Scare Tactics

As the runaway freight train that is Obamacare careens down the tracks toward its October 1^st rendezvous with destiny, President Obama has finally found a political tactic that he finds reprehensible. He is accusing Republicans of trying to “scare people out of a good deal.”

Imagine that, politicians using scare tactics. Oh, the humanity! I’m not sure what political planet our President has been living on his entire life, but I have a news flash for him, scare tactics are the mother’s milk of politics and both parties would be utterly lost without them. Here’s a question for you, name one political issue over the past 50 years that has not been either passed or defeated without both political parties trying to scare the bejesus out of us? Below are just a few examples:

 

Welfare Reform 1994:  Democrats warned us of tent cities full of homeless people in every city and starving children roaming the streets, our urban centers plunged into Dickensian chaos.

Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction: President Bush, Sec. of State Powell and a cast of thousands assured us that if we didn’t invade Iraq, Saddam would soon be able to attack our cities with WMD’s.

Medicare Reform attempts 2010: Paul Ryan proposed a plan to reform the most actuarially doomed social welfare program in history and for his efforts became the star of Democrat commercials featuring him literally driving Grandma’s wheelchair off a cliff.

Sequestration battle of 2013: In the weeks leading up to sequestration back in March of this year, we were assured by Democrats that a reduction in Federal spending of 1.2% would unleash calamity on a Biblical scale. Planes would fall from the sky for want of air-traffic controllers, tainted meat would be eaten by Americans for lack of food inspectors, and aircraft carriers would float powerless, in the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

 

So, now that his signature legislative achievement is under attack by the opposition party, President Obama suddenly discovers the horrors of fear and manipulation in politics. Well, better late than never, I suppose.