe.
Mr. Obama is best buddies with career politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank. We should support term limits and throw all the bums out of Washington. It’s time to start over.
Finally, Mr. Obama has continually violated the Constitution, highlighted by his hate for guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. We should respect and follow the Constitution, the greatest document ever created.
Barack Obama is our very own George Costanza, the lovable loser of Seinfeld fame – except that Mr. Obama is a Marxist and he’s not lovable. He is leading America toward tragedy, insolvency and bankruptcy. The answer to saving America is clear: Do the opposite of everything Mr. Obama does.
Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee and is chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold, Gambling & Tax Cuts” (Wiley, 2009). He writes at RootforAmerica.com
The president has raised more money from Wall Street through the Democratic National Committee and his campaign account than any politician in American history. This year alone, he has raked in more cash from bank employees, hedge fund managers and financial services companies than all Republican candidates combined.
Says Joe Scarborough
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67770.html
At least we have those nice conservative Occupy Wall Street kids protesting against these pro-Obama Wall Street Marxists, right Wayne?
Goldman Sachs is probably just a front organization for ACORN!
Hi Wayne and Bill –
Bill – those aren’t regular lifeguards like those who sit on a big chair in front of a pool. Those kind of lifeguards out in CA probably make $12 – $16 an hour (which is still pretty good for a lifeguard!)
Wayne – I don’t know any firefighters who have easy hours and get a salary – the ones I know are on call 24/7/365 and are paid an hourly wage for hours worked. As far as pensions and benefits, go, it wouldn’t be as big an issue (although I agree it would still be an issue) if government had properly managed and funded the various pension funds. Government has looted many employee pension funds, just as some private business owners have done. Different private sector employees have different benefits and schedules. Many have defined benefit plans, although the trend is away from that.
I’d also say that CA is a particularly easy area to find abuses. Public employee unions are very powerful, and the voters of CA have for years been voting themselves more and more in services without voting to tax themselves to pay for them. Out here in VA firefighters can be a part of a union, but the union does not negotiate salary or benefits.
We may just have to agree to disagree, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Best…
Just searched life guard salary this was in the top three stories. $100,000.00 to $200,000.00 they do exsist.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-05-21-california-lifeguard-high-pay_n.htm
Wolfe…I understand your feelings about heroes- police, fire, rescue personnel. They are heroes. I love them too.
But in he end…it’s still unaffordable. The reward for govt jobs is great hours, easy schedule, lots of sick time and vacation, LIFETIME job security, and ofcourse a pension.
I have none of those in the private sector.
We cannot give them $130K or $200K salaries…because after only 20 years they retire…and get 80% or sometimes 100% for LIFE. So if they live to 90…they’ll get $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 or more from taxpayers. That is insanity.
The answer is pay them a fair salary…but let them pay for their own retirement just like the rest of us. That is easily accomplished by switching to defined contribution vs. defined benefit.
Hi Wayne –
I didn’t realize it was a republication of an old article – congratulations!
As to the $200k lifeguards, your link goes to just another opinion column, not to any kind of original source. The column refers to a number of different jurisdictions, so it’s hard to track down primary material for all of this in a quick blog comment.
I researched this a while back for a friend, and we found that the original post on which this one builds was referring to career firefighters in Newport Beach CA who hold the rank of Captain (as opposed to lifeguards like my friends in high school and college.) These firefighters were, in addition to being Captains in the Fire and Rescue department, actual captains of marine patrol boats doing rescues on the open ocean. They are technically lifeguards in that they rescue people from the water, but obviously they are lifeguards on an entirely different level.
This is specialized and dangerous work, requiring mastery of a number of different skills. The median income in Newport Beach is $137k per the 2005 census. Given the kind of training, experience and courage needed for this work, I personally don’t have a problem with them making something over the median income. Others will disagree.
Thanks for your reply, and best wishes to you as well.
@1 As far as whether the commentary was ever published before…
Yes it was published all over the Internet about a year ago…
And now today it was lead commentary in Washington Times.
My work never dies!
It’s actually getting reborn in different media outlets.
LOL.
Best,
Wayne
$200K lifeguards doesn’t stand up to scrutiny? Really?
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-300428–.html
You’re living in denial if you don’t believe government employees across America are retiring on $100,000 to $200,000 pensions.
It happens every day. And it’s bankrupting America.
Wayne
Hi Bruce – is this really a new column? It seems very, very similar to this one from over a year ago:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2010/08/wayne-root-the-only-answer-to-saving-america-from-the-obama-disaster/
Also, it may be worth checking out that 18,000 IRS agent claim before a third reprint. Like the $200k lifeguards, it doesn’t stand up to a whole lot of scrutiny.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/will_the_irs_need_16000_new_ag.html
Sorry in advance if I am missing something on either of these…